Unless you are brand new to this blog, you’re probably aware that over the summer, ABC Family aired a series called Huge. This remarkable series portrayed a diversity of bodies and experiences from the radically size-accepting to the mundane, and did it all in a most unlikely location: a fat camp. Savannah Dooley (with help from her mom, My So-Called Life creator Winnie Holzman) is the the primary force behind Huge’s development and overall amazingness, not to mention being a generally awesome person besides.
Over the weekend, I had the chance to interrogate Savannah about the show. This is the result.
Lesley: Give us a little background on your relationship with size acceptance and body politics, and how this played into the development of Huge.
Savannah: I started reading size acceptance blogs when I was first writing Huge as a movie, in an effort to better understand what it was like to move through the world at a bigger size. I’ve always been roughly the size of an Amber or Chloe– feeling bigger than a girl is supposed to be, dangerously obsessed with my weight, but still with thin-person privilege. I shop at straight-size stores, bullies never targeted me for my weight, no one questions my health from looking at me. So for research I was seeking out weight-related books and articles and blogs, even during the long stretches when I wasn’t actively working on the script, and at the same time I was getting more into feminist blogs for fun (because what’s more fun than analyzing systematic oppression?!) and of course body image and size acceptance issues come up a lot in those spaces. So over the 2-3 years I was working on different drafts of Huge, I was also discovering size acceptance, and the tone of Huge and Will’s character evolved in that direction. Will was always defiant about her size but she became more radical and articulated her views more clearly. I felt a responsibility to give a voice to size acceptance, and as I grew to believe more fully in Will’s stance and her motivations, the character became stronger.
L: Fat people. On television. SO MANY OF THEM. Why? Did you wake up one day and think, “Iâ€m putting a bunch of amazing fat people on TV! In a camp setting, so they will frequently be in varying states of undress! It will BLOW EVERYONE’S MINDS!†Did you plan to create something that overtly confronted what passes for “normal†bodies on TV? How did this happen?
S: A lot of people assume I brought this idea to ABC Family, which makes sense because it’s something I’m passionate about, but it was actually their concept. They found the book and wanted to do an original movie with two girls at weight loss camp. I see how the show looks now and it feels incredibly subversive in the way it shows bodies, but when I first signed on, I didn’t understand yet how kind of mind-blowing it would be. I guess I was protecting myself a bit by not really daring to imagine the finished product, because at that time I had no guarantee it’d be made.
But the idea of the camp setting felt incredible to me because the idea of the token chubby person would be out the window. The characters would by necessity be set apart from each other for other aspects than their size. I’m so sick of people on TV looking homogenous, and not just in terms of size.
L: Exactly. The characters on Huge are individuals. Their size almost ceases to be a factor.
S: Yeah.
L: Speaking for myself, I actually reached a point while watching Huge — and I should note that I don’t watch a lot of other television, which may be related — but it started to seem to me like the people on other shows all looked so… small.
S: Yeah, the difference is striking. I grew up in the 90s and even from then I see a visible difference in how thin, on average, girls are on TV. When I see stuff from the 90s, the actors look big compared to what we’re now used to.
L: Creating that representation is a big deal, for a lot of reasons. The initial response from a great many folks in the fat- and body-acceptance spheres was that this show had to be a fake-out — that it would turn bad at some point and everyone would be magically skinny and get makeovers and live happily-ever-after. This assumption persisted throughout the season, and I’ve heard from a surprising (though small) number of fat-accepting folks that they refuse to watch even now. ABC Family’s marketing has not done much to help this perception. Is it frustrating when people continue to get the wrong idea about Huge, or can you just let that roll off your back?
S: It wasn’t so much frustrating as nerve-wracking. I was afraid of letting people down because I look at media with the same eye. If I had just heard the pitch for Huge I would been prepared for the most worst piece of shlock ever because I’m used to seeing stuff about weight or body image that’s insulting or pandering. So I understood people’s skepticism.
L: Unfortunately, we’re used to being let down. Our expectations are so low. Like, of course, it’s impossible that a show that dares to depict a range of bodily experience could exist. It must be a trap!
S: The end of the story is so often “she finds self-acceptance” and whether that involves weight-loss or not, I think the happy ending of it is often oversimplified. Like, I have to believe the journey toward self acceptance, it has to be earned. It’s a journey that’s really never over completely.
L: Totally. I am fond of saying that self-acceptance is not a destination you reach and then you’re all good forever, just hanging out in self-acceptance land.
S: Yes. Exactly.
L: You’ve said elsewhere that you wouldn’t feel comfortable asking the actors to lose weight to reflect weight loss happening in the story. That’s pretty incredible, especially considering that these actors are already working in an industry that puts enormous emphasis on slenderness as necessary for success. I imagine this approach would also create an atmosphere of acceptance on set, which is probably pretty unusual in the entertainment industry.
S: It makes me sick that people in this industry put so much pressure on actors to lose weight or to stay thin. Especially young actors. It does so much damage. It’s a recipe for an eating disorder. Like their bodies aren’t scrutinized enough already. We made it clear to the actors that just because we were scripting people saying “I lost 5 pounds” didn’t mean we wanted them to lose weight.
I felt a lot of love on set, a lot of mutual admiration and the feeling that we were really proud of the work we were putting out.
L: The fact that not everyone loses weight, and most campers only lose a small amount of weight, is so subversive. Culturally, we tend to assume that fat people just need to get off the proverbial couch or put down the proverbial donut (or both) and the weight will fall off their bodies like magic, which is so far from reality.
S: I think it’s because we’ve gotten used to seeing weight loss in the context of dramatic “before” and “after” images, in ads or in makeover shows. It’s not like you go into camp fat and come out thin. Losing a ton of weight really fast isn’t healthy anyway. And yeah, I love how people assume a fat person isn’t currently trying or has never tried to lose weight, when so many people spend their lives obsessing over how to lose weight.
I was interviewing someone who went to camp and he told me a friend of his had only lost one or two pounds. I was like “I have to use that.” Imagine how that feels, you spend all this money on camp and there’s this expectation, and then it’s just two pounds.
L: Yeah, my own dieting days were riddled with one- or two-pound losses over months of restriction. And when you’re convinced you have fifty or a hundred more to go, it is incredibly demoralizing and painful.
I read somewhere, or saw an interview with a cast member (I’ve consumed so much Huge-related media, it’s a blur) who was asked about losing weight while on the show, and they said something to the effect of: when you see us running up a hill, we really are running up a hill, and probably doing it for multiple takes! And still the season did not end with all the actors stick thin. This itself is quite contrary to the expected outcome.
S: Yeah.
L: And personally, I so love seeing fat people be active. Because it’s not something you see, unless it’s on The Biggest Loser and Jillian Michaels is threatening them and they’re crying.
S: That was something that actually never occurred to me– I saw people very appreciative that some of the characters liked sports, and I realized I hadn’t even thought about the fact that you rarely see active fat characters.
L: You never do! The fact that Trent was portrayed as a jock — a sad jock, but a jock nevertheless — was astonishing.
S: “Sad Jock” is Trent’s autobiography.
L: Chloe’s is “Big Earrings”.
S: “Earrings as big as her heart.”
L: Huge is incredibly queer in ways both overt and encoded. Alistair is the obvious star of the queer show here, and his identity is handled with an unexpectedly light touch, without the typical emphasis on shoving him into an easily-marked box: he won’t simply tell us he’s “the gay character†or “the trans characterâ€, etc.. I’ve read many comments across many blogs from folks who are wildly confused about how to identify Alistair’s character, both in terms of his gender identity and his sexuality. I think this is fantastic, as I love stuff that upends people’s ability to think about these subjects in straight lines (pun intended). Was his character imagined specifically for this purpose, or did he just evolve this way?
S: I always knew I wanted the character to be really ambiguous. Well, I wanted two things. To reveal Alistair’s queerness slowly, in pieces, and for him to resist being labeled. I was that way as a teenager. And I guess I still am.
L: That kind of ambiguity is so rare in television; I know a lot of folks were almost in denial that it was really happening. We get so accustomed to hunting down scraps of queerness whereever we can find them, so have something so quiet and subtle but so clear was totally unexpected.
S: I know exactly what you mean about hunting for scraps. And reading queerness into things where it wasn’t intended. Or where it was intended but incredibly watered down.
L: Queerness in TV is either completely under the radar, or we’re beaten over the head with it. Huge is unique in that it actually presents it in a very real way.
S: Thanks! I wanted to let people get to know the character before getting into his sexuality so that wouldn’t seem like his primary trait.
L: That was really, really clever. As it stands, a lot of people fell in love with Alistair as an individual before he could be pigeonholed.
S: He’s dangerously adorable.
L: Another queer character is Poppy, (who explains to George that she identifies as asexual). I’m pretty sure Poppy is the first out asexual character in the history of television! That was such an amazing thing, to hear someone use the term “asexual†in a value-free context.
S: My mom and I both thought it was an interesting trait to give someone. And I had seen this YouTube video of this asexual girl describing her experience of asexuality and she had this nerdy earnestness that was Poppy-ish. I resisted making one of the campers asexual because that’s already sort of ascribed to fat people in a negative way.
L: It is! Which actually segues into my next question! I’ve long argued in favor of the notion that fatness has a queering effect on bodies, mostly because fat bodies are culturally marked as anti-sexual, and because any attraction to a fat body is considered deviant and unnatural. Since we have no “normal†way of relating to fat bodies in a sexual way, any sexuality applied to them, even if it’s hetero, tends to be a bit queer. Huge doesn’t shy away from making its characters be physical (and emotional) with each other in very raw and honest ways, and I think this creates an atmosphere in which pretty much all the characters could be read as queer at one point or another. Was there a plan in using the characters’ (and actors’) bodies to make this series extra extra queer, or was it just a happy coincidence?
S: I’d actually never thought of fat bodies as a type of queerness before I read your writing… this is a really interesting question. I do like to use bodies, gestures like reaching out to touch someone… or now I’m thinking of the beat in Spirit Quest where Trent is shirtless and sees Alistair looking at him… It’s definitely influenced by my queerness but it’s also rooted in their being teenagers and how aware you are of your body at that age. I guess that’s also heightened when you’re struggling with being bigger or just feeling like it.
L: In the recap comments, I swear, every single character was indentified as queer at some point. Possibly excepting George.
S: That makes sense. Maybe every character IS queer. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Queers.
L: MARVELOUS. Your point of being hyper-aware of your body at that age is really critical, though. So often in teenager-centric shows, everyone acts like they’re in their thirties and there’s no uncertainty about their physical bodies. But at that age, that awareness is real and omnipresent.
S: You’re right. They hardly ever seem awkward.
L: Whenever we saw various campers engaging in body-checking, it was a little like a knife in my gut, because I remember scrutinizing my body like that.
S: Me too. That was my biggest hobby as a teenager. We wanted to get at that real, horrible awkwardness.
L: I’m trying really hard to get through this whole interview without referencing My So-Called Life but I have FAILED because that commitment to awkwardness was one of the things that has made MSCL a legendary series.
S: Totally! That’s one of the things I love about it.
L: And I haven’t seen it on TV since then! Which is partly why I fell so in love with Huge.
S: My mom and I were both painfully self conscious growing up, that’s probably we write that way.
L: I want to talk a bit about Huge’s portrayal of eating disorders. Dr. Rand attends Overeaters Anonymous meetings throughout the series, and following the final episode there was a post on the Huge website that outed Amber, of the many ritualistic eating habits, as specifically having anorexia — I’m not sure if this is canon. Caitlin, in the first episode, gets booted from camp for purging, and there may be other campers, male and female, with unspecified eating issues, alongside campers whose relationships with food are relatively normal. This is very different from the standard portrayal of all fat people as necessarily food-obsessed, and of eating-disordered people as skinny white women surrounded by people who are worried about them and want to help.
S: I don’t think of Amber as anorexic per se but I do think of her as eating-disordered, or at least headed down a dark path.
L: I was startled to see her pinpointed as “anorexic”, as my impression was the same; she might be headed that way but she isn’t totally there yet.
Caitlin’s fate was especially moving, as it speaks to the sad fact that eating disorders are not always greeted with loving hair-strokes and sympathy, but that often they are as shameful to the people witnessing them as they are to the people suffering from them.
S: The Caitlin story was based on something that happened at a camp I went to, where a girl was sent home. It really shook me up, and it was so upsetting because it felt to me like she was being punished instead of helped. I wanted to capture the feeling of being a kid and being powerless and suddenly realizing someone you thought you knew has this deep problem… that’s why I was militant about not tipping off Caitlin’s secret [in the episode].
L: The event in the show was deeply upsetting! I was actually in denial that Caitlin wouldn’t be back. Her character was so complete and felt so permanent, I was sure she was a regular cast member. So when she disappeared I honestly felt let down!
S: We love her. That actress Molly Tarlov, is brilliant. She and I went to college together but didn’t really know each other til she came in to audition. Ashley Holliday, Chloe, was in my high school class.
L: One of my Twitter followers wanted to know about the auditions process, “How did you find all these actors?” I think people assume fat actors are on a level with unicorns in terms of rarity.
S: They are not totally wrong about that. It was a small casting pool. so small that we opened up a nationwide open call. The trick was finding actors who were really good in a certain style, and who looked the right age. And for Amber, there was sort of a window of the size she could be, because she had to be smaller than the other girls but bigger than the girl we’re used to seeing on TV.
L: Okay. So, I have had my problems with Amber throughout the season, and then we get to the last two episodes and we meet her mom. This woman is a distinctive (and upsetting!) force of personality. She unpredictably vacillates between bubbly and terrifying in seconds, and is clearly abusive toward Amber even though it’s not a form of abuse many people tend to immediately recognize, insofar as not manifesting as physical violence. Her influence makes Amber’s personality and behavior much more clear, but it was a gigantic risk to hold back this reveal until the last two episodes!
S: I didn’t see it as a risk… if we come back there are giant secrets we still haven’t revealed!
L: I think I saw it as risky because I wanted to like all of these characters so much, and Amber made it difficult!
S: Yeah, I love Teal. As in, she feels so much like a real, terrifying person you’ve met.
L: She IS. And the actress who plays her is incredible.
S: I get you. A lot of people like Amber more than Will, though!
L: I know! They have told me so in comments to my recaps. But with Amber, it was almost as if I felt slightly guilty — like we meet her mom and I realize, OH! Wow. Okay. I get it now.
S: Yeah, I see that too. I loved the idea of Parents Weekend and having a few moments like that — because that’s something I remember about being a kid, when you get to know someone and them see them in the context of their parents, and suddenly understand something more about them. I guess that’s true for adults too. But you realize Amber still has to live with her mom and Ian with his parents and all that.
L: Part of what consistently amazed me about how the characters developed was that… we’re used to meeting a character, particularly in a TV format, and then being given all the pertinent information about them right away. Huge was positively stingy with everyone’s backgrounds and complexities, revealing them slowly, just like it happens when you meet someone in real life. Dr. Rand is probably the most dramatic example of this. So we meet them, and we make assumptions, and then ten episodes later we realize they’re nothing like we thought they were at first blush. That is SO incredibly true to life, it’s mind-boggling.
S: Yeah, that’s the kind of storytelling I like in general, and I was trying to get at the unique aspects and feelings of being at camp. We were even more stingy than you know, there is stuff we never got to revealing.
L: By the end of the series, almost every single character — with the possible exception of Shay, though that could be my anti-Jillian-Michaels rage talking — has demonstrated redeeming qualities and faults in equal measures, even characters I never thought I could forgive. Still: do you have a favorite character, or a character you’re most proud of, or a character you relate to most?
S: This is a totally boring answer, but the truth is I love writing and watching all these characters for different reasons. I’ve said I am most like Becca or Will, but I relate to all of them. I feel like they’re all different parts of me. I’m talking more about the kids here than Shay, Salty and Rand, who my mom writes more of.
With Will I can let myself come out in an unfiltered way sometimes. Like “I’m a rage-filled donut right now!” That’s just writing what I would say.
L: “Rage-filled donut” is seriously one of my favorite expressions from the show.
S: WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED? Will should have a Fat Satan shirt.
L: She totally should! Or a shirt with two whole cakes on it. Or a gnome.
S: I had a shirt that said Hurry Up The Cakes.
L: Okay, before we finish up, I have a few quick questions from some of my Twitter followers:. @JonelB asks: Was there anything the network wanted you to do that you disagreed with as far as the direction of the show?
S: I’m happy to say that was never the case. You rarely hear this about a network, but they’ve really let us be free creatively.
L: @SabrinaSpiher says: I want her thoughts on Huge’s “eating cookies when you’re sad is bad” policy. (Cuz my policy is, “sometimes cookies help.”)
S: No one loves cookies more than me. In fact, I am eating a fresh baked plate of them right now! Seriously, I’m not making that up.
L: …Some of your best friends are cookies? Is that what you’re saying?
S: Haha! Dr. Rand’s issue with the cookies is she’s an overeater. She’s abstinent from sugar. For her they’re an emotional threat. For Ian and Amber, the cookies represent this setback on their way to being thin… if Will or Trent encountered the cookies, it’s not the same loaded threat to them.
L: Fair enough. I think some folks took issue with the suggestion — intentional or not — that all emotionally-driven eating is bad.
S: I definitely didn’t intend that. For Amber and Ian, I don’t see either of them as compulsive overeaters, for whom eating emotionally can spiral out of control. But they are doing what they’re taught is the right thing. To not give in to temptation.
L: @nicolelorenz inquires: What TV shows, movies, and/or books have been most influential for you as a writer?
S: The movie that made me fall in love with movies was about a fat kid actually. Angus from 1994. It’s all about being different and I could obviously relate to that even as a little kid. I’m also a big Cameron Crowe fan. As for TV, My So-Called Life and Sex and the City might be my two biggest influences. That’s an odd pairing. Also I gotta give a shout out to the original camp show, Salute Your Shorts. I grew up on those old Nickelodeon shows that were so weird and smart.
L: Finally, because people are dying to know: is there any word yet on a second season? If a second season happens, where do you see the show going next? (The answer had better include Will and Ian making out.)
S: How about Ian and the new chef, Lesley Kinzel, making out?
L: I AM DEAD NOW. I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY. I could probably clear my schedule enough to make that happen. You know. If the public demanded it.
S: We still haven’t heard word about coming back. But I’m dying to go back because I feel like we left each of the characters poised at a turning point. I’m afraid I CAN’T REVEAL the SHOCKING TWISTS we’ve schemed up… you’ll just have to write some fanfic.
—
Huge’s future continues to be unclear. If you want to help ensure a speedy return, please let ABC Family know you want more fat on your television by contacting them directly:
Send an email through the ABC Family feedback form letting them know how much you dig the show, and that you want a second season.
Hit ABC Family with your Twitter-based demands for more Huge at @ABCFHuge and at @ABCFamily. Or give them a shout on the Huge Facebook page.
Send a dump truck of mini-muffins to ABC Family’s physical address at:
ABC Family
500 South Buena Vista St.
Burbank, CA 91521-6078
5lbs and 30%: Welcome to the defiant absurdity of the diet-drug industry.
By Lesley | September 16, 2010
It is generally not my wont to comment on studies and statistics, simply because I don’t put a lot of stock in them. This skepticism goes both ways, in fact. I may well be able to counter any anti-fat number with a pro-fat or at least fat-neutral one, but dismissing one set of numbers with another isn’t my idea of a productive conversation. The reality is that the vast majority of studies done on fatness and weight loss are paid for by corporations and organizations with a vested interest in the outcome, and thus, their science is rarely, if ever, totally objective and wholly pure, untainted by expectation, bias, or outright lying. When you know you’re likely to lose your funding (and possibly your job) if your work fails to find a certain result, the motivation to make that result happen, even by tiny tweaks of data, is unsurprising.
More than that, as I’ve recently noted in my post on public health, I believe these statistics are of limited use to the non-medical public. You and I aren’t concerned with a population; we’re concerned with ourselves, our own health, our own lives. The overuse of these statistics — and their misleading representation in news media — has contributed to a culture in which assigning blame to certain individuals for the ills of a nation is considered rational behavior. However, one individual fat person is not millions of fat people; neither are millions of fat people a monolith of identical behavior and health.
That having been said, yesterday evening I found myself reading an article posted on MSNBC.com with regard to the tenuous Food and Drug Administration (FDA) status of weight-loss pill Meridia. The short version is that a recent study found an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes (and related deaths) amongst folks with pre-existing heart conditions who were also taking Meridia. Regulators have already yanked Meridia in Europe on this basis, and so the FDA convened a panel and threw down a vote on whether Meridia ought to be pulled from the market. The vote resulted in a tie, leaving the drug’s future unclear.
The FDA’s reluctance to condemn Meridia is somewhat understandable, considering there are only three prescription drugs currently approved by the FDA. They are: Orlistat (also known as Xenical, and available over the counter as Alli), phentermine, and Meridia, of the dubious future. All three of these drugs operate in different ways.
