Dear Hollywood, Please, PLEASE...STOP IT!

POSTED BY: Wishimay
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 5, 2016 09:06
VIEWED: 6653
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WISHIMAY

Saturday, September 10, 2016 10:18 AM

I was sitting and watching a movie with my kid tonight, and I have recently begun taking note of something that is driving me crazy. A large number of movies seem to delight in making the fat person into the slobberingly stupid, vicious, ignorant, dirty, good-for-nothing bully.

We get it. It's easy. Maybe you were picked on by someone bigger than you and it makes you feel better to put that in, but there were plenty of fat kids that were NOT the bully.

As a tall woman who is overweight, I admit it isn't what I'd like to be, but after paying for the worlds worst medical care for thirty years, I have finally learned it really really ISN'T my fault. For thirty years I have been eating foods that have been poisoning me, and had NO CLUE. In fact, I ate less food by volume and calorie content than many very thin people. I have two in truly hundreds of disorders that make losing weight impossible.
Not even to mention that the food we have access to here in this country is literal and actual poison. Did you know that food colorings are made from coal, petroleum, and sulfur?? It's sick. Really... sick. And making us SICK.

My spouse is also overweight, as are 60%% of my neighbors, and their kids. None of us are slobberingly stupid, overly violent people (not any more than the typical 'Merican anyway...)

We're people, who are just trying to get by. Most of us do try to be healthy and active, and yes- there are some people who really can't put down a fork. Poking fun at them is still pretty horrific because they may have mental disorders or emotional trauma. Yes, they aren't pretty, but what the industry does in the name of entertainment for people who have probably never experienced real physical issues is reprehensible to me.

Now, I don't know if anyone still reads anything here, but since I don't do the social media thing, here is all I got to post. If ANY of you out there know ANYONE in the industry, please forward this to them, repost it, tell me your weight battles... really anything you can do, I thank you.
This is one of the few times I really wish I knew more people. Granted it probably isn't as pressing an issue as humanity's drug or gun problems, but it still bothers me.

And on that note, drug addicts cost this country 12 BILLION every year, far more than what any overweight people add cost to your insurance. Not saying pick on addicts either, just putting things into perspective.

Here is a good article on the subject.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2016/09/09/how-one-
advocacy-group-plans-to-battle-weight-bias-in-media/

GWEK

Saturday, September 10, 2016 8:04 PM

Although I agree with you, and I can't speak to the specific movies you're referring to without knowing about them, I believe there are a few underlying factors. I'm not saying they GOOD factors, just that they are.

1) In a movie, which is a visual medium, bullies have to be visually imposing. It's visual short-hand. In fact, in part, it goes back to the old cartoons, where certain body types were expected for certain characters (note that all "trickster" characters from classic cartoons - Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, even Mickey Mouse -- have almost the same exact body type, for example).

In all likelihood, the movie folks don't have any special gripe against large people, and the original script-as-written may well not have specified a body type for the character(s).

2) I blame Melissa McCarthy.

In an ineresting twist, Melissa McCarthy rose to fame by breaking stereotype in MIKE& MOLLY and, to a lesser, mixed extent, in BRIDESMAIDS (where she DOES have many of the negative traits you talk about, but is also wise and loyal and generally awesome), but once she achieved a significant level of fame, she CHOSE to play stupid, mean-spirited, negative characters. Witness the horrible parade of losers --often selfish and soulless -- she has played in recent movies. Or, worse, her cringeworthy, supposedly "funny" turns on Saturday Night Live.

Hollywood sees the success that she has had and copies it. But copies it imperfectly. I'm paraphrasing Spielberg, but he famously said that people who copied JAWS "copied the shark" when they should have been copying the characters. Similarly. Hollywood copies the surface spectacle of a success like McCarthy without copying the heart underneath.

It's unfair to blame McCarthy on her own, since she's just the latest standard-bearer of the trend but for every John Candy or Billy Gardel, it seems that there are two Chris Farleys, John Belushis, Melissa McCarthys or "Fat Amys". I don't mean to imply that successful large celebrities should chose not to work, but perhaps, knowing that the system is stacked against them, they have the power to help implement -- or at least influence -- change if they chose.

It's a sticky topic that will only change over time.

WISHIMAY

Saturday, September 10, 2016 11:30 PM

I just think they can branch out a little, is all I'm saying. I don't know if you watch Sherlock, but one of the greatest villains is Magnussen. Not because he was big and dumb, but because he used power and invaded personal space and rules. My kid has a hard time sitting through that one, it makes her so angry. THAT is a villain. That took writing and thought.

