Fat and Happy

Opinions are like assholes, or so the saying goes. So it only follows that many assholes have opinions. But you are still taken aback, way aback, when an asshole is such an asshole about her opinions. Like, for instance, the Marie Claire blogger who posted her thoughts on the new CBS sitcom “Mike & Molly.”

Let me break down the essence of her post for you:

HEY FATTIES, EAT SOME UNPROCESSED FOOD AND GET OFF YOUR BIG ASSES. ALSO, STOP KISSING. GROSS.

And I’m not even really paraphrasing there. This is what was actually written.

My initial response was: Hmm, being overweight is one thing — those people are downright obese! And while I think our country’s obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it’s at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! ….

So anyway, yes, I think I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room. ….

I’m happy to give you some nutrition and fitness suggestions if you need them — but long story short, eat more fresh and unprocessed foods, read labels and avoid foods with any kind of processed sweetener in them whether it’s cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup, increase the amount of fiber you’re getting, get some kind of exercise for 30 minutes at least five times a week, and do everything you can to stand up more — even while using your computer — and walk more.

(p.s. That last sentence is 84 – EIGHTY FOUR – words long. How about learning how to slim down your writing instead, lady?)

WHAT THE FUCKITY FUCK WAS THAT FUCKING SHIT?

The post has made the rounds, been roundly criticized and, by my rough estimate, garnered some 6 gazillion very unhappy replies in the comments section. The writer has apologized, said the post was an insensitive, thoughtless reaction to her own struggles with anorexia. Blah blah blah. That may well be true. While we should be rightfully furious with its writer (a Maura Kelly – who has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Glamour, among others. Also, she loves peanut butter!), we should also see this as a symptom of a larger, more insidious disease we have as a society. This Maura person articulated it almost perfectly.

In our society, we think to be loved you have to look a certain way. If you don’t look that certain way you are unworthy, unhealthy, unhappy, undeserving. If you don’t look a certain way you shouldn’t kiss, find love, walk across a room. If you don’t look a certain way you should be ashamed, disgusted and hate ever fiber of your big, ugly, repulsive body.

What a colossal load of unrelenting horse shit.

Without getting into the flat-out fallacies of Maura Kelly’s argument (all weight can be managed through diet and exercise, etc.), let’s talk about her piece’s casual yet calculated cruelty. It’s a cruelty that permeates our society. It’s fed by the fashion and beauty industries. It’s fed by Photoshopping the already beautiful into impossible beauty. It’s fed by almost every image we see projected and plastered everywhere. This is how you should look, if you don’t look like this how could you possibly be happy? An entire body-shaming industrial complex profits from our continued misery.

It shouldn’t be a radical statement to say that we are all humans and that we all deserve happiness no matter our size, race, sexual orientation, disabilities, whathaveyou. Yet here we are, in the year 2010, and some people are still saying how gross it is that two fatties have the audacity to actually kiss. How dare they be happy, don’t they know?

Treating all people with basic human decency and respect, now that’s fucking beautiful.