Orlistat/Xenical/Alli is a “fat absorption inhibitorâ€. For the handful of you unfamiliar with the hilarity and horrors associated with this drug, please understand that the common side effects include:
“oily spotting in your undergarments; oily or fatty stools; orange or brown colored oil in your stool; gas with discharge [I believe the formal term for this is “shartâ€. – L.], an oily discharge; loose stools, or an urgent need to go to the bathroom, inability to control bowel movements; an increased number of bowel movements…â€
You got it, folks: not only will it make you shit your pants, but the shit will be of an unusually disgusting quality, even by shit’s low standards. But don’t worry! These “are actually signs that the medication is working properlyâ€!
Phentermine is best known as the “phen†in phen-fen, the popular off-label diet-pill cocktail that caused permanent damage to some folks’ heart valves, and at least one death. The plug got pulled on phen-fen when fenfluramine, also known as Redux, took the bullet for the heart-valve issues and was removed from the market in 1997. Turns out even less-fat people still need functional heart valves! Phentermine was determined to be an innocent bystander in the heart-valve incidents, although — mysteriously — its possible side effects include high blood pressure, tachycardia, and palpitations. Phentermine continues to be in use as a diet drug for its “stimulant†effects, filling the slot left behind by the dangerous amphetamines used by millions of women in the 50s and 60s for weight loss.
Finally, we come back to Meridia, which futzes with your brain chemistry and carries the banner of “appetite suppressantâ€, though apparently it doesn’t work all that well. Says the MSNBC article of Meridia’s effectiveness and the study that has caused its uncertain future:
The study was designed to show that weight loss with Meridia led to improved outcomes for patients with heart disease, diabetes or both. Because the study failed to show those benefits, some panelists questioned the rationale for keeping it on the market, considering its modest weight loss benefits. On average, patients lost 5 pounds while taking the drug and about 30 percent of patients achieved lasting weight loss while on the drug.
This was where I started laughing uncontrollably.
The FDA is debating the merits of a drug in which the expected outcome is a net loss of 5 pounds, and seventy percent of the people who do lose weight — FIVE! WHOLE! POUNDS! — while using Meridia will gain it back. How about Orlistat/Xenical? Those odds must be better, right? Maybe, but not by much: Orlistat is recommended to be taken for six months to a year, and according to several studies, the average loss experienced over the course of its use is 12.4 to 13.4 pounds. I couldn’t even find an average expected weight loss with phentermine on a reputable site; one Korean study found an average loss of about 5 pounds per month, which would be an improvement over Orlistat and Meridia, except phentermine carries a risk of being habit-forming and — in the US, anyway — is only recommended to be used for a few weeks, and certainly not long-term. Add in the possibility that the weight-loss numbers may in fact be inflated, and, well, the whole situation becomes absurd.
Ultimately, what we have here is a selection of three drugs whose weight-loss efficacy is laughably pathetic, and in exchange for a few short-term pounds lost you get some horrifying side effects and possible long-term health consequences. How can it be that these drugs are continuing to be prescribed and used, when their usefulness is so limited, even according to the statistics put out by the manufacturers themselves?
The reason is because weight loss is a business, and a singularly profitable one at that. As of 2008, it has been estimated that the US spends between $33 and $55 billion dollars on weight loss “products and services†annually. (For reference, the entire US fashion industry had a revenue of about $14 billion dollars last year.) In the US, the marketing and sale of weight loss drugs — like all diets, in fact — intentionally exploits our cultural investment in the power of the individual by encouraging folks to believe that even if the statistics are against you, you are going to be one of the few lucky ones to succeed where everyone else has failed. Because you are special, and all those other people were doing it wrong. Because you want it more than they did. Because you deserve it.
They lie. They lie because the companies that manufacture weight loss drugs are after profits; they don’t give a single solitary oily pants-poop about your health. Following the FDA panel vote to decide Meridia’s future, one panelist who voted in favor of keeping Meridia on the market said:
“I think that just because we didn’t measure the benefits scientifically doesn’t mean they don’t exist,†said Dr. Jessica Henderson of Western Oregon University. “I don’t think a consumer’s right to have that treatment should be taken away just because the scientists didn’t do their job.â€
I could argue for the existence of Bigfoot using this same logic.* The benefits might exist! We just have to believe in them! (Clap your hands!) Beyond being a really terrible quote which I’m sure Dr. Henderson will shortly regret, this is a clear acknowledgement that the scientists running this study were tacitly charged with the task of producing a specific, predetermined result — in this case, to prove that Meridia improves the cardiac health of the people who take it — and not to make an objective assessment as to the overall safety and effectiveness of the drug. This missing result was expected because it would help Abbott Laboratories — the scientists’ employer! — sell more pills; if the scientists failed to produce the expected proof, the mistake is on their part, regardless of whether their findings are actually true.
And this is why I don’t trust statistics and studies without investigating their origins, kids. There’s a monumental chasm between a scientific inquiry driven by curiosity and one driven by profit. Know how to spot the difference.
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* Or, because you can’t prove that I don’t have a pet unicorn named Glitterbum, I might have a pet unicorn named Glitterbum.
My husband hates Lady Gaga.
It’s true. My husband fails to recognize Lady Gaga in the way that I do, and by extension he fails to comprehend my affection for her. This is a conversation we have ceased to have, as it can no longer take place in a constructive or illuminating way, but it rather automatically devolves into each of us working to see who can dig their heels in further. My husband sees Gaga as a shallow and privileged pop star, only of use to anyone as a saleable commodity by which a profit can be made, and thus completely lacking in art or any worthwhile contribution to culture or society. This may be true, in whole or in part, but even given that, I see Gaga as, well… one of us. Someone familiar. The difference in perception between my husband and myself stems from our difference of experience: though we both have grown up and spent our lives as part of certain subcultures, only I embraced an outsider status as a part of my identity, whereas my husband was and is more likely to participate as a “normal” person in the mainstream. And that’s fine; no one should feel compelled to adopt an identity that they have not freely chosen. But for me, my being an outsider has been a critical part of my understanding of myself, and how I engage the world.
To some extent, that’s what drives me as an activist: I have spent most of life, in various capacities, refusing to submit to cultural expectations and pressure, and I am compelled to look back at folks coming up the same hill behind me, and I want to help them along, in whatever way I can. That’s why I write the things I write; that’s why I dress the way I dress; that’s why I live as an uppity fatty, a noisy obstacle to the calm and quiet assertion that my body — and your body, and anyone’s body — is not good enough, is unacceptable, is something that only inspires shame and disgust. My life, my activism is about bringing a critical opposing viewpoint to what tiny part of mainstream culture I can reach.
In an article for this week’s Sunday Times Magazine, Camille Paglia accuses Lady Gaga, cultural figure, of a lot of unpleasant things, most dramatically of being a harbinger of “the death of sex,†apparently because Gaga does not strike her as being very sexy. Paglia points out that Gaga herself has called her persona “a lie†and then alerts us to its manufactured origins, like it’s big news that ought to surprise and betray us. Paglia complains bitterly about Gaga’s “limited range of facial expressions†and calls her “asexual†with a distinct air of judgment, such that we are made to understand that this is a bad thing to be. Further, in what is possibly the quote that most clearly illustrates Paglia’s strange take, she states:
…despite showing acres of pallid flesh in the fetish-bondage garb of urban prostitution, Gaga isn’t sexy at all – she’s like a gangly marionette or plasticised android. How could a figure so calculated and artificial, so clinical and strangely antiseptic, so stripped of genuine eroticism have become the icon of her generation?
Shall we ignore the mammoth assumptions therein, that sexiness is a universal concept, that women are primarily and exclusively supposed to be interested in being sexy according to established standards, and that “calculated and artificialâ€, “clinical and strangely antiseptic†are inaccurate terms with which to describe sexual appeal in the age of Real Dolls and the epidemic and deranged abuse of Photoshop? Just for a moment?
Paglia tries to take Gaga apart to show us that there’s nothing there, but even her efforts demonstrate that if there is a void at the center of Gaga’s mystique, it’s practically inaccessible within her matryoshka-like layers of meaning and artifice. Among Paglia’s assertions: Lady Gaga rips off Madonna but comparisons with Madonna are nevertheless inappropriate; Lady Gaga openly states that her Gaga persona is a crafted performance, but we are supposed to believe this is a terrible secret she hides; Lady Gaga can’t sing, except she can; Gaga’s songs are “insipid†“nursery-rhyme nonsense†while Madonna’s superior “Burning Up†was “shocking†and “hypnoticâ€. Wait, what?*
Paglia’s criticisms of Gaga as The Anti-Sex are exactly what make Gaga so compelling to an audience comprised equally of those who love her and those who love to hate her, or at least, who love to be discomfited by her. Gender is a performance. Sexuality? Is also a performance. When framed as performance, these things are flexible, intangible, even terrifyingly abstract. How can a woman so naked fail to reliably invoke massive boners in the pants of straight men? What is going on? Gaga is not sexy in any way we know how to recognize, and where this may be off-putting to a world of Paglias, to an audience of outsiders, it can be incredibly liberating. Gaga — and I would argue that whether this is intentional on her part is irrelevant given its real cultural effects — is reproducing, and reproducing and reproducing, an extreme postmodern endgame in which our growing investment in social narcissism and arbitrary standards of carbon-copy “sexiness†is played out over and over. She is showing us our inauthentic selves, our cultural obsession with fitting in and getting along, and she is telling us that the pursuit of perfection may not matter as much as finding a way of living and presenting ourselves that feels good, and gratifying, and interesting, and right. Even if people stare. Because people stare.
At her first win of the MTV Video Music Awards last night, Gaga asserted, “Tonight… we’re the cool kids at the party.†This wasn’t the observation of a soul in torment. Indeed, its delivery reads more like the wobbly validation of a once-insecure teenage girl who just wants to be loved and appreciated for being different, instead of for being the same. Paglia argues that Gaga is a fraud and a sham who is unjustly exploiting the experiences of otherwise ignored and silenced outsiders for financial and personal gain. In so doing, Paglia implies that, somehow, being raised in an atmosphere of comfort and privilege means one cannot possibly feel like an outsider in a culturally and socially mainstreamed environment; that attending private school and managing to survive life as a brunette with “glowing†skin invalidates any right Gaga may have to an outsider identity.** But you can’t always tell the people that feel the most isolated by looking at them — certainly, they are often the folks working hardest at fitting in, for protection; for survival. Being privileged — as Lady Gaga in her first life as Stephani Germanotta most certainly was, and as Lady Gaga continues to be — does not automatically result in feeling entirely at home in the world, though it can certainly make subverting a culture that feels uncomfortable or oppressive much, much easier.
