Dear American Media:

Let’s start this letter with an astute complaint from The Sarcastic Journalist: “There are many things in life that get my goat. One of them is when someone dresses up as a “fat” or “ugly” person for the media.” Her comment was prompted by a recent episode of Entertrainment Tonight, in which host Vanessa Minnillo. (“who weighs about 10 pounds soakin wet”) was dressed in “fat” suit and prosthetics, then sent out do exactly the type of cutting-edge, gritty investigative journalism that we have come to expect from ET. Yes, we were going to learn how it feels to be an overweight (which the show finds synonymous with “ugly”) woman.

As Sarcastic Journalist notes:

But, putting a former beauty queen in a fat suit just for ratings seems quite silly. What is the reasoning behind this? That Miss Minnillo can see that there are some people who don’t jump out of bed in the morning, pop on some nipple pasties and call it a day down at the club? That some women were born with looks that aren’t as envied in this youth-obsessed America?... So we can all laugh at how “ugly” she is? (And since when did extra weight equal ugly?)

Ah, but this is a time-honored trick for lazy TV journalists. Tyra Banks did it first, going undercover as a 350 pound woman on her show last year, and discovering that it is hard to be overweight, even if you have a pretty face semi-visible above your multiple chins. Thanks for sharing that with us. One might have discovered the same thing by talking to actual women who are overweight, but who would want to see that? After all, they will still be overweight after the interview, but Tyra and Vanessa can show us all how easy it is to get thin and happy by peeling off their prosthetic flab.

Because really, isn’t fat just a prosthesis overused by women who want to hide their true selves away from the world? When I was a teenager battling a bout of debilitating depression, I gained a significant amount of weight quickly. The psychiatrist I saw suggested that I only did it so that I would be unattractive to boys. Um, no. While I understand that many women who suffer some sort of trauma do use weight to make themselves invisible (because who would ever want to look at a fat woman?), I personally gained weight because I was depressed and fucking ate for comfort. Not everyone uses looks as a shield, and obviously most women can’t shed their flab as quickly as Vanessa can step out of the fat suit. To suggest otherwise is cruel to anyone who struggles with their weight.

At least Tyra and Vanessa don the fat suit as to gain a measure of (misguided) understanding and sympathy for us poor chubbies out there. On the flip side of the pie tin, other “entertainers” like dressing up as fat women for cheap laughs. You know, because nothing is more hilarious than a fat woman, especially one who thinks she’s attractive.

Here Eddie Murphy’s newest movie, Norbit springs to mind. I was subjected to the preview twice already, and I cringed throughout the entire thing each time. The premise is that skinny loser Norbit (Eddie Murphy) can’t get rid of his overweight, overbearing, over-self-confident girlfriend (Eddie Murphy in a fat suit, wig, and grating voice) so that he can be with the super hot (thin) and kind woman of his dreams. Multiple humiliating scenes involving the fat girlfriend crushing Norbit in bed, washing the car and smooshing her ginormous boobs on the windows as she reaches over in short shorts, and on a water slide played before my eyes, sort of like in Clockwork Orange when the sociopath is forced to watch ultra-violent scenes with his eyes propped open. The worst is that the song playing in the background during all these scenes (and also sung in a terrible voice by Murphy as the girlfriend) says, “Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?” The audience is supposed to laugh and laugh because we all know that fat women can’t possibly be attractive. Are you laughing yet? No one else in the theater I was in laughed either.

Nor is That Deborah Girl finding these stereotypes the least bit hilarious. She says:

Last night, I watched the trailer for a new Eddie Murphy movie called "Norbit" (a synopsis can be found… at Worst Previews. Trust me, the trailer more than earned it's spot on this site.). Again, I watched the trailer prepared to laugh simply because it mentioned Eddie Murphy and who doesn't know the name Eddie Murphy means comedy? I was quickly let down as it seems Eddie is up to his old tricks from the Nutty Professor, but instead of playing an enormously fat man, he's playing an enourmously fat woman, forgetting that Martin Lawrence and Tyler Perry have already run that lame joke into the ground and it wasn't funny the first time. OK, Medea isn't as bad as Big Mama but as far as I'm concerned, Perry treads a thin line at times. The morals and feel good endings don't always justify the cheap laugh means in Perry's movies either.

But back to Norbit… The trailer alone is so hideously disrespectful of black people in general (I'm tired of "black" movies playing to the lowest common denominator) and particularly large black women -please note: I'm a large, black woman- so I was distinctly not amused.

Hey Hollywood, please listen to Deborah. The fat lady (Murphy, in this case) has sung: movies and TV shows like this are insulting and so 2001 (ie - Shallow Hal, in which twig Gwen Paltrow donned the fat suit, but at least the fat slob male hero actually fell in love with her. I think. I never saw it.). In other words, it’s over. Move on.

Of course, like all people, fat women go beyond the media’s limited portraits of doom, gloom, and self-hatred on one end of the spectrum, and egomaniacal, delusional self-love on the other. For more nuanced portrayals of overweight women in the media, check out Wake Up, I’m Fat!, a fantastic book by the delightful actress Camryn Mannheim. (A few years ago, she dedicated her Emmy to all "the fat girls" out there.) Camryn has been there and done that, and is authentically funny. Kathy Bates and Mo’Nique (Phat Girls aside) also do work that presents women as who they are, not who we “should” be. More nuanced portrayals of larger women by actual larger women would be a welcome change.

Thanks,
Suzanne

Suzanne also blogs at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants