Episode 137 - Complete

Vinny Welsby1h 11min

Speaker 1

00:00

You're listening to the face value podcast episode 137 fat shaming in kids media My goodness, I'm your host Vinnie Welsby. Let's do it Hello, fatties and welcome to this episode and honorary fatties. Welcome to I got some law, fat shaming his media to talk to you about today. question Question, listen, is this is this ever happened to you? Is there a REIT? Can you provide me a reason why this is happening? So I was on the phone to my doctor the other day, you're gonna repeat prescription and before we ended the call, I said, Hey, Doc, can you? Can I tell you something, it's probably going to be a little bit weird. But you've probably had many people say it to you in the past? And she said, Yes, what is it? I said, my dog, Dougal licks, the same spot of my leg has been looking the same spot on my leg, not a spot as in pimple an area, same area on my leg for the last month. And I've seen TV shows where the the owner is like, my dog was sniffing my knee. And it turns out, I had knee cancer, and my dog saved my life. And I was like, my, my dad died from a blood clot in his leg that got loosened and killed him instantly. And so I was like, Oh my God, I've got a blood clot, and doggies licking this spot in my leg to warn me that I have a blood clot. And I said this to the doctor and she was like, No one in my whole career has ever asked me if the dog licking a certain area means that there's like some something there. And I was like, wow, really? I really thought it'd be so common because I don't know why I thought it'd be so common because I saw a show was someone in a shows and it was. And she was like, Listen, no, these are the signs of a blood clot like you'd know, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Well, you know, I've got no symptoms of anything apart from Dougie licking the sales via my leg. And I know at first I thought, Oh, I must have dropped some gravy on my leg or something. Or maybe something splashed on my jeans but he's been he does it all the time. And he's been in so alarming. So listen, if there's some listener out there who's like yeah, oh my goodness, this happened and it turns out that something and nothing else has changed. It's not like I'm wearing some sort of new lotion or, or new new washing liquid or anything like that. Yeah. Next episode, we're like, oh, Vinnie, Vinnie. His dog was right. And yeah, I hope not. Anyway, so yeah. Hey, I've been thinking about this. So I've been thinking about this episode, right. I, I pick out episode topics in advance, and I let my brain more the topic. Because you know, I think you sometimes you need a little space. For mulling mulling things it happened to be that last week, I had a couple of things that I was like, Oh, this is great for this podcast. Man, I just wanted to mention if you wanted to go and look at these things, so first thing is on Netflix, there's a documentary called disclosure, and it's about trans people's depictions in the media. And it's really good, really interesting and talks about all of the fucked up ways trans nurse has been depicted. And from, from actually the first moving pictures was of gender non conforming, or gender non conforming person, potentially a trans person moving into the idea of transness and blackness as these two terrible characteristics of humans and and mocking them together. And it's really interesting and obviously depressing to but and also like ends on a high note of like this and called Trans

Speaker 1

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shows now you know, one of my favorite shows and it reminded me of one of my favorite shows and I'm gonna be watching it is pose. It's on. Currently, oh, it was on Netflix and it's currently on do Isn't he plus? And I think the original network was FX. I don't know if that's that's not a Canadian thing. So go watch it if you haven't, it's about the Bourne culture in the 80s and 90s, New York, and the cast is so caught the cast is like 80% trans people, like 90 plus percent, queer people. It's great. It's great. Lots of people of color. Black folks. Yeah, it's amazing. It's great. Yes, and another thing that I've been watching recently, too, I've only watched like three episodes of it. And it's just so heartwarming, and it's appropriate for younger, like teens, probably not kids, children, babies, you know, toddlers or whatever. But it's on Discovery plus, which is also para, question mark. And it's called Generation drag. It follows young, queer kids, some of them are trans, and some of them are gay and drag performers. And they're young, and they're going to perform at this. They've used the word drag in the word Debbie time, so debutante ball, but they call it a drag you taunt ball. And it's just so beautiful and affirming. And great. So if you've got kids, and even if you don't, it's not a kid show, right? It's just, you know, following young, young adults, I guess, a 1415. That type of age. As they do this. It's really good. So yes. Yeah. And what made me think about this episode was watching on Netflix, there's a there's an anthology series that's had three seasons called Love, love, death, and robots. And it was making me think, okay, so this anthology series is kind of like, you know, how Black Mirror every every episode is different. And it's kind of like a theme of, of the future with technology. But this is, like, futuristic, I mean, not even futuristic, but sci fi, whatever. And it just, it just is flabbergasting. How in love death and robots. I've not watched the first few seasons, I just started watching them, the search season. creative minds, how how far creativity can go and all of these different concepts that are related to love death and robots and how, you know, some are funny, and some are beautiful, and some of this and, and how expansive people's imaginations are, but not so expansive, that there could be a fat character that exists in his make believe universes, unless they are there to serve as comedic support. There was one episode a very short episode, and there was a fat man in it for like, one minute, and his purpose was supporting the little bit of comedy. It's just so out of the realm in sci fi, that there would be a leading character that is fat. Like it's just I was like, we could imagine aliens with tentacles coming out of his homes. But we can't imagine that a fat person is the lead character. That's just too wild. It's just an actually last week I watched a webinar from Asda, a s dah, I think as the sounds for oh, yeah, Association for sides of size, diversity and health so as to and then there's Nafa and a FA. So they're the two main kind of fat advocacy organizations and the event that I went to was Afrofuturism. Changing the narrative on the future of bodies, hosted by Stephanie

Speaker 1

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CRISM pronouns she, they and Afro futurism is Wikipedia says, cultural ascetic and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through techno culture, and speculative fiction, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afro diasporic experiences. And so an example that's definitely said It's a good example of showcase showcasing Afrofuturism is a film Black Panther. And there's another another one, which is not a film, but there's an anthology written anthology series called dark matter. And it's all sci fi written by black votes, folks. And and so in this webinar on Afrofuturism, Stephanie talks about how often marginalized bodies, often fat and black and queer and trans bodies are not seen in media. And if they are, they're there to serve a purpose of being the villain or being the comedic relief and, and how negativity is is depicted by blackness and fatness. Really interesting, and how can we make a future where identities marginalized identities are at the forefront of media? Well, I don't know about you, I just find it's just so much more interesting. When you're watching a show. And there's, there's diversity. There's true diversity, you know, not like, I thought diversity in media was watching sex in a city and being like, oh, there's a blonde one, there's a brunette one, there's a gender one and there's a snotty one, true diversity, you know, like, you know, very fat people and lots of people of color and, and disabled people and neurodiverse people and then not just being like a side character. Just it just, you know, like with pose, pose. Pose doesn't have fatness. That's one thing. Like we pose, the SIS het white people are the outliers. And it just, it's just makes things makes it more of like, visually rich and interesting. And the storytelling is either the writers are a lot of the writers are queer and trans and they're sharing their stories. And so it's just, it's just great all around. Yeah, so a little bit from from Stephanie's webinar, you can go in, go to the Astor website and go find it again, the name is Afrofuturism changing the narrative on the future of bodies. And so brief history of Afrofuturism right, and Mark dari coined the phrase in his book flame wars the discourse of cyberculture describe the work of writers like Samuel Delaney and Octavia Butler, who wrote from not only a position in which their protagonists were black, but also in Delaney. Delaney his case, a queer sensibility. dari saw science fiction is a vehicle for black folk to truly narrate the black experience of ancestors and their descendants. Okay, so as well, Stephanie says in the culture teaching you to hate being fat, so she says, when we see images of so called fat people in popular culture, we are immediately altered to, or alerted to judge who they are as human beings by their body size black women are often seen as the mammy or Jezebel character, depending on their bodily dimensions. Yes, fat women especially are either deemed evil or dumb or sassy depending on the race of the individual. We are expected to especially feel sorry for the fat white woman because she has clearly not being able to control herself and therefore needs to be loved through her shortcomings, whereas fat women of color can only save themselves from themselves. White women, no matter how bad the characters are, can be redeemed. can be redeemed because fatness isn't an is not inherent in whiteness, women of color are fat because that's just how they are.

Speaker 1

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And also she says isms are feather flock together. So they say transphobic, queer, antagonistic language and stereotypes, racist and misogynistic stereotypes, fat equals evil. Fat people deserve violence. Fat people cannot control their hunger and must be forced to do it through violence. But people hate themselves and others because they hate themselves. And they deserve ridicule because they're lazy and gluttonous. Fat people even when they are skinny, will be fat because they cannot control themselves. So that's another kind of like overview of what Stephanie was talking about. So please go and buy the webinar. On the Aza website. The links to everything I'm going to talk about today is in the show notes first id.com forward slash one, three sub o Oh, and if you forget, it's always first friday.com forward slash podcast. Okay, so set. So I asked people on my Instagrams, tell me about the most fat phobic TV shows that you have seen for kids are fat phobic media that you've seen, because I am not a parent. Although I've mentioned before, I am a pebbling. So I have nibbling things. And so when I spend time with my siblings, they're across the channel in Ireland, and I'm in Canada, so I don't get to spend that much time with him. But when I do, we will watch shows, obviously. And that got me interested, you know, a few years ago being like, What the fuck? Why is his TV show saying all of this awful shit, but my exposure is limited. So anyway, I want to start out just by a little bit of what why this is a problem, you know, fat phobia in kids media. So this is from a blog, talking about fat shaming kid shows from Cafe mom, and it starts a 2013 study by Leeds University found that kids start demonstrating prejudice against fat people at just four years old. After reading stories with different versions of a character named Alfie, a fat healthy, a thin, thin Alfie, Alfie and an Alfie in a wheelchair and then being asked to compare the characters on certain attributes, kids said the fat version of Alfie would be less likely than the others to do well in school, be happy with his appearance, or have a lot of friends based solely on how he looked. And these biases don't just apply to fictional characters, and 2017 study found that kids who are fat are less likely less liked by their peers, and more likely to be bullied excluded starting as early as first grade. Kids are also increasingly afraid of becoming fat themselves. As many as 34% of five year old girls have tried to restrict their food intake in order to lose weight, and one in four kids of both sexes. All sexes should be but I guess they didn't study queer kids, queer gender queer kids, gender queer kids. So one in four kids have been on a diet by the age of seven. While the way we talk about bodies at home plays a major role in how kids view weight and body image researchers actually cite media exposure and appearance conversations as the strongest predictors of diet related behavior. Okay, so show show show. I got a lot of responses from from you lot. You family a lot a lot on the Instagrams and also doing some research coming up with the most egregious. So some shows, their theme is fat shaming, and other shows or TV or movies or books or whatever. They just have it woven into storylines, and I think the most egregious and every, not every response 50% of the responses I got was Peppa Pig and Peppa Pig. The theme is fucking Peppa Pig. Peppa Pig can suck my tits. Peppa Pig is all about how daddy pig has a big fat belly.