To this end, at Lollapalooza last month, Gaga began her show with the announcement: “My name is Lady Gaga. I thank you for coming to my show. I didn’t used to be brave. In fact I wasn’t very brave at all… But you have made me brave, little monsters. So now I’m going to be brave for you.†Whether this is a true statement or not is of no real importance. The authenticity of Gaga’s “right†to identify as a freakish misfit — so important to Paglia — is irrelevant to millions of her fans. She speaks to them, and stands up for them, and her high-profile support is precious to those who’ve spent years not knowing whether anyone had their back, those who have grown up in families and towns that reject queers and misfits, that punish and isolate those who are different.
Lady Gaga’s failure to be sexy is not the end of sex, nor is it even a problem. It is, rather, a development long overdue. For years, female pop stars from Madonna to Christina Aguilera have been taken to task for daring to portray themselves — on occasion, and always mitigated by a return to sanity — in ways that are not pretty or sexually-available in a pleasantly passive and heteronormative way. These criticisms are based on the idea that by masking their “natural†beauty, these women are somehow wasting it, and they owe us their beauty, don’t they? What are they for, if not to satisfy a cultural need for sexual role models for straight women and sexual fantasy objects for straight men? This is rarely said of Gaga, who has managed to remove herself from that conversation by stubbornly being too weird — and too queer — to be sexually attractive in any predictable, mainstream way.
Lady Gaga doesn’t have to be a tortured soul for us to appreciate her unflagging efforts to support a community of outsiders by giving them a spotlight and a broadly-inclusive banner under which to march. A fan’s connection with Lady Gaga isn’t just about their knowing that she ostensibly understands them; it includes membership in a vast army of like-minded people, an antidote to isolation. Distant, and yet omnipresent, Gaga is their benevolent commander-in-chief, a radical force of acceptance; she wants to you to be yourself, and she loves you just the way you are. This is something everyone wants to hear, in a world that continuously informs us that we are never good enough. Does she profit by it? Of course. But her profit does not eclipse the positive effect Lady Gaga has had on millions of her fans, as a figure representing courage in the face of cultural pressure to be “normal”.
If there is an injustice about this, it is that such a figure is necessary.
—
* I wouldn’t debate the point that “Burning Up†was a pivotal moment in pop music, but to position it as musically and lyrically superior to Gaga’s songs is… frankly, fucking hilarious. It’s pop music, not a bloody symphony; its only measure of “greatness†is how many days it remains stuck in your head after you’ve heard it.
** By this logic, she may well argue that slim women can never have eating disorders or body issues.
It’s Friday! That means it’s playlist time. Since I didn’t get to do one last week — what with prepping to fly cross-country to attend 48 hours’ worth of PAX — this week’s playlist has a few additional tracks.
When you’re done here, for your further listening pleasure, there is also a new Fatcast available.
1. “Yr Mangled Heart” // Gossip. This first time I heard Gossip was right before Movement came out. The sound was spare, practically unfinished — it was completely different from any of the music I was listening to at the time, and yet there was something irresistibly compelling about it. It made my chest hurt; it still does. “Yr Mangled Heart” is off the followup to Movement, and it maintains that original rawness while being a bit more accessible.
2. “Cold War” // Janelle Monae. This woman should be the queen of the pop-music world right now. The ArchAndroid is brilliant through and through with the small exception of the collaboration with Of Montreal; I actually find that track unlistenable. But I blame Of Montreal for that, as Janelle Monae is clearly brilliant on her own. Monae is currently one of Elle magazine’s “25 Women at 25″ to, like, watch out for or whatever, and they ID Monae as a “Diddy protege” which is really annoying. This woman does not need help from anyone to be talented.
3. “Hounds of Love” // Kate Bush. Whenever Kate Bush comes on shuffle in the car, my husband slowly shakes his head and says, dubiously: “Craaaazy Kate Bush.” Nobody sounds like her. This is good or bad depending on your taste.
4. “Leeds United” // Amanda Palmer. Too soon? This woman has made some truly boneheaded comments and been guilty of a few really problematic artistic choices of late, and we likely would have been saved from all of them if she weren’t so ferociously representing herself in the marketplace, and had handlers and PR people to tell her no. I’ve been very nearly ruined on her more than once but my endless faith in people keeps me hoping that some part of her is listening. Because she really is a grand performer.
5. “Mowgli’s Road” // Marina & The Diamonds. The album whence this song is taken has not left my daily rotation in months.
6. “Destroy Everything You Touch” // Ladytron. Arguably the finest Ladytron track ever. I can almost be okay with the death of old-school synthpop so long as Ladytron keeps making music.
7. “Edge of Seventeen” // Stevie Nicks. I have a lifelong fascination with Stevie Nicks; I remember finding Rumours amongst the vinyl in my childhood home and being mesmerized just by the cover photo. Nicks sort of encapsulated a perfect mixture of badassery-in-elaborate-dresses for me. “Edge of Seventeen” is a classic.
8. “100 Games of Solitaire” // Concrete Blonde. What can I possibly say about this band? They were critical to my teenage years; this song in particular spoke — and continues to speak — to my tendency toward solitude, and particularly my love of solo long-distance driving, something I get to do very little of now.
Your Playstation Made You Fat, and other reductive narratives: Our problem with public health
By Lesley | September 9, 2010
Click the above image to embiggen.
Reading my RSS feeds yesterday, I ran across a post on Kotaku — of all places — about the winner of a design contest by Let’s Move, Michelle Obama’s campaign against “childhood obesity”. The challenge was to design an infographic enumerating the — oh, I don’t know y’all, I guess some of the stuff that’s happened at the same time that childhood obesity rates have gone up, along with some of the stuff being done to make those rates go back down again. Kotaku picked up on it because one of the things that happened, and which is noted on the chart, was the release of the Sony Playstation. The design of the graphic is pretty swell, I’ll admit, but I’m a little amused at how some events are linked to the enfattening of the childrens while others are not. Why isn’t the purple-tinged rise to power of Barney the fat purple dinosaur included? Barney totally promotes obesity — have you seen his rear end? — and kids love him. The first “successful†mall food court is worth noting on the chart, but the disappearance of the Pogo Ball, a popular 1980s child-torture device, from toy store shelves nationwide is not. Possibly most egregiously, why does the Playstation get a mention but the original Nintendo Entertainment System does not? While the Playstation was a worthy landmark in the evolution of video games as a legitimate form of media — pardon me, I mean as THE SCOURGE OF HUMANITY — I tend to think the NES was really the beginning of widespread home video-gaming.*
I digress.
I know it’s just a pithy representation of information that most folks couldn’t be arsed to read without some graphical interest to draw their attention, and of course it’d focus on the favored scapegoats of soda, television, and video games as causing the downfall of our great civilization. But what I really want to discuss here is not the legitimacy of the cultural landmarks that may or may not have anything to do with anything. Rather, I want to discuss our often-inappropriate use of public health information to condemn individuals.
To begin, let’s define our terms: public health, as used here and in lots of other places, refers to the study and analysis of statistical trends across populations, and the creation of social solutions to large-scale problems. For example, the now-discontinued use of lead paint in residential households was a public health issue. Once it was discovered that the lead in this paint could be ingested by children and cause serious health consequences, there was an institutional response which included education of the public (which is why we all know lead paint is bad today) and consumer regulation (which is why lead paint is no longer used on toys, furniture, or for other household purposes).
I’ve intentionally used the lead-paint example because it lacks a moral component, as many other public health issues are prone to do, while illustrating how public health initiatives are supposed to work. A problem is discovered, researched, and addressed, all on a macro scale. Lead paint was nobody’s responsibility and nobody’s fault, the many decades of lawsuits against the lead industry notwithstanding; it was rather an unfortunate outcome of a lack of knowledge about the health effects of the substance.
That said, when we apply public health to issues that do have established social and moral aspects, things get murkier. It is — and this should come as a surprise to no one — remarkably difficult to constructively discuss broad generalizations of statistical trends without also, intentionally or not, imposing those trends on one’s personal lived experience, where they may not actually be true or appropriate. For example: along with the Playstation, the graphic above places emphasis on soda consumption as a cause of fatness. Have some fat kids played video games and imbibed Coca-Cola? Certainly. Have they all? Absolutely not. Just like your one “overweight†friend is not representative of “the obesity epidemicâ€, one fat child is not representative of every single social trend that may be contributing to increased rates of childhood obesity.
Public health must be studied and addressed; work in this field is why such tremendous life-saving advances like vaccination programs and sewage systems exist. The problem is that, culturally, we have somehow lost the plot that public health does not attempt to address individual health issues, but looks at the population as a whole for the purposes of developing preventative measures — like vaccines and sewage-free water and uncontaminated food supplies — to curtail the spread of disease. Generalizations and categorizations are fine with when discussing the lives and habits of millions of people, but often fail when applied to individuals, because that is not what they’re for.
Furthermore, when public health approaches run up against the prevailing conventional wisdom that the “disease†in question is the personal responsibility of the person enduring it — unlike polio or cholera or cancer — then the conversation, and the cultural response, takes a darker turn. We have seen this before; public health warnings can easily stir up hysteria over the issue at hand and create or worsen existing cultural loathing of their sufferers. When HIV/AIDS was first identified as a public health issue in the early 1980s, it seemed to be primarily affecting men who had been involved in homosexual relationships, which led to its originally being called GRID, which stood for “Gay-related immune deficiency†— as though there were some measurable physical difference between people engaging in gay sex that would make them susceptible to a disease to which straight folk were immune. Because the identifiable trend was amongst gay men, two ideas emerged in the cultural consciousness: one, that it could only affect gay men, and two, that all gay men were potential vectors of the disease. These assumptions led to a lot of extreme homophobia that persists to this day, even in light of conclusive evidence that casual contact cannot result in infection, and that HIV/AIDS can, in fact, affect people who are not gay. Anecdotally, I was a kid during the HIV/AIDS hysteria, and I vividly remember feeling a little afraid of gay people, while also being hammered — too little, too late? — with the fact that touching, hugging, kissing, dirty toilet seats, etc., could not infect me.
This is an example of how public health information can go terribly wrong, particularly when it is disseminated by and through outlets that are more prone to paranoia and fear than rational conversation, and particularly when it relates to a group of people already under the boot of social oppression. But let’s return to the current story that your Playstation made you fat, and the personal accountability of modern public health narratives about fat people.