I also think that the villainization of fat people is spilling into the real world and is really not helping, especially with kids. Maybe in a hundred years, we'll have a better handle on it, but there is no treatments for half the disorders out there. Picking on fat people is victimizing people who have already been kicked by their own DNA.

I can't watch people like Mrs McCarthy in those type of roles, and I never have. Loved her on Gilmore Girls, but I have never been able to watch John Candy, Chris Farley, Rebel Wilson, or any others in a fat-depricating comedy role, and unfortunately, when I think of them that's about 90% of their careers. Not saying fat people can't do comedy, but does it always have to be so vulturistic??

I can only think of a couple of larger actors and actresses that even do serious roles.

WISHIMAY

Saturday, September 10, 2016 11:35 PM

Headlining todays Daily Mail, making my point for me..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3783055/One-photographer-takes
-unflinching-look-poverty-US.html

"The influence of the mass media is massive. Many people experience themselves as losers since they cannot live up to the ideals that are presented to them on TV."

ECGORDON

Sunday, September 11, 2016 12:00 AM

Only overweight actor I can think of right now that didn't fall into that trap is John Goodman. His weight might figure into some comments in movies or shows, but it usually wasn't what defined his characters.

WISHIMAY

Sunday, September 11, 2016 2:40 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
Only overweight actor I can think of right now that didn't fall into that trap is John Goodman. His weight might figure into some comments in movies or shows, but it usually wasn't what defined his characters.

Yeah, I was thinking him, Kathy Bates and Camryn Manheim. Although the internet says Kathy's nickname is Bobo(?) Wonder how she got that....

I'm betting all of them had their "I need to take this role, because I'm not a typical actor and there isn't a whole lot of those parts..." moments.

WISHIMAY

Sunday, October 2, 2016 8:48 AM

More "our food is killing us" info.

Bread – L-Cysteine from human hair is used to prolong the shelf-life of bread

Ice cream – The vanilla flavouring castoreum originally comes from beaver castor sacs

Ready made cake mix – Anti-freeze ingredient propylene glycol is used to stop fat clumping together

Bananas – Chitosan which is used to prevent bananas over-ripening is made from shrimp shells

Marshmallows – Made using Gelatine which is made from boiled animal bones

Jelly beans – A resin secreted by lac bugs, called Shellac, is used to make jelly beans shine

Chicken nuggets – Some chicken nuggets contain dimethylpolysiloxane which is used to make silicone breast implants

Red sweets – Foods coloured with a red dye may contain carmine made from dead crushed beatles

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Monday, October 3, 2016 12:15 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
More "our food is killing us" info.

Chicken nuggets – Some chicken nuggets contain dimethylpolysiloxane which is used to make silicone breast implants

Is somebody under the delusion that chicken nuggets are food?

WISHIMAY

Monday, October 3, 2016 3:33 AM

Unfortunately, it is one of the few remaining foods I can eat if I am out and it will be hours until I get back home. You just can't believe how much fast food is coated with preservatives.

I picked up chicken tenders at Zaxby's last month (never had them before that) and spent the rest of the *week* in the bathroom.

Silicone or no, McD's nuggets are still digestible in a pinch.

Even things like MILK from fast food places now have artificial flavorings and additives. Sonic's ice cream is mostly LARD. It doesn't even melt!
I used to get Dairy Queens strawberry sundaes once in a while, but they replaced the strawberries with "gelatin and strawberry flavored goo". Steak and Shake gave me a "pink shake" instead of a strawberry shake the other day and I just tossed it. No more of that either.... I may have to start making my own damn ice cream too...

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, October 5, 2016 12:05 AM

I was bothered watching zootopia with my niece because there's a overweight leopard character who is a positive depiction of a large person, and yet they still made cheap and unkind fat jokes.

And that was from Disney. I don't understand why or how we normalize that attitude towards people. My grandma has struggled with her weight for the last half of her life, but her weight doesn't change who she is or her personality. I don't understand the lack of empathy people have. If people attack people like that they may as well be attacking my grandma.

They probably know someone else who struggles with their weight or an eating disorder yet still they mouth off. That behaviour is just so shitty. Another person's weight doesn't affect anyone else in the slightest as much as people want to complain about health insurance and hospital bills. It's no one else's business. It's just society being shallow and small minded.

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