Fat Celebrities are a Fluke...
Or so says this charming little Op Ed piece by Scottish author William Leith. Using the Magic Numbers incident (see last entry) as a spring board, he goes on about how that pop stars are thin, and the fat ones... well, they're just quirks.On the TV show Pop Idol, when Pete Waterman told Michelle McManus, who was very, very fat, that her weight might hurt her career, a lot of people thought he was being insensitive, even rude. But it looks like he was right.
Now she's losing weight at a fantastic rate. Can you blame her? Mama Cass, Meatloaf - these, surely, are exceptions. And part of you wonders how much more successful they might have been if they'd been skinny.
See, Leith was a fat person (with a book to sell, no less) so he understands the plight of the fat. But is none too sypmathetic. Because the formerly fat are the most vitriolic in their anti-fat sentiment (after all, if they lost weight, then surely their experience must apply to everyone). Cough,cough,Oprah, cough.
Leith wraps up his deep thoughts with this gem:
When you're fat, it's obvious. But it's the last thing you want to talk about. The fat society and the fat individual both know, at the back of their minds, that they want to change their way of life. But they are looking for a change that is superficial, rather than fundamental. They are looking for a quick fix.
Just think of that, the next time you see a fat person and feel a jolt of fat-phobia. The fat person is reminding you that we live in a society that is out of control. No wonder film-makers and magazine editors want to keep fat people hidden away. They make us feel uncomfortable. They are bad for business.
So tell that to the nine fat Emmy nominated actors. And everyone else I feature in this blog. I don't doubt that Mr. Leith believes he speaks the "truth". It's just sad that his truth so easily dismisses not only the talent, but the very humanity of a huge portion of the population.
posted by Kim at
10:12 PM
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