The problem with such narratives is also their purpose: they are necessarily reductive, as their purpose is to identify broad trends that might be addressed through public information projects (such as anti-drug PSA) or institutional regulation or reform (such as banning smoking in public places) and not to finger-point individuals. The inevitable finger-pointing that happens is primarily owing to the news media that have no compunction against inappropriately twisting the vastness of public health information into a narrow barb with which to provoke individual terror and guilt. Media reports use public health info to stir individual panic — and to incite a sense of personal responsibility to “fix” it — when the measures actually taken to address public health are usually long-term and not individually-dependent at all. This is how a study that finds correlation (if not causation) between soda consumption and childhood obesity is translated, by said media, into the message that an individual parent allowing his individual child to consume soda on occasion makes that parent an irresponsible or even dangerous caretaker. This is how studies that find fatness to be beneficial in certain circumstances are either ignored by news media entirely, or are magically perverted into fat-negative articles that report that this evidence seems to exist but is obviously wrong because fat people are still going to die, fatty fat fat, death die die, and nobody else is going to die. No, wait, everyone dies. I mean, some people will die while fat and some won’t.
I’ve discussed both childhood obesity and my problems with the Let’s Move campaign elsewhere, so I won’t repeat myself here. My beef is not with the movement to study these trends, or what may be causing them, but with what we do with that information. Most current public health initiatives cast obesity as a disease at best, and a menace to the American way of life at worst, and unflinchingly place the responsibility upon the shoulders of each individual to police fatness. The fat are encouraged to punish themselves, and the non-fat are encouraged to punish them too. Portraying fatness-as-disease also carries the possibilities of cure and contagion. The cure has yet to be reliably determined — not for lack of trying and economic investment — and the idea of fat contagion continues to be studied and discussed. Seriously, even. If the plan is to isolate and ostracize fat people from society as a whole, then the groundwork is well-laid indeed.
Is there a better solution? I’d propose dropping the idea of fatness as a disease, to start. Even setting aside the debate about whether fatness is universally sick-making, even leaving the assumption that increases in childhood obesity rates are both legitimate and a problem, there are better ways of addressing these trends rather than simply emphasizing the Playstation as the Devil’s Enfattener and inspiring people to banish video games from their homes (everything in moderation, y’all). If poor nutrition and a lack of adequate physical activity are negative drains on the health of Americans, these are environmental factors that can be promoted across the entire population, because it’s not only fat people who would benefit from a better understanding of food science and more opportunities to be active, and withdrawing the laser-like focus on fat people (because everyone else is automatically and completely healthy!) would not fan the flames of cultural anti-fat stigma (the same stigma that makes it difficult for fat people to exercise in public, or, in some cases, go out in public at all) in the way that Let’s Move does. Simply living in certain US cities is associated with greater risk of certain health problems, but the solution is not to remove every individual from that city; the solution is to identify the environmental factors that are having a negative influence, and to improve the circumstances in which those people live, thereby improving their lives entire.
Likewise, the solution to improving the health of fat people is not necessarily to remove them from their bodies, but to give them the opportunity to live in a world and a culture that is healthful and positive for all bodies, according to individual ability and circumstance, whether they are fat or not. You cannot make people healthy by coercion, shame, or stress. Good health is private and subjective, and stems from having options in an environment supportive of and conducive to knowing one’s body. If public health “obesity†initiatives — and the people behind them — really want to improve the health of the nation, they will remove the focus on fat scapegoats and use that energy to build parks and farmer’s markets and to give folks the time necessary to cook and go outdoors and play with their fat kids in the fucking sunshine.
It’s much more difficult to take this road, for sure. But our long-term health, both mental and physical, of all of us depends upon it.
—
* Yes, there was Atari, and other long-forgotten platforms prior to the NES, but their downright abstract graphics, lack of character-focused games, and relative expense kept them from proliferating in the way the NES would. My dad bought me an Atari 5200 when I was seven years old, a superior 2600 upgrade which was sadly a market failure. I loved that thing. Oddly, while I don’t remember receiving my first NES — and I did have one fairly early on — I vividly remember the Atari 5200, right down to the box it came in.
Damn, can someone point me to a Super Breakout emulator? I want to play it right now.
I expect being beautiful is not easy. No, really. I expect people’s assumptions about traditionally-pretty female-presenting humans get tiresome — if you are good-looking you must be stupid, or dull, or self-centered, or ridiculous. Certainly, it is possible to be attractive and intelligent at the same time, but it seems as though no one expects that to happen, nor do they care when it does. Whatever else you are, the pretty will tend to override it.
The pretty get bonus points, in life. Don’t argue. It’s inarguably, indubitably true. You can dislike it; you can find it unfair; you can try not to take advantage of it. But it will continue to happen. There are aspects of my own being that give me privilege — being white, for example, or presently able-bodied, or cisgendered — and as much as I disdain the system that imposes those privileges by valuing whiteness or able-bodiedness or non-diverse representations of gender, and as hard as I may work at maintaining a keen awareness of the advantages and recognitions I get as a result of these factors, I can never wipe them away, I can never burn them off; they are inescapable. Likewise, the pretty may be uncomfortable with the upsides of their appearance, but their discomfort does not mean the advantages do not exist.
On an individual basis, pretty is in the eye of the beholder, so when I talk about the pretty here, I am using a generalized aggregate of standardized characteristics of beauty, at least as they exist in my own local American culture. Pretty bodies are slender and having a feminine proportion from bust to waist to hips: not too deeply curved, as that is intimidating, and not curved in the wrong direction, or not curved at all, as that is terrifying. Pretty faces are symmetrical, delicate, and charming. An appropriately narrow nose, carefully-tended brows, a mouth that is plump without being overlarge. By the law of averages there will always be a certain number of individuals who possess a majority, if not all, of these attributes, and who then gain the benefits and advantages thereof. Even if said individual does not desire those benefits and advantages, and even if said individual does not believe herself worthy of them.
See, culture does not give a damn about whether you think of yourself as pretty. Culture’s interest is in your adherence to beauty standards from a quantitative perspective. Certainly there are many good reasons to see your own beauty — and none of that “inner†shit either, rather beauty in its more philosophical capacity as representative of both art and truth, neither of which need to be “pretty†to be compelling and indomitable — but merely thinking of yourself as pretty does not make you so in the lidless eye of broad cultural assessment. Given the oppressiveness of exacting beauty standards — in which I would counsel against making too deep an investment — this is not a bad arrangement.
Earlier this summer, Olivia Munn, currently of The Daily Show and formerly of G4’s Attack of the Show, took umbrage at the idea that her appearance — which, according to the highly-unscientific but extremely emphatic endorsements of many heterosexual men, qualifies as “hot†— had anything whatsoever to do with her success as an entertainer. This is just plain insulting and arrogant. Of course being conventionally-attractive plays a role in the success of women in media. Munn leapt dramatically to the conclusion that being pretty was somehow incompatible with being talented, and defended herself against an attack that no one had made: “I never tried to use anything besides my own sweat and blood and talent to get somewhere.†Which may well be true, but “pretty†does not have to be consciously unleashed in order to have an effect. Pretty can be a passive influence, regardless of the intention of the person being labeled as such. Munn may not think of herself as particularly pretty, but it’s difficult to mount a coherent argument that the legions of men who find her hot had no effect whatsoever on her success. Of course they did. Munn can dislike this. She can even be disgusted by it. But her individual, personal feeling on the matter does not change reality.
More recently, the TV drama and personal obsession Huge has provided a deep and nuanced context for analysis of the pretty in the character of Amber. Amber, blonde, blue-eyed, “the thinnest girl at campâ€, borders on the otherworldly, the angelic. In the heavy heat of summer, her hair is effortlessly coiffed at all times, her eyelashes impossibly curled. She does not seem to sweat, in keeping with the poreless ideal that photo retouching has created for us to aspire to. She is naturally, unfailingly beautiful and is much admired by the straight boys, who find her appearance just intimidating enough to be appealing, but not so intimidating as to find the situation hopeless. This is compounded by Amber’s seeming unawareness of her effect on them — she is quiet, her face “innocentâ€, dubious in the face of compliments. Amber can steal without being suspected, because how could a face so beatific belong to a dishonest person? Amber’s pretty is so overwhelming, it intoxicates the viewer; there cannot be darkness in something so vivid and bright.
Amber — and possibly Munn — may not be able to see herself objectively. She may not know that her appearance opens doors that would remain closed and bolted against women with faces and bodies less conventionally attractive. When overthinkers like myself get angry about the advantages of the pretty, the anger explodes outward in two directions: one, in the direction of the faceless cultural expectations that value certain physical characteristics over others, and rewards women for being conventionally-pretty even against their will; and two, in the direction of the women themselves, for refusing to notice or acknowledge the up-sides to looking like they do. It is the obliviousness of Ambers and Olivias, it is the cavalier disbelief — even disregard — for the advantages their looks get them that enrages. It is their willing, if ignorant, participation in that system that sets our heads aflame. They may believe their personal perception rates higher than cultural assessment, and this would not be surprising, given the American focus on the individual, but it is false. Olivia Munn may think she is the ugliest woman in the world, and still she will succeed because men enjoy looking at her regardless of how she feels about herself. Amber may believe she is unforgivably unattractive, but so long as boys see her through the lens of conventional beauty, her own feelings are irrelevant.
This is a problem.
The Ambers and Olivias are reaping benefits from a system that rewards some women at the expense of others — the pretty over the unpretty — and tempting though it is to attack them individually for individual stupidity or ignorance, it is that system that needs dismantling, and not the women who benefit by it. The anger at individual women is a convenient diversion from the real problem, that when appearance is a factor — and for women, when isn’t appearance a factor? — women continue to succeed based as much on their ability to be pretty as their ability to be talented or intelligent. You can have pretty without the talent and intelligence, or you can have all of the above at the same time, but women who are talented or intelligent without being pretty are climbing a much steeper hill to mainstream measurements of success.
The last time I wrote about being over the idea of my own beauty, it was linked on a feminist-themed forum elsewhere, and a few of the comments observed that not finding oneself beautiful was sad to them. I won’t argue with that assessment — people are entitled find it sad, if it’s not an approach that works for them. But for me, there was tremendous freedom in surrendering the idea that subjectively feeling — if not objectively being –beautiful was a requirement of a happy and fulfilling life. This is not to suggest that people shouldn’t feel good about themselves, or even “prettyâ€, as the occasion warrants — my point is that this feeling should not be the necessity and the compulsion that it is, and that when it occurs, it should neither be underscored nor negated by the response of the majority, according to what masculine doctrine finds most valuable. Wanting to feel pretty, to appreciate and value oneself as a beautiful person, is a fine notion. Confronting, deconstructing, and redefining what counts as beauty is a valiant effort. But we should also be vigilant: is it personal gratification and self-love we’re after, or the advantages that being beautiful to others would afford us?