Speaker 1

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Daddy Pig. I mean like, that's not what this show is not Let's love it. Daddy Pig for being fat, but Daddy Pig. His character is there as being the comedic relief and shaming daddy paid constantly for his belly. So from this same post from Cafe mom, Peppa Pig, a cartoon aimed at preschoolers, in which the running joke is that Daddy Pig is fat. Someone wrote an op ed for half at Huffington Post all about Peppa Pig and it says okay, can Peppa Pig stop feeding shut fat shaming Daddy Pig all the time poor Danny pig. And the author of this Huff Post article highlights an episode although you could watch pretty much any episode and have your jaw agape feeling like whoa. So they described his episode on this episode. Peppa Pig makes a password to her tree house. The password is daddy's big tummy, and everyone laughs at him that he tries and fails to enter the tree house and and pepper tells him that his tummy is too pig big. And they say pepper girl, you're already burnt him with the password Now let the man live. So, of course Daddy Pig goes on to get wedged in the door although Mama Pig got in just fine and is roughly the same size as Daddy Pig poor Daddy Pig. And I watched that clip and eat like Peppa Pigs in the tree house and Daddy Pigs like can I come in and and she's like that the pep Daddy Pig, say the password Daddy Pig. And he says, Oh, I'd rather not. And you could see, I know. It's facial expression. He says I'd rather not say it and I'm like, Yes, Daddy Pig setting boundaries. Don't stand for that bullshit. You tell Peppa to shut the fuck up. And then and then Mummy Pig and everyone's like, Come on Daddy Pig. Save the password. And he says, oh, right then. And then he says, Daddy's big belly and they all go. Even the grandparents are there motherfuckers hanging around all laughing and then Daddy Pig tries to get into the tree house and he's too fat. And everyone's like, you're such a fat fuck Daddy Pig. And then as in the same episode, they go swimming and daddy pig says, I'm going to jump off the diving board and pepper comes comes back and says silly daddy. Your tummy is too big. And Daddy Pig is like, oh actually I'm really good at diving. And I'm actually naturally fit and Peppa Pig says you don't look very fit daddy. Your tummy is a bit big. Fucking that's when I would like dunk Peppa Pig and be like, Oh, I'm gonna go dive and live my fabulous fat pig life. Yeah, so the most egregious is Peppa Pig. So if your kid is watching Peppa Pig I would I know it's so popular right? There's even like Peppa Pig candy you can get in the UK like in a big store. Peppa Pig county is delicious is it's traveled to everyone likes it. And so it might be difficult but some some parents have said that what they do is we'll interrupt the fatphobia and say is it appropriate to shame Daddy Pig for being fat? No it's not we don't judge people on on on appearances but in this article here it goes on to show tweets talking about people saying oh shit like this is now starting to affect my my kids. One person says yes, it's caused my toddler to tell everyone that they have quote, Big Daddy Big Daddy Pig tummies and other words and says oh their regular dose of body shaming on Peppa Pig. Looking forward to one day explaining why such some cartoon pigs are wrong to my daughter. Someone else says might be time to ban Peppa Pig when the child starts declaring Daddy has a big fat tummy. Stupid bloody pig. Jesus the body shaming and pick up Peppa Pig is earn real I thought Daddy Pig got it bad but poor Uncle Pig is completely denied his pig nutty. I don't know what they do to Uncle Pig but it's worse than what they do to Daddy Pig.

Speaker 1

23:31

The body shaming on Peppa Pig poor Daddy Pig. Some of us dads are in love with our very big tummies. Yes, exactly. So much fat shaming on Peppa Pig tonight. We should all be like Daddy Pig and love cookies. And that's the other thing is of course he loves cookies because he's had lungs. Yeah, okay, so. And another one. So Arthur, Arthur. This author says is a quote safe show in our house. So I was half listening as I stood at the counter slicing vegetables. But in the midst of my meal prep, I heard something that caught me off guard. Do I look Husky to you guys. Arthur asked his friends. They asked him what it that means it means I'm fat. He said I had to get new pants yesterday. I listened for a few seconds longer hoping Arthur was about to wade into progressive body positive waters. Instead, his friend said, I know what you need to do. You just need to go on a diet. That's when I told my daughter is time to turn off the tablet and set helped set the table. After the kids went to bed. I put the episode back on and was horrified by what I saw. In addition to negative fat and diet talk. The episode features a fantasy sequence in which a circus performer invites people to step right up and gaze at various horrors. One of them is Arthur or as he's identified in this clip, the laden lump of L Would city and the performer isn't shy about describing his him as a freak of nature. Large Lardy a lifeless lay about lump of lumpiness, the man hollows pointing to a gelatinous blob wearing Arthur's signature yellow sweater. The gist of the episode is that Arthur learns dieting is bad. And eating nutritious food and exercising is exercising, so the best way to stay healthy, but the way it arrives at that conclusion is through a plot thick with fat shaming and fat phobia. Yeah. I mean, it's like the kids heard it. And that's only because the mum had her ears pricked. Like the kid could have couldn't come in continued watching that episode. And I mean, you know, one isolated incident of horrendous fatphobia it might not affect a child, but that's not what's happening. Right? You know, kids are not in this media bubble where we can monitor what they're watching at all times. And we're swimming in the waters of dye culture and fatphobia our whole culture is just soaked in that shit. And of course, it means that the writers of the shows are also going to use them as storytelling devices and moralistic tales of don't get fat or else you'll end up in a circus show like Arthur did. So it's it's everywhere. And it's just frightening. Okay, continuing any Disney Channel show or Disney movie. So someone on my story said the Fat kids are pretty portrayed as unintelligent and sloppy, fat, fat, fat characters are evil. And then we have a whole someone who's holding a whole analysis on fat predictable notions, fat Disney and just fat Disney fat Disney. Again, link in the bio and talks about how fatness is protect portrayed in Disney and I would I would extend this to a lot of media, kids and otherwise and you know, not just animation as well. So the three areas they've they've grouped as is. The first one is the comedic relief. So we spoken about that before and they they show examples of the comedic reliefs in Disney and so we've got Angus chestnut from the a n t farm. And the different examples of fatphobia with Angus claw Howser from Zootopia we're going to talk more about that in a moment. Gus from Cinderella So Gus is a little mouse. Hook hand from Tangled. So these are all comedic relief. They're there to be funny. lifou from Beauty and the Beast.

