#fatphobia in media

[entropy-sea-system]

While g3 is a lot better about including different body types, I feel like ppl are applauding the bare minimum just bc they made Draculaura's doll have a pear shaped ish body but like. Thats just an average body type?? Sorry but thats not far from the body type of our body and we are not considered fat. The rest of the characters are often simply at least a bit skinnier than whats actually average. I feel like Iris Clops and Tundra Bominable are probably the only humanoid body characters whose bodily types even diverge a bit from the norm?? And I feel like they made Clawdeen in the show (and practically every character ofher than Draculaura) very skinny compared to her live action counterpart.. It feels like media franchises want to be lauded for just having a doll and character with an AVERAGE body type and that being "body diversity" for them. Media in general makes it seem like average is "skinny but not so skinny that your bones show"

[my-wildflowergirl]

Something I honestly hate is when I am looking for books with a plus-size main character, and when I finally find a story that looks like it works, all the art for the "plus size" character is just a skinny woman. Like come fucking on, now.

[salamandersorcerer]

No more jokes/bits about fat characters who’s clothes don’t fit/can’t fit into a space/get stuck going through something. How about a knight who has armor that fits because it was made for them? How about access problems for fat people being treated as a serious issue and not a joke? How about a heist team that plans with their teammates safety in mind and isn’t trying to put them somewhere they don’t fit? How about a little respect?

[blackautmedia]

One of the things I'm hoping to get across in this Boondocks video™ in progress is the way a lot of discussions about adult animation center less around genuinely engaging with the commentary these shows often make and more rationalizing and elevating blatant bigotries as an elaborate progressive satire.

I don't hate the Boondocks. In a lot of ways it's fantastic, but I also find that a lot of more left-leaning adult animated series like Bojack Horseman, Tuca and Bertie, Bob's Burgers and The Boondocks get placed in this deified space where they're placed in binary terms against the likes of the shows agreed upon to be the "bad" ones like South Park, Family Guy, etc.

It's especially valuable to be more critical about these as discussion pieces as they're often very impressionable and influential on younger viewers in their mid to late teens and early 20s.

Because it's not Family Guy, it must be progressive and how dare you ever speak critically of it in any capacity.

So much discourse around queer themes in The Boondocks only center around The Story of Gangstalicious Part 2 without looking at several other relevant episodes and themes throughout the show, which I think gives a very incomplete picture of the nature of the kind of commentary The Boondocks makes.

In particular, I think it does a major disservice to Black trans people and the way that misogynoir also influences the discussions of queerness in The Boondocks.

But it can also be difficult to have this conversation because of the ways that "it's a satire, they're intentionally awful people" is utilized.

Depiction is not endorsement, but just because a work is satirical or your cast are intentionally bad people doesn't mean you're magically free of the narrative implications behind how you frame your cast.

Depiction is one piece of the puzzle, but you can't discuss it without discussing framing.

In some way, shape, or form, these conversations often assert that criticisms of these works are unfounded because the use or inclusion of bigoted characters doesn't make the work itself bigoted, which...isn't the claim being made.

For example, Robert Freeman throughout much of the TV series is depicted as a blatant womanizer and is repeatedly mocked for that attitude. The entire episode Pause AKA the Tyler Perry episode is in part a long joke at his expense for his womanizing behavior and for overestimating his skills as an actor.

This idea isn't wrong, but it is incomplete. While you can certainly make that argument the episode is a joke at a womanizer's expense, it still doesn't grapple with how the narrative delivers his comeuppance within the confines of cisheteronormative ideas about queer and fat bodies.

You can only see Robert as being "punished" if you also agree with the framing that fat women's bodies are disgusting and worthless, thus they are thrust onto him as comeuppance for his sleazy behavior toward "actual" (i.e. conventionally attractive) women.

You can only see Robert as "getting what's coming to him" if you cosign the way that the episode frames and links the element of queerness or being publicly perceived as queer as gross and awful, with Robert even comparing the concept to the gross challenges done in Fear Factor.

Likewise, Pause runs into a lot of issues very quickly in how it depicts Winston Jerome, the Tyler Perry stand-in as a predatory gay man with the desire to be a woman "both inside and out" in his words. A Tyler Perry who deceives Robert with the promise of sexual gratification with beautiful women only to see he's being preying on Robert to trick him into having sex with a gay man.