No one should feel forced to play the pretty game, though most of us born female spend our lives learning the rules and trying to get ahead, if only because we are not allowed to consider removing ourselves from the playing field. There are many Ambers and Olivias in the world — women whose pretty has the backing of cultural approval, who gain attention by it, and who still cannot see themselves as attractive, because an intrinsic part of the pretty game is constantly feeling inferior, imperfect, and incomplete. All the players can do is struggle to stay afloat; ultimately, it is not a game anyone can win.
Marketing with Substance: JetBlue’s subtle nod to “passengers of size.”
By Lesley | September 1, 2010
This morning I was poking around JetBlue’s website, mostly looking to see if they’ve implemented in-flight wifi yet (they haven’t), when I ran across a new series of promotional videos of JetBlue customers explaining why JetBlue is so freaking awesome. I already knew JetBlue was pretty awesome, so under normal circumstances I’d ignore these videos, but one of the customers… looked like a big guy. I was intrigued, major airlines being so committed to the lie that “normal†customers equal thin customers, because this makes it easier to justify arbitrary and inconsistently-applied second-seat policies. So I watched (be warned, that link goes directly to an autoplay video that takes up the whole browser window).
The video shows a dudeguy sitting in a row of JetBlue seats set up in the middle of their Epic Terminal of Legend at JFK. If you’ve been to the JetBlue terminal at JFK, you know what I mean. It’s as if they remade Blade Runner and set it in an Apple Store. The dude enters the frame and sits down in the hated Middle Seat, armrests down, though as the video progresses, via the magic of editing, eventually the armrests go up. I wouldn’t call this guy fat, though fat is always in the eye of the beholder, and I’m sure some folk would. But he seems to me like a fairly normal-looking guy. My first reaction was, Good on you, JetBlue, for showing us a non-tiny passenger.
My second reaction was, Damn, that seat is still too small for him. Y’all know how I love arrows, so I’ve pointed out the telltale signs on the screenshot below.
Early on in the video, the armrest on his right is up, and the one on his left is slowly rising. His shoulders are markedly broader than the seat back, even — HORRORS — encroaching on the next seat when he leans slightly to one side. Certainly, dude is splaying all over, as dudes are oft wont to do, but I doubt he’d sit much differently on an actual plane with actual people on either side. Dudes generally don’t think as much about their space as womenfolk do. We’re brought up different. The internalized pressure I may feel to draw my limbs in as much as possible — a laughable and futile effort — neither makes me any smaller, nor does it make the seat any bigger. Instead, it just makes me feel tense, resentful, and unhappy, which probably rubs off on my seatmates, and thus these days when I fly I make conscious efforts to not obsess over whether my shoulder is touching that of my neighbor.
What we have here is a pretty normal-looking semi-beefy guy who doesn’t really fit in what is, in my experience, a coach seat that is damn generous by the standards of other airlines. A company like JetBlue doesn’t make these choices by accident, and there’s something truly compelling about seeing a bigger person talking about how comfortable their seats are (“Almost as comfortable as my couch… almost.â€) even if his size is never overtly addressed in the video. People who are bigger can look and think, hey, if that guy is comfortable, then I should be too. People who are smaller can look and think the same thing. Possibly most surprisingly — and don’t think this escapes the notice of JetBlue’s marketing department — those people who’ve been put off by the often-humiliating fatty-punishing debacles of other major airlines are given the chance to see JetBlue as a “safer†— or at least kinder — option.
I still think coach seats should be bigger — not massive, but just a bit more generous, for everyone’s comfort, for the comfort of bigger people, for the comfort of people sitting next to bigger people, for the comfort of people traveling with infants, for the comfort of people who want sufficient horizontal clearance to be able to type on their laptop without jabbing their seatmates with their elbows. But in the absence of bigger seats, I’ll take JetBlue’s quiet acknowledgment that their airplanes are filled with people of different sizes, and that they are all equally deserving of comfort.
Flying is anxiety-inducing enough — for me, feeling like the airline I’ve chosen respects me as a human being is a huge relief.
Previously: There was angst. Boy howdy, was there ever. So much angst. Ian likes Amber. Will likes Ian. Amber likes George. George likes Amber, but doesn’t want to get fired. Or go to jail.
In the woods, we come back to the place where we left off, and also where we began, with Will digging for her contraband food at Amber’s request. It’s nighttime, and Amber’s holding the flashlight while Will works, because Amber’s totally a pillow princess like that. When Amber halfheartedly apologizes for dragging Will out here in the middle of the night in flagrant violation of the rules, Will says it’s not a problem, she’s glad to do it: “I am so sick and being told what and when to eat.†Amber argues that Will cannot possibly hate Camp Victory as much as she says, and Will admits, “I don’t hate everything about it. I like the people.†Amber, coyly: “Like Ian?†Whoa. Will shrugs this off, but Amber presses, saying she won’t tell, arguing that Will knows who Amber likes — though in fairness this is because she saw y’all humping in the woods and not because you opened up to her, Miss A. Will deftly sidesteps the issue by proclaiming her crush on Salty Dad. Amber giggles. Why is Amber trying to be so chummy all of a sudden?
Will thinks they’re digging in the wrong place, and Amber says they should forget it. But then Will has an idea. Last week, when she was helping Salty Dad in the kitchen, she learned the secret hiding place of the key to the pantry. At the dark mess hall, Will uses a knife to unlock a window and opens it wide, saying to Amber: “Ladies first.†They enter the kitchen and Will fetches the key, while Amber worries about “security camerasâ€. Inside the pantry, Will goes straight to the low-fat brownies. They carry the tray out to the prep table and Will tells Amber that when she was “a kidâ€, during sleepovers and stuff, she’d raid the fridges at other kids’ houses, because her parents never kept junk food in the house. Amber, grabbing a handful of napkins, sadly remembers how “when you were a kid, you could could eat a brownie without feeling bad about it.†Dude, I know. Hence my screaming about the cookies last week.
Amber asks Will why her parentals didn’t show up, and Will says “they probably got caught up in workâ€. She then tells Amber about the far-too-small tracksuit they sent. “I’ll probably burn it.†Amber asks if she’s joking. Will: â€Well, velour doesn’t burn great.†She has burned other stuff they’ve given her. Amber: “That’s horrible. I bet it was really expensive too.†Will observes that they’re rich, so it doesn’t matter to them. Will figures they may have guessed that she didn’t want to see them, while Amber says she could never tell her mom she didn’t want to see her. Will carefully tries to ask what the deal with Teal is, but Amber’s kneejerk defensiveness makes her back down. Meanwhile, all this time Amber has been doing something odd with her stack of napkins, taking a bite of brownie, bringing the napkin to her mouth, and then setting it down in a neat pile. I used to try this, but it never really worked for me — I’d always get distracted and wind up swallowing the food, which is, after all, one’s natural inclination. Will finally asks what Amber is doing. “This way I taste it, without swallowing the calories. It’s gross, I know, “ says Amber. Will snatches up the napkins and throws them away, “No, it’s sick. That’s like eating disorder crap.†Will brings up Caitlin (the first-episode camper who was sent home for being bulimic) and Amber insists chewing food and then spitting it into napkins is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from eating food and then purging it. Riiiight. It is easier on your tooth enamel, at least.
Having each eaten about four brownies — hardly an epic binge — they head back. George is sitting in his cabin reading by flashlight when he sees Amber’s golden head float by outside, followed by Will.
In the girls’ cabin the next morning, Amber’s mom is shrieking and demanding to know where the towels are. When digging through her daughter’s chest provides no luck, she inexplicably starts ripping the covers and sheets off Will’s bed, uncovering the pink Core track suit. Both Teal and Carter’s sister ooh and aah over it, asking who it belongs to. “It’s Amber’s,†blurts Will. Teal immediately looks suspicious. Chloe wants to know why Amber hasn’t worn it. Well she’s going to wear it now! As everyone turns back to their morning tasks, Amber mouths a grateful “thank you†to Will. Oh well, velour really doesn’t burn great.
Breakfast in the mess hall. Dr. Gina encourages, in her halting and insecure way, any parents with questions or concerns to come talk to her about them. Will, in line for food, exchanges glances with Salty Dad, his suspicious, hers guilty.
Trent and his parentals sit and eat, while Trent is talking about zombies. His dad interrupts to ask stepmom what happened to her necklace, the one he bought her last week? Oh damn, the clasp must have broken. Stepmom tries to get Trent to go back to his story but he just wants to forget it. His dad says, “Don’t give her a hard time,†and stepmom says he isn’t. Ugh. Stepmom and Trent look like they could be the same age, seriously.
Elsewhere in the mess, Will is telling Becca and Alistair about a dream she had, in which she was making out with a guy only to have his head morph into that of her 8th grade Spanish teacher. “So I’m trying to decide if it’s still worth it if I forget his head exists.†Becca asks, apropos of nothing, whether Will and Amber are “friends again.†Uh, were they ever friends in the first place? Am I forgetting the episode where they skipped hand-in-hand through a verdant meadow? Will’s all, no, not at all. Becca says it seems like they’re talking more. Will awkwardly (DRINK!) says they had something to discuss. Something… personal. Oh, that’ll make Becca feel better, considering all she wants is for you to open up to her.
Dr. Gina finds Jillian Michaels 2: The Road Warrior outside and tells her she’s asked Poppy to set up another crafts table on the field, because those crafts are going like hotcakes. Why Shay needed to be informed, I have no idea. Shay then tells Dr. Gina “the new guy†will be here tonight, so everything’s peachy. What new guy? The new chef? What new chef? Salty Dad is leaving. Wait, what? Shay rambles on as Salty Dad comes out of the kitchen and begins walking away. Dr. Gina tries to extract herself to go talk to him and find out what’s going on, but is thwarted when George appears, a pack of pinched-face parents in tow, all of whom want to talk to Dr. Gina urgently.
Three-legged races on the field. Ian and Will watch as Ian’s parents laugh and try to get the rhythm down. Will remarks on how happy they look. Ian agrees, “They are happy. I’m happy too. Supposedly.†Will rubs his arm above the elbow in a tender and almost intimate way. Ian asks if she can stick with him: “I don’t want to be alone with them.†Of course she will, because, in spite of everything, she doesn’t yet realize what a fool you are. Ian is absorbed in his familial pain; Will is absorbed in her all-encompassing crush on Ian. They are together, on the field, but also brutally alone.