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The matchmaker from Mulan, the Sultan from Aladdin, Trish Dela Rosa from Austin an ally. What do you think from the live suite on deck? That's it for those for the

Speaker 1

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comedic reliefs and that's I would say that that's not they're given examples here. It's not extensive and as well. There's new media is coming out all the time, right? Okay, so the simple turns a simpletons Gus from Cinderella lifou the Salton What do you think? So they're all portrayed as simpletons and the villains, the villains the map matchmaker from Mulan, Mulan, Mulan, Mulan, Mulan, Mulan, Mulan, Milan rouge, Mulan, Mulan. Anyway, the queen of hearts from Alice in Wonderland you remember that the 1951 version is no fat red faced angry. Stinky Pete the prospector from Toy Story to Ursula from The Little Mermaid now Ursula is really interesting because it's been said that Ursula was based on divine a drag performer and based on divine because Devine is fat and is a drag performer like I just said, because they want it to make the character so repellent It's so on feminine and queer in their representation of what woman was, and the most just unattractive version. And this is what they've come up with. I mean, if you ask me I think Sheila is fucking amazing, like looking at looking at her back rolls. And as well Stephanie from Afrofuturism was like, What color is Ursula now? The other characters? Little Mermaid she's white. Sheila is not she's purple. And you know, what is that purple portraying of you know, other nurse, a creature of color. And it's just yet all of the kind of marginalized identities not all of them a lot of marginalized identities are rolled up into a Sheila and she is literally this evil snickering grinning. Nasty. deranged, you know? And, and I think, you know, what, if you've got an Ursula tattoo, that better than looks so good. Like she's, I need to get some like artwork with Ursula because she's like an icon. Yes, so their comedic release a symbol, tons of villains. And so notice how in if you're watching a Disney movie, or any, any movie, any movie at all, like how are fat characters portrayed? Are they do they have a leading role and if they do have a leading role is the movie about how they are about weight? How they try not to be fat, how they are accepting their fat. It's got something to do often if there is a lead character who is fat? It's about fatness, right? It's not just like, oh, there's a human being, they will weave a fat storyline in there because you can't just be a fat person. And of course there are exceptions to this rule. It's like what what are they

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so, so, quote, even frozen the recent Disney blockbuster lauded for its progressive take on love, and its inclusion of a clumsy, awkward Princess character failed to break the slim waisted. Tiny told mode, Princess Anna's eyeball is even wider than her arm. Oh my God. Is that the standard we have to live by now? arms have to be thinner than our eyeballs. Sounds good. It sounds good. It sounds good. This other Tumblr board post, which is called fat media messages, A Brief History of Disney fat villains. And what this says quote dating back as early as the 1920s with Disney's earliest recurring character, Pete. So you just mentioned Pete Pete Disney has relied on tired stereotypes about size in a significant portion of its films. These stereotypes have helped to reinforce the societal understanding of weight and the concept that thin is good and fat is evil. While not all of Disney's movies and shows rely on this trope, enough of them do that a pattern is apparent and those who look deeper into the ideas, Disney promotes and reinforces with the narratives it tells. Some of the main assumptions about fat people include the idea that they must be lazy and out of control, both of which likely contribute to contribute contribute to the fat villain trope for if one is lazy and therefore can't achieve or acquire things on their own, as well as out of control. Their accomplishments must depend on taking from or harming others, just as fat people are viewed as harmful and dangerous to the fabric of society. I really liked that last time, I'm going to repeat it for if one is lazy, and therefore can't achieve or acquire things on their own as well as out of control. Their accomplishments must depend on taking from or harming others, just as fat people are viewed as harmful and dangerous to the fabric of society. Yes. And this person lists all of the fat villains that they can think of Ursula, the Queen of Hearts Alice in Wonderland Governor Ratcliffe contents for Pocahontas Lawrence from the Princess and the Frog and Pete Mickey Mouse universe. A common traits in these characters include loudness, selfishness, greed, and unnecessary cruelty. Yeah, fat People are cruel, cruel, cruel, cruel. And if we're not if we if we if we know that kids are from the age of form forming opinions about fat people and being negative then, I mean, they're probably going to be pretty, pretty powerful if you're seeing certain people as the good guys and certain people as the bad guys. Okay, so continuing iCarly so i CARLY, I just read, listened to the book that just came out called I'm glad my mother is dead by Jeanette McCurdy, and she was Sam in iCarly. I never watched iCarly. But from that title, I was like, read that book. It's a good book. And it talks about the relationship she had with her mum, and how a mum basically abused her and taught her to have an eating disorder. And the her character on iCarly was like her shtick was that she loved food, which was ironic considering that she was not permitted to eat. And other things too. Like her mum showered her and her brother together until they were like 1718 Something like that really fucking weird. So anyway, on iCarly, the whole show is, you know, chock a block filled with fatphobia. But there is a character called Gibby. And people have said that he was a butt of fat jokes, and I watched a funniest Gibby moments thing because I wanted to see like, what what was going on with his Gibby character. And often the joke is look at him without his shirt on. And he's a kid, he's a fucking kid, like, this actor is a kid and even though he's an actor, he's not immune from the fact that this whole thing is like, okay, get the kid you take your shirt off, and everyone's like, Oh my God, there's a fucking child over there. And their body is gross. And it's yours. Yeah, and apparently he didn't come back for the reboot. And people are like, Well, yeah, because he was treated like shit. I don't know. You know if that's true or not, but