It's not helped by the title of the episode being "Pause" and the episode also heavily referencing The Rocky Picture Horror Show.

A lot of Pause and several other episodes in the Boondocks lean into very homophobic and transphobic notions of fat and queer bodies and the idea of viewing Black queer people as predatory beasts.

This is also my issue with a lot of discussions about adult animation in how they center around if individual people are "meant" to be seen as bad.

To leave the episode as "Robert is a womanizer we're not meant to agree with" is to leave out the entire discussion of the portrayal and utilization of queerness and misogynoir within the Boondocks.

This also applies to discussions of Riley's homophobic beliefs within the series. Riley espousing homophobic views is not an endorsement of homophobia by the series proper nor the creators. He's designed to be a very specific form of critique about the bigoted attitudes normalized in the hip hop community as well as a commentary on the narratives normalized through Black media.

But leaving the conversation there without making further discussion on how the Boondocks frames those issues within its own storytelling oversimplifies the conversation and invalidates the very real grievances Black queer people have felt toward portrayals and narratives like this.

The video will discuss this in more depth than my light summary here since this is a preview of sorts and go into the historical precedent for these ideas, so this is just a taste of what's to come.

I'm almost through the research phase with only a few more books to read through and watching a few other series and films that the Boondocks is heavily inspired by, so I'm looking forward to rewatching the Cowboy Bebop movie this weekend!

[eddiessidegirl]

"people don't find plus size women aesthetically pleasing so they forget about us"

dude, plus size women are hot

I didn’t say we weren’t 😉

What I meant is:

That for ✨aesthetic✨ reasons when you look up plus size women images, a lot of the content present is that of diet culture imagery or hyper sexualized images. None of us being framed in the same sweet, innocent, carefree way that thinner women are especially on Pinterest unless you dig to the very bottom. And even then it’s sparing.

Like my thick character fic I made recently, I was hard pressed to find an aesthetically pleasing image of a female body in the 80s, even if it was cosplay.

A lot of people forget that plus size women and fat people in general existed in the 1980s but we don’t see it in media and if we do, they’re slobs, the butt of a every joke (Hopper when he makes fun of himself or when Mike does it), lazy or the innocent best friend that is killed off in a couple episodes (I’m looking at you Duffer Bros). And sometimes if the casting department is lazy, they’ll put a thin person in a fat suit to play a fat character because god forbid they cast an actual fat person to play a fat person.

[goonflower]

broke: janis is the real mean girl

woke: they are all mean girls

bespoke: whilst they are all mean girls, none of them were born mean, their meanness comes from dealing with sexism, both internalized and externalized, along with dealing with/perpetuating other tenets of discrimination like fatphobia and homophobia. mean girls (whilst not perfectly intersectional/perpetuating it's own discriminatory biases at times) is at its core a cautionary tale of the damage of societal expectations.

[thisisthinprivilege]

Thin privilege is representation

Thin privilege is turning on the TV, selecting any movie or series through a streaming app, or opening a magazine and seeing at least one person with your general body type being portrayed for their human qualities and not their physical characteristics.

Thin privilege is getting to be a human with interests and a story. Thin privilege is starring in an adventure or romance or thriller as a human being with a name, interests and a backstory that do not revolve around or at least refer in some way to body size.

Thin privilege is the default, the gray icon, the naked Barbie, the first character setting on any game, the crosswalk stickman, the bathroom stall sign, the sample size, the fitness app default.

Thin privilege is representation.

[fatphobiabusters]

There are too many fatphobic stereotypes to name, and of course all of them are bad, overdone tropes, but:

-Mod Worthy

[hometownrockstar]

dungeon meshi impresses me because its a series all about eating and yet it doesnt seem to have any explicit fatphobia in it, not even jokes (ive only seen anime and from what i see online btw) even the little lore building mini page about how you lose weight when you die in the dungeon and need to pack on pounds to stay healthy was good and not fatphobic. The series still has most all the main characters not actually being drawn fat though, even senshi looks more stocky and muscular with no tummy even tho he has most reasons to be fat from the lore

[illnessfaker]

thin able-bodieds (disclaimer: i am a cripple but i'm a skinny one) on tiktok short-circuiting over the idea that maybe using fat people on electric scooters with tech that does bADLs for them as symbolic of "peak consumerism" (e.g. wall-e) is maybe a tad bit reflective of society's attitudes about fat people, physically disabled people, and especially fat physically disabled people

[kafkaesquedyke]

The new Velma show seems to neatly fall into this trend of tv shows (paramount heathers, leaked powerpuff girls script) that want to seem progressive by having a diverse cast, while simultaneously wanting to preserve that same edgy, punch-down comedy style found in 'centrist' or conservative media. They want the praise for having female, queer, and characters of colour while still retaining an audience made up of mainly edgy white men laughing at how ridiculous ‘the minorities’ are behaving. It’s a punch-down comedy wolf in progressive sheep clothing.