Inside the girls’ cabin, Becca is reading The Rules, that hateful book about ensaring a husband, when Chloe comes in. She says, out of nowhere, that her aunt has that book. Becca says she found it in the rec room, and it seems pretty stupid. Chloe sits down and says, “What?†to Becca’s questioning look. “Why did we stop being friends?†Becca asks. “I don’t know,†says Chloe. I’ve told the story already, of when I was in Chloe’s shoes here. The ex-friend in my story was angry, though, and Becca is not; she just wants to know why. Chloe says she wanted to hang out with Caitlin, with the popular group. “Which makes me a bitch. I know that. It’s not like I don’t know that. I wanted to be different. Like, a different person.†Becca says she gets it, and goes back to her book. Chloe begins, “So…†Becca looks up, blankly: “What?†Chloe: “Nothing.†She climbs up to her bunk and is silent. For all of Becca’s protestations that she isn’t mad, she sure seems to want to punish Chloe. Which is fine, but let’s be up-front about that.
On the field, kids and parentals are doing that thing where you race whilst carrying an egg on a spoon. Such a waste of eggs. George is supervising. Ian’s parents, followed by Ian, followed by Will walk by, and George puts his egg-basket down and chases after her. She stops and faces him. Oh, this should be interesting. George: “I know you were out after lights-out last night. I’ve decided not to tell Dr. Rand.†Will’s face is totally unimpressed. “Is that so?†George, being the big man here, tells her he’s hoping that another chance will inspire Will to follow the rules henceforth. Will: “Like the way you follow the rules?†George blinks, looks away, and you can almost see the sinking feeling in his chest. He changes tactics, and suggests that while Will may not care about getting thrown out, Amber would. Will’s gaze is unbreakable. She knows she has George dead to rights, and now he knows it too. “You’re worried that I might get Amber thrown out?†she smiles, not a little ironically. “Don’t tell me what to do again. Ever.†Oh, snap. Will turns and walks away, leaving George with the look of a man who’s been hit with a fish. Will is outstanding.
In the boys’ cabin, Alistair is sweeping. It must be his job on the chore wheel! He finds a necklace, ostensibly the one belogning to Trent’s stepmom, at the same time as Dante comes in and calls him “Athenaâ€. Alistair, not turning around, grasping the necklace to his chest: “Yeah, don’t call me that.†Dante wants to know if Alistair got his note. He did. Well, he didn’t say anything, so Dante was just wondering. Yeah, he got it. Dante wants Alistair not to hate him, and Alistair says he doesn’t: “To be honest, I’m not really dwelling on it.†Oh, then we’re cool? Yeah. Dante needs absolution, closure, something — don’t we all — but Alistair is not going to give it to him.
On the field, Trent and his parentals are sitting together in the shade when Trent’s dad spots Amber sitting at the newly-added craft table. See, I knew that would figure heavily in the plot! Dad refers to her as Trent’s “girlfriend†and asks if he’ll introduce them. Trent wants to leave. For anywhere. Instead, his stepmom says she’s tired and should go lie down, which is probably just a flimsy excuse for giving Trent and his dad some alone time together.
At the craft table, Amber’s mom continues to defy the upward limits of annoyingness. She says, coyly, of their Parents Weekend photograph, that they should take another picture and get George to be in it. When Amber bristles and says he’s busy, Teal says she’s “no funâ€, grabbing Amber’s craft project — a frame for their photograph — and looking it over. “Ugh, I look like my mother,†says Teal, and Amber says she doesn’t, like she’s probably said it a thousand times before. Then Teal brings up the track suit, and asks where she got it. The truth. “Will gave it to me,†Amber says. “The girl you hate,†says her mom. Amber tries to explain that it wasn’t really a gift, so much as Will didn’t want it. Teal doesn’t believe it, and in a creepily sing-songy cadence, observes: “You’re not friends with her. That’s what you said.†She accuses her daughter of lying, and Amber asks why she’d lie about that. Teal: “How should I know what you lie about?†She then asks, maintaining her inappropriately chirpy-yet-accusatory tone, whether Amber is stealing again. Amber says no, and Teal raises her voice, causing the rest of the table to turn and look. “Do you mind? We’re having a private conversation.†Ugh, how humiliating. Teal stalks off in search of a cigarette and Amber sits alone, looking not so much mortified as sad and small, as though this has happened to her before.
Chloe finds Trent’s stepmom alone in the boys’ cabin, crawling around on the floor, and asks if she’s lost something. She’s looking for her necklace. Chloe is sympathetic: “I hate when I lose jewelry. The worst is one earring.†Once they’ve given up, Chloe gets a little awkward (DRINK!) and asks stepmom if she’ll give Trent the note she’s brought; Chloe was going to leave it on his bed. Stepmom says sure. After another strained silence, Chloe asks how long stepmom has been with Trent’s dad. Stepmom realizes that Trent hasn’t mentioned her at all to anyone, and she starts crying. Is it the pregnancy making her nuts? Who knows. She knows she can’t expect Trent to just open up to her: “I’m not his mother.†Chloe says it’s good that he has her anyway, and tenatively hugs the sobbing stepmom. See, I knew Chloe would redeem herself to me in the last episode.
Dr. Gina finds Salty Dad in the office, writing something, which he hands to her. She rips it in half and hands it back. “I don’t hate you. I just want you to go.†Dr. Gina’s rage, simmering, comes to a rapid boil as Salty Dad tries to explain. He was married to Joyce, the name on his arm, and they had a daughter. Dr. Gina has a fifteen-year-old sister. Her response to being hit with this emotional two-by-four is to whisper, “I don’t care.†Apparently this kid has been getting in trouble, and unless Salty Dad comes to fetch her, Joyce is going to put her in juvenile detention. Oh hey, bring her back to Camp Victory! She can be friends and co-hooligans with Will. Dr. Gina does not give a fuck about his other family’s problems. “Where were you when I was fifteen?†Salty, resigned: “You’re right, I should have been there.†The doc, yelling: “I don’t want to be right!†There does come a point, with our anger at our families, our friends, anyone who’s let us down, that we are no longer satisfied to be right, or justified, or correct. We want to be fixed. We want to eat brownies and take our parents for granted. We want to lay down the burden we’ve been carrying, the rage and the loss, to be put back together and to be whole again. She tells her dad she hates him, but then asks her sister’s name. Saying it aloud brings Salty to the edge, and he tears up, and they hug each other, which is as close to wholeness as any of us can get.
Fatty tug-of-war on the playing field: Carter’s team beats Trent’s, as Carter’s tiny sister cheers them on. Tiny sister chats up George, asking him how Carter is doing.
Ian finds his mom, and asks where his dad is. Everyone turns to see him carrying on with Amber’s mom, eventually picking her up playfully, at which Ian’s head almost explodes and he calls, “Dad!†Dad has the grace to realize he’s making a bit of a spectacle and comes scampering over to Ian and his mom, after setting Teal down to be dragged away by Amber. Will, trying to change the subject, asks if Ian has played any of his songs for them.
In the rec room, Will sings to Ian’s guitar for Ian’s parentals, drawing the attention of Trent and his dad, who were playing ping pong, and Chloe and Trent’s stepmom, who just came in. Stepmom tells Trent he should go play drums with them — Chloe told her he played — which results in some tension with his dad, who asks in astonishment, “You play drums?†Trent says he’s no good, but Chloe has said otherwise. Eventually Trent barks at them to drop it, and the song can’t survive the interruption and stops.
Trent, even more embarrassed, apologizes and says they’ll go. But Will stops him, saying to Ian: “Maybe he can give us a beat.†Ian: “We have a beat.†Actually, dear heart, I don’t think you and Will are quite in sync. Will tells Trent to join them, giving him the chance to demonstrate that his dad may not know him as well as he thinks. Trent, almost angry, does so. And they play the song. The whole thing. And it’s great. And lest there be any lingering doubt, Will is absolutely the hottest thing at this whole fucking camp, and when these fictional kids look back ten fictional years down the line, they’ll marvel at how they could have overlooked her.
They finish to applause from the room, and Trent’s stepmom asks what their band is called. Trent starts to brush it off, but Ian says, “We don’t have one… yet.†Chloe steps forward, breathless and beaming, “That was so good,†and Trent envelops her in his arms and kisses her, right there, in front of his parents, and everyone. All together now: Awwww.
The last of the parents are leaving. Ian’s dad demonstrates the convertible top on his new Porsche to Ian. Oh dude, you think the divorce will suck, you just wait until you see who your dad chooses to date in the early post-divorce era. It will be horrifying. Speaking of horrifying, here comes Amber and her mom, who is feigning indignance that Ian’s dad might leave without saying goodbye. She blabbers on how his Porsche and her car which is not actually her car but just kidding, no not really. Amber, oblivious to everything, watches George flirting with Carter’s tiny sister. Her whole face trembles with the impending tears, and she runs off to cry in private. Again, followed by Ian.
Amber sits on a rock and cries while Ian approaches and says, “It’s no big deal,†I guess referring to the fact that Amber’s mom is cuckoobananas, except Amber could not give less of a shit about her gooneybird of a mom right now. Ian presumes she’s upset because Teal’s behavior was inappropriate, and tells her it’s not like his parents are “together… anymore.†Finally, Amber gives us her patented “…what?â€, the one that says I’m trying to wallow in my self-centered angst here, which I note without judgement, as that is the longing of most teenagers much of the time. Ian continues, and Amber begins, “It’s not..†before realizing she can’t explain, so she gives up and just says “thanks.†Amber says she needs a tissue and Ian leaps into action, offering the sleeve of the button-down shirt he’s wearing over his t-shirt. Amber is slightly repulsed and says no, to which Ian asserts he doesn’t mind. “Anyone would mind. I mind,†says Amber. Ian takes off the button-down and proffers it again, arguing that “snot receptacle” is one of the made-up “five uses of clothingâ€. Eventually Amber takes it and delicately blows her nose on it. She then tells Ian, “You’re like the nicest person I’ve ever met.â€
Oh Ian.
He is overwhelmed. Amber can’t believe she’s “freaked out†like this, and says: “You know how you could let yourself believe something, and then you realize what a total fool you were to even hope for it.†Ian’s all SHHHYEAH, totally. He says he can’t believe they’re having this conversation. Amber asks what he means. Oh, here it comes. Ian tells her about his crush on her. “I mean, obviously, I didn’t think anything could happen.†Amber: “Why not?†Ian: “‘Cause, look at me.†Amber stands up and strokes his face, and then she kisses him, quickly. No sooner does she pull away than Ian kisses her. There is an uncertainty in Amber’s face, as though she’s asking herself, “Why did I do that?†So what if she knows Will likes Ian. He’s there, he’s convenient, he likes her. He’s not going to cast her aside or push her away. What she wants… almost ceases to matter.