Speaker 1

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yeah, so Coco melon. So this is this the what started it for me it was we me watching Coco melanin, seeing the song Johnny Johnny. Yes, Papa. And being like, What the fuck is this and so the the idea of this, this cartoon, this this segment, not the whole cartoon is parents dad is in the in the kitchen with the lights off, sneaking around. And you can see like, there's a shadow of him sneaking around like, you know, a robber in the night. And he's eating quote, bad food. Mum comes in turns a light on catches him and he's shocked and then lies about eating the the quote bad food. And then the mum says Open your mouth. Let me see your mouth. And then the roles are reversed. The mum is that and then the dad says that so they eat. The first one is pizza, ice cream, donuts, and candy. I mean, if that's not telling you that pizza, ice cream donuts and candy are bad. And then at the end, that it culminates with the the kids catching both of them. And they say we've caught you eating quote, junk food. And then there's another version where the baby is eating sugar. I might if I saw any of these behaviors, and I know it's a cartoon, but if I saw any of these behaviors, I'm like, okay, um, I sounds like there's a lot of restriction and food shaming going on in this household. Because if you're all sneaking food in the night time, you're not getting enough food. So I mean, you need to you need to start normalizing it and pizza and ice cream and donuts and candy and sugar. Because there's a fucking baby who's coming out of his crib in the middle of the night to eat cubes of sugar. Someone called C called CBS over here. Like Johnny. He's so young can't even talk, but he's learning how to climb up into the cupboard and get some sugar. Oh my good. Another big one was Harry Potter and obviously Harry Potter. The author JK Rowling, Rowling is a human turd because of her transphobic. Her work to help her continue work to harm trans people. So someone has shed Harry's uncle and cousin are both described as fat and evil interchangeably. And so I I've never read or watched Harry Potter. She was never interested Me and so I Googled this because I wanted to learn more we have a blog from inside a.com I, I how I introduce Harry Potter to my kids as a fat minute millennial. So I know that people love Harry Potter and it's feels like it's probably like this really magical thing and how to take away the author from this from the stories and the the goodness that is Harry Potter. And also, this author is talking about how to take away the fat, the fat phobia. So this is what she's saying. After being disillusioned by Rowling's Rallings transphobic remarks, I began noticing places where Harry Potter fell short, including the books fat shaming, I have a history of an eating disorder that I'm dealing with in therapy as an adult and I want my kids to be free of diet culture. It's hard to pass on that lesson when I'm reading them as a book series where Rowling repeatedly puts down her fat characters DotEmu and Vernon Dursley are vicious bullies Rubeus Hagrid is overly emotional and dumb. Molly Weasley is controlling and over protective and I'm presuming they're all fat characters. On the very first page of the first book, Vernon is introduced as a villainous, beefy man, Hagrid, one of the good guys is later described as simply too big to be allowed because he is half giant, not a normal wizard. He's also regularly put down for his perceived lack of intelligence. In later chapters do blue. A bully who's very fat and hated exercise is pitted against small and skinny hairy. When Hagrid meets Dudley he jokes about the child not needing any more food and gives him a pig's tail on his fat bottom. Hagrid isn't remorseful about this abuse. In fact, he he meant to turn Dudley completely into a pig. Then we have Molly Weasley, who is pretty much depicted as powerful only in her capacity. As a mother. She first introduced, she's first introduced as the boy's mother, then that then more than once she's referred to as the plump woman. So yeah, so Harry Potter, another another thing that you have to be careful about. And so what this author is saying is that she will point out saying, Is it okay for Hagrid to make fun of that person? Because of their size? Even if that person is mean to them? The answer is no. And I see that, you know, I see this playing out in adults, right? You know, the idea of we can make fun of Trump because of his size, or we can make fun of Trump because of his

