Fat Warp Essays #5 The Rebellion of the Obese!

The way of the media, the way of the culture: be thin or be fat shamed.

THE PECULIAR CASE OF OBESITY

Until women and men achieve inner resolutions which bring a unity of purpose in a community of spirits abiding in harmony, there will be rebellion, psychological manipulation and the desire to cut off Medusa's head (media images of the hyper thin body as beautiful) with swords of defense. Some obese women have gone into psychological combat to kill the skinny Gorgon superficially represented by celebrities and guests on mainstream media's women's shows. This is because celebrities in 45 second sound bites often are unable to reveal the quasi spiritual and physical wellness they may have achieved losing weight.. Sometimes, the TV program editors are agenda driven. They cannot allow profound topics on a program for the imaginary, dull audiences their bean counting marketers have determined watch the show. Fat people are sickened by such pap and in the past decade have answered with fervency using: fat rebellion, weight gain as a shield, fat rants on Youtube, books praising what it is to be fat and beautiful, apologist's rants to accept the fat body.

In both mainstream and alternative media both mainstream and alternative fat women have speared the unrealities of uber-thinness, photoshopping, the BMI calculator's normal weight index and they have piked these unrealities around the castle that promotes gorgeous appearance and fitness. They are continually raising a challenge to defeat noxious standards of "how thin we should be."

There are the inspiring TED Talks which "spread the word" that it is "OK to be fat." Panting in support of these rumblings against the grain of "looking good," the Fat Acceptance Movement  truncheons "fat ridicule" as discrimination. For them fat lady jokes are as as damnable as telling a woman she is ugly. The Fat Acceptance Movement has redefined what "looks good," adding 50 to 300 pounds as acceptable.

Likewise, in comedies filmmakers use hyperbole about weight and loveliness with celebrity casting to massage the American appetite; recently mindful of their audience, they are benign and gentle about obesity, unless the tone demands otherwise. The importance of one's inner humanity over appearance becomes a film theme when heavyweight heroines (Melissa McCarthy) are featured. However, the majority of women unconsciously are not convinced fat women are heroines. And unlike following the example of the thin and fit, no woman is mentoring and embracing becoming a fatty heroine.

Righteous rebellion of the obese in protest of the uber hype about skinny appearance and healthy eating.

 F.R.A.F. (Fat Rebels Against Fitness)

In a category of their own, not advocating "fat rights," or overtly politicizing their weight or appearance, there are those obese who are in a righteous rebellion. These women embrace the condition of what only can be described as fat pornography, or manifesting an obsession to be fat. In an irrevocable and peculiar turn around, excessive weight is the red flag waved and hauled on high. The mercilessly taunted fatties taunt back, crowding out others with their large bodies. It is as if in their hugeness they say, "Here I am." It is a subtle "F-you!" These obese displace air and oxygen with physicality. As each cubic foot gives way to their mountainous flesh, power is exerted and territory is claimed.

Rebellious fat people have a Walmart, Target notoriety or infamy, if you will; they are the online jokes as people have uploaded photos of their appalling appearance...examples of folks who shop in Walmart or Target. They defy the images of thin; they slap down the culture's lionization of beautiful. They succeed in themselves without acceptance and they boast with their swaying flesh, that the culture's finger pointing is wasted. The very act of "thumbing their nose" at standards of appearance is an outrageous wickedness. For them, that wickedness, is fun. So they intentionally eat to be fat to annoy and provoke. In this way they gain power over the labels by willingly becoming extremist. They are the ungainly, unsightly, grinning and macabre horror. And they enjoy this stature. Happily outrageous and offensive, the uber obese cannot be made to feel ashamed of their weightiness. They have gone beyond the state of humiliation. They revel in their power to terrorize the thin, reminding the beautiful what they can look like if they "let themselves go," or "forget" themselves and eat that extra cookie.

For the thin this fat rebellion is a loss of sanctity. Their usual cultural veneration is displaced by the demonstrated gall of being insanely, madly fat. In amassing flesh, the heavy achieve success by physically taking up space. Displacing air with huge mounds of flesh is an egregious condition for the thin. For who of them wishes to embrace the fat person's distended, misshapen load? The magma blob of earth is an impenetrable fortress and the thin and fit's attempts to ridicule, attack or reason with the fat creatures are like a bobby pin chiseling a battlement. They can only flee from the bulbous fat locker and affirm that the pillow paunches are not normal or reasonable or human. This is how the fat become the alien, the other. Only spiritual individuals, ministers, clerics or Buddhist monks would dare to communicate with the inner beings of such self-engineered, malformed mounds.

Judgment, criticism? "Would you allow yourself to be that fat: 200 pounds overweight?" The hypocritical, less fat, less overweight stare in wonder at the mountain of flesh accumulating on obese bodies. These obese have made themselves into a voyeur's playground. Oogling online pictures of ungainly, unwieldy Walmart fatties trundling or golf carting down the aisles in search of snacks has become a fun, finger-pointing past time for the average overweight person. Meanwhile, the thin cringe.

Doctors and critics are missing the point. Obese folks are projecting self-satisfaction in their rebellion. You can imagine the conversation blooming from their minds:
   
"The culture prizes slender beauty? Well, I am happy that my quadruple chins and hillock hips torment and torture you so you feel the need to criticize. I have gotten your attention, even if it is negative. I am gleeful and happy. Yes, I am disgusting. But I love it. Pleased to meet you, too! I hoist you on your own petard. I laugh at your disgust."

Anorexia is the reverse of Fat Rebellion; it is skinny rebellion against hyper attention to appearance. Preference?

 The Fat Acceptance Movement  is forced to respond in embarrassment when the unhealthiness of these megaliths is pointed out. What the movement doesn't realize is that the uber obese are not interested in being accepted. They are rebelling against the fascist concept that all must fit into an unrealistic weight image and when every one of us does not, they are ostracized or punished for it. That punishment is monstrous, not the obese person's fat.

Fat rebellion is the obese's clever stand against such monstrous cultural narrowness using physical metaphor, hyperbole and reverse psychology. "You say I must be thin? I'll show you my interpretation of thin!" Though they are are damaging themselves to do it, they are making an extreme point for all of us who hate having to fit these wacko skinny images to be a part of the greater culture's acceptance. The fat rebellious advocacy is just, though it is doubtful it will generate a political movement. It also doubtful that the current "fat acceptance movement" which is tame by comparison will ever fully "accept" the uber obese. However, my hat is off to them in their rebellion. I get it!