Oh Amber.
There have been a lot of strong feelings about Amber as a character, from love to loathing. But I’d hazard a guess that the Amber hate isn’t really hate, so much as it is the weariness of having known girls like Amber — girls who were pretty without believing they were pretty and yet who managed to levy their allegedly-nonexistent beauty to get ahead, and to get attention. It’s the lingering anger from those of us who spent our youth having to remind ourselves every day that sure, we’ll never be a pretty girl, but we can be the interesting girl and that’s enough. It has to be enough, for us. Beauty is currency amongst teenagers, and adults, and what Amber lacks in socioeconomic status she makes up in manipulation. Who can blame her? She uses what she’s got to get ahead, and there’s nothing shameful about that — but she shouldn’t pretend things are any different than they are, and that if she were an ugly girl from a low-income background her life and her opportunities would be very, very different. Still, Amber wants to be validated, to be told how pretty she is every single day (even as she refuses to believe it), and to have the attention of all the boys, even the boys she doesn’t want. Nothing we have seen over the past ten weeks has indicated that Amber is especially smart, or particularly talented, or invested in anything other than social climbing. The power to draw male attention is the only power she’s got. Who can blame her for using it?
And really, we can’t blame Ian either. Amber is the dream girl, the one who’ll make all your buddies jealous, even if they’re only marveling “how’d she wind up with him?” Of course, the difference is that we can follow the story where the quirky, nontraditionally handsome guy gets the pretty girl, but the unpretty girl never gets the hot guy. Not without a makeover, a conversion to bring her up to his level, in which eyeglasses and frizzy hair and a lack of fashion sense are cast aside, repaired, and rebuilt to create a girl who is now as pretty on the outside as we always knew she was on the inside, except the inside kind of pretty doesn’t really count for us, does it? Not for the girls. The inside pretty can’t make up for an external failure. In no concieveable turn of events would Will wind up with George, for example. It’s too unbelievable, unfathomable, more than can be asked of us, the audience. Even those of us who’d want it to happen wouldn’t believe it. Because it never does. So we get Ian and Amber, sure, why not — Ian’s got charm and magnetism. Will’s charm and magnetism gets her nothing — in fact, it’s almost a liability. Boys have charm and magnetism. Women have looks.
Back at the parking lot, Carter’s tiny sister is telling George that they should “stay in touch… unless you’re seeing anyone.†Oh! George is all, well, sort of. “Well, nothing serious? Like, you’re not in looooove, or anything?†George is silent. “Damn, “ says tiny sister, getting the message.
Will wanders into the kitchen and is brusquely informed that Salty Dad has left the camp. She gets The Look, that dull-eyed expression Will has when she’s upset but can’t bring herself to show it, and leaves.
Alistair is in the bathroom of the boys’ cabin, with a pair of scissors. He methodically, meditatively cuts the neckline out of his t-shirt, and puts on the found necklace, and studies himself in the mirror, half-smiling, measuring how he controls his representation, how he wants to be seen. It’s a sweet and deliciously ambiguous scene, and Harvey Guillen acts his ass off in it.*
The campers are assembling for a post-parentals campfire. Alistair strides up confidently, comfortable in his altered shirt, and his sister stares. Dr. Gina has them gather around, and acknowledges, “It may have been hard to have your parents here… and then to have to say goodbye.†It’s hard for her, certainly. Dr. Gina hesitates, clears her throat, and seems lost, until Poppy begins singing the camp song, and Dr. Gina joins right in. The other campers pick it up — even Will, until she sees Ian and Amber approach. Holding hands. Ian can’t stop smiling. Will’s face freezes as though she’s been stabbed from behind, as though she never saw it coming. George sees it too, sadly. Will starts breathing deeply and has to get up and walk away.
Will is still walking, furiously, panting, through the woods, when Becca runs after her. “I don’t feel well, okay? Go back to the fire,†Will says, her voice uneven. Becca tries to grab her arm and says she can talk to her, but Will doesn’t want to talk. “I didn’t ask you to follow me.†As rough as Will is here, I am sympathetic — there are lots of us who need solitude to sort our shit out, to get our feelings under control. Will is breathing hard, trying to keep it together, when Becca says, “Screw you, Will. I am so damn sick of trying to be your friend when you obviously couldn’t care less about me.†Of course. Of course Becca chooses now, this very moment, to finally snap. She expects Will to talk to her, to admit what just happened. “Do you think I’m stupid?†she asks, rhetorically. “Do you think I don’t know?†To be clear, the primary reason Becca is so sure of what’s going on is because she betrayed Will’s trust and read her fucking journal, even knowing how terrified Will was of anyone finding it and reading it. It’s a little ridiculous for Becca to try to take the high road. And I like Becca. But I think she’s in the wrong here. Will is a cynical, sarcastic introvert who plays things close to her chest. If she were a guy, no one would think twice about this. But it’s unfair of Becca to expect Will to be something she’s not — to be Chloe, like Chloe was last year.
Dr. Gina is covering the fire alone, when Jillian Michaels: Judgement Day approaches and demands she be allowed to help. She blathers on about Dr. Gina’s dad, saying he’s a good guy: “The way he cares about you? See, I never had that.†Well, neither did Dr. Gina, until recently. Dr. Gina seriously does not like talking to Shay for any longer than absolutely necessary, and thanks her for finding “the perfect chef†to replace Salty Dad.
As she walks away, Dr. Gina sees Will sitting on a bench across the pond. She goes over to her, asking if she hadn’t heard the evening bell. Will, matter-of-factly: “I broke the rules. Last night I took some brownies from the kitchen.†Dr. Gina knows already. Salty Dad told her. Will: “So that’s it, right? You have to throw me out.†Will wants to go home. As much as she hates her parents, as horrible at the tennis-douchebag bullies from school may be, home is better than the cold, empty certainty that things never could have turned out any differently. Dr. Gina says it’s not so simple, and she’s giving Will yet another chance, a chance Will doesn’t want.
“What were you like, when you were fat?â€
“I hated myself.â€
“And now you don’t?â€
“Less.â€
“And that’s it? That’s the big improvement? You hate yourself less?â€
“Yes.â€
This is why the doctor cannot understand Will, cannot understand that fatness isn’t always a literal weight dragging everyone down, that Will might hate herself for lots of reasons — her inability to open up, to trust people with her feelings, to be honest with Ian — but being fat may not be one of them. And this is where we leave things, with Will and Dr. Gina looking at the stars over Camp Victory, both of them having fought and survived another day. Until tomorrow.
—
* I spoke to Marianne on the phone after this episode, mostly to spoil her on the big moments. When I was describing this scene I said that it ended when Ian, fresh from his kiss with Amber, bursts into the bathroom yelling, at which Marianne said, “Because he needed to get behind a locked door and take care of business.†I thought this was very funny. This then evolved into a brief discussion of the masturbation habits of boys at camp. Marianne suggested there might be a mutual understanding about bathroom use for this purpose, and I wondered if maybe they’d just wander out into the woods to handle things in the beauty of nature. Because it is a natural act and nothing to be ashamed of, am I right?
Do Something: Keep body diversity on TV, and support a second season of Huge.
By Lesley | August 30, 2010
Tonight the season finale of Huge will be aired. Are you bummed about that? All of my protestations about returning to non-recap-centric blogging aside, I am going to miss this show enormously (ha) when it’s done. This summer, for the first time ever, we’ve seen the evolution of a series that openly criticizes mainstream body culture, that makes the case for size diversity, and that acknowledges that fat kids laugh, and fight, and have crushes, and love themselves and hate themselves and struggle with figuring out who they are, just like kids of any shape or size. This is a series that normalizes difference, that embraces the outsider-ness we all feel, sometimes. And it has also introduced us to an incredible cast of kids who, in defiance of Hollywood standards, have demonstrated that a young actor can succeed at bringing us a character and a story without relying on ridiculous eyebrows, epic amounts of mouth-breathing, and some truly lucky genetics (see The Secret Life of the American Teenager for an illustration).
I want this show to go on. I want these characters’ stories to continue, and I want the producers and the cast and the crew to keep making them. I want to see a second season. But this is not a foregone conclusion. Huge needs our support for this to happen: ABC Family needs to hear from y’all that you want more.
Send an email through the ABC Family feedback form letting them know how much you dig the show, and that you want a second season.
Hit ABC Family with your Twitter-based demands for more Huge at @ABCFHuge and at @ABCFamily. Or give them a shout on the Huge Facebook page.
Send a dump truck of mini-muffins to ABC Family’s physical address at:
ABC Family
500 South Buena Vista St.
Burbank, CA 91521-6078
And it may be obvious, but: watch the show via a legit source. Full episodes are available on Hulu and on ABCFamily.com. If you watch it anywhere else, your ratings don’t count. (EDIT: Unless you’re international, in which case your ratings don’t count no matter what, so watch however you like.)
I’ve noted before that when I was a teenager, the show that had the most profound effect on me was My So-Called Life. This show made me feel less alone, even occasionally understood. It helped me find the courage and conviction to stop trying to force myself to fit in, and told me it was okay to stand out — it was okay to be myself, even if it got me in trouble, even if it made people stare, even if I was not perfect, not beautiful, not always smart, not always good. Without My So-Called Life, I may still have become the noisy upstart I am today, but I’ve little doubt it would have taken me far longer, and I might not be quite so brazen, without that early influence of teen-culture-busting. Huge is operating in much the same way for those kids — and adults — who don’t see themselves represented in the mainstream. With Huge, fat kids and weird kids and nerdy kids and maybe-queer kids and kids who just aren’t sure what they want to be yet all have a story to turn to. This is important. My So-Called Life had one season before it was cancelled; I think we can do better with Huge. But first they need to know you want more.
Make some fucking noise. Don’t let this end too soon.
A million thanks, my loves. For reading, for participating, and for being yourselves.
It’s Friday, I have clothes on, and I am trying to revive this [picture-taking] habit. The green cropped cardigan came from Target; I can often smush my fatness into their XL sweaters and I make the most of that fact. The navy and white polka-dot dress is by Jane Bon Bon. The white cotton slip underneath is vintage, from eBay, and after I won it I received a strongly-worded email of abuse from the person I apparently outbid. Grey sneakers are Converse, by way of Marshalls.
Have a peachy weekend, y’all.
Two Whole Cakes is a blog written by 