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if he has he's an intelligent or he has some sort of mental health issue. And it's like, no, no, we can we can make fun of Trump because he is a an awful human. And the things that he says, are heinous. We don't make fun of the way he looks because we're stooping to, we're stepping to the level of others who make fun of others with the way they look. And we just don't do that. But you know, what we've learned, we've learned from kids that we do, you know, like, I used to always be like, Oh, when I was a kid, I used to always be like, well, if someone says, I'm fat, I can say, well, I can lose weight, but you can't lose. You can't lose ugly. You can't fix that face. Like and that felt so good to me that I could come back to them and say, I might be fat, but you're fucking ugly. And now I'm like, I understand why I'd say that. But I mean, this is you soon the same thing you know. But, but really like what could have young young me done at the time, but like, why are you saying that? That's where you know, you're being very, you know, that's what I did at the time, whatever. Okay, so the next one, and this is one that I remember, I remember it was really egregious and stuck with me for a very long time. And that's Wally. So someone said in my stories, Wally, essentially the world went a shit because all folks or fat folks do is eat and watch TV and are lazy. There's a slight piece that is about this, called pixels. Wally sends the wrong message about oh word and the environment. So quotes Pixar new animated feature Wally is more than a great movie. According to the critics. It's a trash ah, social commentary. New York's David Edelman Stein calls it one for the ages a masterpiece to be saved before or after the end of the world. A sublime work of art, a Oh Scott coos over a cinematic poem of such wit and beauty that its darker implications may take a while to sink in. Even New York Times columnist Frank Rich gets in on the action, lauding the film for being in touch with what troubles America and providing a gentle if gentle, if an unmistakable summons to remake the world before time runs out. So what is this powerful and profound message, Wally tells us, tells us that if we don't change the way that we live, we will all get really fat and destroy the world. The plot begins with the idea that a mega corporation called by and large has essentially taken over the planet and induced so much consumption and waste that humans must escape their dying planet on an enormous space faring cruise ship. Once on board their self destruction destructive tendencies only get worse after 700 years and drift humans have grown to rotate to walk to and too lazy to think it's this cartoon of oops commentary on modern life that so dazzles a critics. Slate Dana Stevens describes a richly detailed satire of contemporary humankind in which the world population is oh word. So fat infantile consumers who spend their days in mobile in hovering lounge chairs, staring at ads on computer screens. In other words, American

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Adelstein sums up in five sum things up in five words. You should see these blobs and they're talking about depictions of fat humans. Continuing let me raise a voice of dissent. Wally is an innovative and visually stunning film but the satire in quotes it draws is simple minded. It plays off the easy analogy between fatness and ecological catastrophe, pushing the notion that Western culture has sickened both our bodies and our planet with the same disease of affluence. According to this lazy logic a fat body stands in for a distended culture. We gain weight and the earth suffers if only society could get off its big, fat ass and go on a diet. But the metaphor only works if you believe familiar myths about fatness. They're weak willed, indolent and stupid. Sure enough, that's how Pixar depicts a future of humanity. The people in Wally drink cupcakes in a cup. They never exercise. And if they happen to fall off their hovering chairs, they'll thrash around like babies until a robot helps them up. They watch TV all day long and can barely read. I mean, that is so much right that and I don't know if it's coming across to you the absolute violence of that, that sequence. I just remember I remember seeing it and I was in my in my dieting. Oh, my goodness, I've just realized that I'm like, I started like, I'm like, comforting myself. I started like hugging my arm and my face because it's so awful. It's so awful. I remember seeing that when I was deep in my dieting days and just being like, Oh my God, yes, I am so close to being that. You know, just so it's egregious. It really is. And it's, it's absolutely it's actually really really sad. It's really sad because I just what I went and what what rewatched a bit of the sequence like five minutes of it. And it's talking about don't get Don't Don't Don't put your stuff in put yourself through that if you're like, Oh, I'm gonna go watch it and you're just, I divide don't because it's really and the way that they animate these these people it's just you can see the vitriol through the animation through the way that the bodies move. You can see that they have put people in fat suits and, and and copied the way that they walk in a fat suit to make the animation look like fat people walking. I mean, ah it's fucked. It's fucked. Don't watch it. It's fucked up. I'm okay, so here's a little bit of a nicer one nicer story. Fucking Wally can suck my flopper debts. Okay, so The Very Hungry Caterpillar. So The Very Hungry Caterpillar, someone said he eats everything in sight and then becomes fat the next day he eats a single leaf and feels better. Someone else had sent me a message and they said, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, especially since Eric Carle, the author illustrator, didn't want the line about it becoming very sick after eating so much the morale moral, moral was supposed to be eat what you need to grow. But the publisher thought it sent the wrong message and forced him to include it. And it's like in every American classroom, yeah, I mean, I read it when I was a kid. And so I found a piece about this,