The fundamental flaw in this logic is that show runners assume the audience that would enjoy this humour will see past that supposedly progressive façade… and that often doesn’t happen. A lot of these specific edgy types see diversity as a red flag and immediately presume some type of agenda. It’s almost like seeing a minority participate in the joke (even though they’re still very much the punchline) zaps all the humour out of it or they can’t understand that the joke is still for them if it isn’t said by someone that looks exactly like them. And because they (especially, but not only, cishet white men) recognise all the jokes from things they like, but don’t find them funny anymore, the only reasonable explanation they have is that diversity is bad and makes it unfunny, instead of realising their inherent inability to recognise and relate to any character that isn’t a white man.

Meanwhile, an audience that would appreciate a diverse cast does recognise the comedy for what it is: cheap jokes made at their expense. At most there are occasional jabs thrown in at the white and/or male characters which often don’t relate to these identities in any fundamental or even realistic way. So you have this show that constantly uses their minority characters as punchlines and only includes vaguely progressive, but ultimately pretty universally accepted, messaging hoping progressive audiences will be enamoured with the occasional ‘girlboss moment™️’, while not noticing that vast amounts of regressive ideals.

In the end neither audience feels appealed to and the show is a massive failure. While it might be satisfying to see that these conservative audiences are too blinded by, let’s be honest here, identity politics to recognise something that is clearly made for them, ultimately all that is remembered is that ‘the comedy show featuring a lot of diversity’ failed. And it becomes harder for people who actually want to make media with, and especially for, minorities have a harder time getting any funding. Shows like these are a lose lose situation when it comes to furthering diversity in the media landscape and it’s increasingly frustrating to see this happen again and again.

[my-wildflowergirl]

I don't know about anyone else, but I am kinda pissed that Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't allow Tav to be fat.

Why in one of the best games of the year, do we still not have character creation that allows fat bodies to exist, in a fantasy game of all things? Are fat people not supposed to exist in a fantasy world?

Or do people deem fatness so negatively that when given an escape from reality, they couldn't understand why someone would want to be fat there too?

[bass-alien]

the way people won’t just let fat people fucking exist without commenting on their weight when literally no one asked is wild to me lmao we aren’t bothering y’all so why tf do y’all have to bother us

[blackautmedia]

April O'Neil - A Study of Misogynoir in Media

I made this video a while back that goes into the history of fatphobia toward Black people and the gendered aspect of how people are framing their anti-Blackness and misogynoir in the backlash toward what was an inoffensive portrayal of April.

The way people were talking about, sexualizing, and derogating Mutant Mayhem was disgusting and also unearthed a lot of different framing tactics I think are important to discuss to prepare people to deal with to better understand how to navigate future encounters.

Some Excerpts:

Media that catches enough attention and is perceived as giving agency or priority to an oppressed group of people will be met with anger whether that work actually succeeds at it or not.

It's a strange comparison, but I want you to imagine white supremacy and the resources and access to media power that comes with that as a money vault, like Scrooge McDuck.

That vault was filled through violence and is very closely guarded. The reason you keep seeing such angry reactions to characters like April O'Neil for being Black and then fat and Black, Coco Diablo, Ashley for being Black and queer is because even just the idea that these characters provide comfort, education, or advocacy represents a breach in security.

It's like breaking into that vault where even if nothing is actually taken or stolen, the sense of insecurity in knowing that "your" space has been breached is what's sending people into a panic and this goes to people who uphold white supremacy.

[frickfatphobes]

Let's make a list of all the good fat characters in media!

• Red Shoes (and the Seven Dwarfes)

• Stan Pines

• Super Mario

• ummm... Santa Claus??

That's all I got. 😞