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Today in Fatness Transcript (June 2017)
Hello! This is The Fat Lip, I’m your host Ash, and I decided to try something new today. Between episodes there are always minor topics that I think about talking about on the show, but a lot of them couldn’t make a whole episode themselves. So what I’m going to do today is give a rundown of some of these things. It’s going to be a short one, and I may circle back to one or more of these topics in another show, but for now I’m just going to round these things up and call it Today in Fatness.
So, Today in fatness:
– Well Yesterday, actually, at the time I’m recording this, Natalie Drue of NatalieMeansNice was on a flight from Dallas to LA and was seated next to a real asshole who got real huffy about having to sit next to a fat person on a plane. Natalie posted photos and she was totally in her seat, not encroaching on this guy’s space at all. In fact his legs were totally spread & he looked more comfy than basically anyone I’ve ever seen on a plane, but that didn’t stop him from texting in Natalie’s eyeline, telling a friend that he was leaving a neck print on the window he was so squished and that Natalie probably ate a Mexican (a person, not Mexican food) before she got on the plane. Natalie posted about this on Instagram and tweeted about her experience, and then at the end of her flight she earned a fucking cape when she confronted the guy. He laughed at first and also made a shitty fat phobic comment about how they were seated in an exit row and he doubted her ability to help someone in case of an emergency. But Natalie held her ground and fought back, and he eventually offered a weak apology. Seriously, she is a fucking hero for calling this dude out. She was so strong and confident and while this dude seems like a mega asshole who will probably learn nothing from the exchange, she showed him that fat people don’t have to sit back and take his shitty behavior. Seriously, so proud of this girl.
-One of the new Big Brother cast members, in her short intro to the show, told us that she and her family went on a trip to Europe last year and they were all whales so when they got back they all went to Tijuana to get weight loss surgery. Now, she showed a photo from that family vacation, and not only was there not a whale among them, but no one was even seriously fat. I don’t know why they needed to go to Mexico for weight loss surgery, but I think it’s pretty dangerous to brag about being so desperate to lose 50 pounds (really, that’s all this girl needed to lose or has lost) that you’d go to Tijuana for surgery. This is why we need size acceptance. Because this is a thing that gets nonchalantly dropped on TV.
-A group of disabled activists have been staging sit-ins in senators’ offices in Washington this week to protest medicaid cuts. There were some proud disabled fats in that group, and I could not have been more moved by the statement. It often feels like street actions and sit ins aren’t for disabled people, so it was amazing to see these people not backing down.
-This one has been out for a couple of weeks now, but Corissa of FatGirlFlow has all new merch out for preorder right now, and it’s all amazing. My favorite is a white retro-look t-shirt that says Fat Bitch in a big red heart. I will own this. Other t-shirt offerings say “fat brat” and “don’t yuck my yum” which Corissa explains in an accompanying blog post.
By the way, I’m going to link to everything that needs links (like Corissa’s merch preorder page) in the show notes, so look there!
-And finally in fat news, we come to Roxane Gay’s new book Hunger. I’ve been reading it, and it is heartbreaking. Roxane Gay is a very fat black woman, so I couldn’t begin to understand the discrimination she faces. And I think the most important thing I can say about this book and about Gay’s experience is that she is entitled to it and she is entitled to tell her story. Do her feelings about her body represent how all fat people feel? No. But she never claimed to be an ambassador for fatness. She never asked for that. So is her story the same as my story? No. But she still gets to tell it.
Speaking of Roxane Gay, though, she’s been doing publicity for Hunger all over everywhere (just as she’s done for her previous books) but when Australian website Mamamia that makes the No Filter with Mia Freedman podcast wrote their show notes for their interview with Gay, they were cruel and just actually ridiculous. It seems like Freedman wrote them herself, actually, and she claims that Gay’s people called ahead to ensure that she wouldn’t have to walk too far, that the chair would hold her, and that she wouldn’t be too fat to fit in the elevator. Gay says her people never made those requests—all she asked was for a good chair—and that Freedman made these claims for attention. Freedman claims to be body positive, but as we’ve learned again and again, thin women’s body positivity doesn’t necessarily extend to fat bodies.
-So that was shitty podcast fat news, but in amazing podcast news, Lindy West was on The Sporkful with Dan Pashman and it was honestly the best interview I’ve heard to date from a non fat-specific podcast. And from a food podcast, no less. Pashman was respectful and let Lindy talk, and she did—about how difficult a subject food is for fat people and about how we’re shamed no matter how we eat. It was an excellent episode, and you should listen to it.
-And finally, my friend Alison (who you’ve heard on the show more than once) and I spend a lot of time talking about how little representation there is for non-standard-plus-size fats, and we’ve started thinking about what it would be like to do an essay collection where those of us who are underrepresented in fat positive pieces could be heard. Maybe it could even be a book. Who knows? So if you don’t see yourself represented well enough in fat pos or body pos and would be interested in contributing to such an effort, let me know. We’re gathering a list of contact info and we’ll let you know when we move things forward.
Thank you so much as always to Starcrusher for providing the music in today’s show. Hear more from him at cstarcrusher.bandcamp.com
And thank you so much to our Patreon supporter of the day, Amanda of amandaapparel.co.uk. Amanda is a fashion and fat pos blogger who is a huge supporter of the show, so thank you Amanda for everything that you’ve done for The Fat Lip! It means the world to me.
If you’d like to become a Patreon supporter and someday hear your name on the show, go to patreon.com/thefatlip to find out how.
Oh, and on a podcast business note, I have A LOT going on in the next month. Like major life change kind of stuff. So you might not hear from me for a few-to-several weeks. I’m going to do my best to get two episodes out in July, but it just might not happen. If it doesn’t, don’t worry! I’ll be back sometime in August for sure.
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