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about what Eric said the author, so he was interviewed about his experience in 2015, with the Paris Review. And so while the message of The Very Hungry Caterpillar is about growing into the people that we dream of being Karl wanted to deliver another another message. He says, My publisher, world publishing company and I fought bitterly over the stomach ache seen in The Very Hungry Caterpillar, he revealed the caterpillar, you'll recall feasts on Cake, ice cream, salami, pie, cheese, sausage, and so on. He continued. After this banquet, I intended for him to proceed immediately to his metamorphosis, but my publisher insisted that he suffer an episode of nausea first, that some punishment follow who's supposed overeating. This disgusted me he said, honestly, it ran entirely contrary to the message of the book. Carl explained that the publishers were likely concerned about encouraging gluttony but he didn't believe that children should be concerned about such things. That caterpillar is, after all, very hungry, as sometimes we all are, Carl said he has recognized an immense appetite within him and has indulged it and the experience transform it transforms him, betters him, including the punitive stomachache ruined the effect. It compromised the book. I don't recognize childhood. Oh word he stated Pilate plainly. No one should I see children doing what they like which is eating and doing it without the shame or remorse later drilled into them by Judeo Christian ethics. Yes, Eric ha. He was straight size by the way. Ah. Let's like go out to find all the Hungry Caterpillar book books and rip out the page where the caterpillar is sick and eats a leaf and make the story the way it should have been. wouldn't have been a beautiful story if that's the way it was, but they couldn't they knew. publishers like well know what f what F children eat food to help their growing bodies just like a caterpillar needs food to transform into a butterfly. Yeah. I mean, what I read it as a kid, and I personally don't remember the him being sick. So I won't, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't in there. So I wonder if the British version didn't have that. I don't know. It'd be nice if it didn't. No, no. I just remember seeing all the illustrations of the food and just being like, Oh my God, that looks so amazing. Because I was in diet. I was in diet land at that time as a kid, Oh, bless me, and just thinking, Oh, that looks so amazing. So that's kind of cool to hear, but obviously sucks to see the outcome of that. Okay, so other ones trolls, one of the main characters, King Gristle Jr. asks a girl out and immediately goes home and hops on the treadmill. Because he wants to lose 30 pounds in the next eight hours. And this is this is seen a lot. There's a lot of cartoons where when there's a love interest, there's some type of thing happening around food either. I can't eat in front of the date. I need to lose weight before the day or I'm too fat to get a date. Like if there's a day if there's love and the fatness, even if there's not fineness is required for love. Zootopia so, we mentioned this earlier, but a little bit more about this The Sosua Zootopia is about the problems with stereotyping and prejudice while they stereotype and marginalize the fat cheetah, a police officer whose big comedic moment of glory is not is not realizing he has a doughnut lodged under his double chin and his almost exclusively shown as eating in every single scene. Because apparently the defining quality of a fat character in a kid's show is that they consume food nonstop. Hmm. Recently, there was a reboot of Snow White, I think it was made in South Korea originally, I don't know if putting them just in my brain somewhere it might have been picking out and that's a load of bullshit. But so so there was a new depiction of Snow White and I don't know if you remember but because they were calling it and the Seven Dwarfs and and we don't use the word dwarfs anymore, we use the word little people. And what's his name from mosses name from Game of Thrones,

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Tyrion, and the actor's name is Peter Dinklage. He was a little person was like come on now when we still doing this and so it got got that kind of got a little bit of press. But what didn't get as much press is the advertising around it, which was basically what if there was opposed to saying what if Snow White was no longer beautiful? And what if the dwarfs were no longer short? And they showed the beautiful version, which is you know, just the same character and then the ugly version was a fat version of Snow White cocoa, so you know, double double double bigotry in that one. So we've got, you know, fatness and Dawkins talking shit about little people. So yeah, that's fun. The 2015 SpongeBob Movie Sponge Bob out of water includes a scene which to fish go on a date. In the background is a lonely fat fish whose chair breaks as he's gorging on a cheeseburger. Sounds cool. Sounds cool. Other mentions here, Fuller House. Shrek Shrek someone mentioned the Ogres are ugly and therefore fat or Gustus. gloop from Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. Yep, that has stuck with me. That is stuck with me and that song. And yeah, Bluey, which is a cartoon carbs are demonized and banned. It starts to become very body concerned. The Wiggles series two episode 48 is called Anthony has over eaten LazyTown Kung Fu Panda the plot being that he's fat and oh my god, what do you mean a fat person can be a kung fu star. Someone says it perpetuates fat phobic stereotypes, the notion that being fat is somehow somehow funny, but in my opinion, it wasn't too bad. At first, it had a it had a pass until Kung Fu Panda three went all the way. fat phobic like really really bad. Someone else says Adventures of Winnie the Pooh he gets stuck in rabbits door and refused food for days. Monster House is basically the entire plot of the film. So I went and googled, I went and watched the trailer for Monster House. It's a animated film. And I was like, Oh, I'm not seeing the fat failure in there. Is it because there's a there's a fat sidekick. And so I did some searching around and actually so there's a whole tumblr post about it. And it's really egregious, like it's it's getting into Walley territory, and you can't tell it from the trailer. Someone else's Hannah Montana, which is I think any 20 type thing like that this 100% chance is going to be fat phobia dot culture. So when I said the little blue truck, the book calls the mean dump truck, the big fat truck. Total Drama Island cartoon the VAT the fat character is the unintelligent one. The Berenstein Bears is a book about food junk food and exercise SpongeBob if they eat too many Krabby Patties they become instantly fat and then explode. And some people mentioned cartoons, which I think are more aimed at older people which is family guy in the symptoms which I mean another one that traumatized me It was the Simpsons episode where Homer get so fat, he has to wear a moo, moo. And he gets a that bird pecking bird thing to do his work for him because apparently he's so lazy because fat people are so lazy. They don't work and he gets a bird to pick the keys. And then I think the factory blows up or whatever, whatever. It's called a nuclear plant. And I mean, yeah, I Oh, oil. And there's actually a tick tock account called Maya garland and a why a GA R la nd underscore, and she talks about fatphobia, analyzing diet culture. So she talks about all of this, this type of stuff. And so she has like 50 billion different examples, because people are like, you know, show that, tell them to her and she shows them and it's like, Oh, gross.

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So ending here with a little thing that Josie Blanc, shared shoot, Josie made a film called Tales of ordinary fat phobia. It's not a kid's thing. But it's a short film that you can watch. Talking about people's experience with fat phobia link in the show notes, tales of ordinary fat phobia, you can just Google it. And she talks about why this stuff is important. And so she says being reduced to a stereotype of what people see in the media is harmful. It creates bias and contributes to discrimination, especially when that there is one single, single single narrative that is portrayed over and over and over again, growing up the number of times I've heard, but you're not really black, or you're different from the other ones. Like we're just one size fits all. Spoiler alert, we're not got hiccups. We need a true diverse representation on screen. It makes the stories more authentic, which at the end creates better content. And this goes for all groups who are underrepresented black indigenous people of color, LGBTQ plus fat people and disabled people too. And with that, she shares a an image a image, quote, tweet from Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg that says we need diverse representation. Not only so every kid can see themselves as the hero of the story, but so that every kid can understand that other kinds of kids are also the heroes of the story. This is famous Coco. I can't remember who said it. You can't be who you can't see. And I think that is very true and and why it is so joyous when we do see people who look like us, portrayed in positive ways, is just so fucking amazing. Yeah, so saying that, there's end with things that do promote something a little bit better. And actually, this was really hard for me to find shows that a fat positive because there isn't, doesn't seem to be any kind of list. There's like body positive stuff. But there's not explicit fat positive stuff. We do have a list of books about body diversity. And we've got a it's like it's a good number long, it's probably 3030 30 long. But then again, I don't I'm not sure how many are explicitly about fatness. I know some of them are. And so let's go to and have a look. But this piece it says movies and TV shows that promote positive body image for kids. One of the I know I've seen my nibbling watch is seeing the movie. And it showed the characters in it. I mean, they're animals and so are they fat, but there's like an elephant and there's another quote fat animal. And so and there's no isn't there not plot points? And it just shows embrace being brave and singing. So that's one and I think that came out more recently. Okay, so let me give you some more. Oh, actually, this stuff is this is like, really? Is. Okay, so Earth to Luna age four plus, Doc McStuffins four plus, and droids Five plus exploration out of space. Terry, the tomboy scorpion and of Green Gables Spirited Away age nine plus, it's really Spirited Away. I don't know if that's a kids movie what deja age nine plus 23 blasts blast. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Real Women Have Curves age 814 Plus, I don't like the title of that Real Women Have Curves real woman have anything like fucking I hate real women anything? Fuck that. Anyway, so, stare at there are some again, I'm going to have the link for this on the show notes. I mean, none really are explicitly

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fat like this, what the Real Women Have Curves America Ferrera stars in the movie, and it's about coming of age and body image. And America is actually not. She's not fat. She's chubby, you know, but still straight size, you know. And a Green Gables I think that you know, it's a straight size person. Anyway, so I think we're still we're still getting there with kidstuff. And so if you see any really good fat representation, specific, and it's not about how they're fat, and they're overcoming, it's just that they're fat. And they're cool. And oh, that movie came out recently with Disney. I can't remember the name of it. And the there's a character in it strong. Is it called strong, strong kids movie. Movie. It's called Encanto. Oh, my goodness. After for can five minutes is because it's the person is not the main character, there's as a strong woman in it. Who is I guess big. I want to say that they're fat. I think there's a whole there's a whole song as well with them being like I'm strong. And and let me give you the kind of what it is. They say people like it because of its diversity. A good songs. Plot is a Colombian teenage girl has to face a frustration of being the only member of a family without magical powers. Ah, that sounds good. I mean, if I can, if you're a parent, you probably like Yemen. Encanto came out a year ago, we've watched it 75,000 times already, on the off chance that you haven't seen it. And I haven't seen it either, right. But so I don't I can't even say that it's that positive. But I've seen people say that they appreciate that character. Which is which is nice. So go to the shownotes to find all the links for everything. So for the links are links for the book celebrating body diversity and the body positive TV show round up. And off the top of my head sing and Encanto are both movies that we can watch. And, and as well, like Take these with a pinch of salt in regards to body positive because it's probably not fat positive. And also, like, a lot of times people don't know, what is diet culture, they don't. They don't know. And so something that the the, the makers can say this is a body positive thing. Or, or and there can be, you know, diet jokes in there. And it's like, Why No, because they just they don't when people are so steeped in diet culture and fat phobia is everywhere and sometimes we don't know when something is die cultural fatphobia and so we're like, well, we're not egregious ly saying fat people are pieces of shit. But we are laughing about how big their tummies are, you know? So it's like when we're so positive. And so yeah, taken with a pinch of salt. And I think the thing is with, with all of this stuff, it's inevitable that kids all of us are going to be exposed to messages about what body should look like and the fact that fat is bad. And I think what we what we can do to overcome those things is having conversations around this stuff and instilling core values within our our communities. That says that that's not okay so that when younger people do see those messages, they've got that counter message from you. That's consistent in their life because No, that can't be like a one time conversation because I'm telling you that culture and fatphobia are after our brains. And they don't stop at kids, right? And they're going to be there every single day. And so we need to be spreading these values to our communities, our young people as much as possible and talking about it and, and living those values of not judging others for the way that they look and having food freedom mindset and all that type of jazz. So, all right, so again, the shownotes you can find at first fatty.com forward slash 137 and I will see you on the next episode. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Goodbye, fatty. Stay fearless. I'll see you later in a while. The bye

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