Manolo for the Big Girl

I don’t like Drudge Report. It’s muckraking yellow journalism at its most slithery. However, I’ve gotten several emails today asking me to address the Daily Mail story that appeared on Drudge about the woman who –with the help of her partner– is trying to reach 1000 pounds and become the world’s heaviest woman.

I’m of three minds about this.

Mind One: I’ve done a little research on the Feeder relationship (if you can, get a copy of Fall 2009’s Bitch Magazine, there is an excellent article on the sexual politics of Feeding by Jessica Hester. Also there’s an interesting-in-a-dry-academic-way scientific study in the Journal of Sex Research by Swamee and Tovée 46(1), 89–96, 2009) and I don’t like it one bit. I have a really hard time understanding why someone who purportedly loves you would abuse you and help you abuse yourself by doing something that’s drastically bad for you to the point where, they would take away your freedom of mobility, ultimately making you completely dependent on them just to satisfy their own desires. AND YOU LET THEM??? That’s some messed up stuff.

Mind Two: That being said, they’re grown adults and it’s not really any of our business what they do as long as her child is being taken care of. We can get all shocked and judgy, which is what we’re supposed to do. But psst, wanna know a secret? People Like Weird Things. Trust me. I dated a guy who went to Catholic school before Vatican II. You can only be hit by nuns for so many years before it takes its toll on your psyche.

Mind Three: Hey, thanks for reinforcing the stereotype that fat people are freaks who live on doughnuts and sweets! Because you know, it’s been SO easy to fight for fat acceptance and just be treated like normal human beings. Now, I don’t think the reading public is dumb enough to necessarily think all fat people are like her, but it does subtly lend credibility to fatbashers. I can work my vegetable-eating, workout-getting, healthy lifestyle-leading, size 22 ass off day in and day out FOR YEARS and it can all be negated, or almost negated, by one sensationalist interview from a lady with a very specific and unusual fetish.

PLUS, what better way to help the anti-fat brigade than by becoming unhealthy ON PURPOSE so everyone can get up in arms about how much money fat people are costing the government in health care? Because I’m not sure if you’ve noticed it yet, but we’re having a BIT OF A ROUGH TIME OF IT RIGHT NOW and it’s not quite expensive or difficult ENOUGH to be fat in this country, you’re willingly becoming the poster child of the folks who want to make it even harder. Thanks, Donna, you’re a real pal.

OH NOES!!!!111ELEVEN!!! Did you know there was a way to be SECRETLY FAT! It’s called “Skinny Fat” which means you’re slender on the outside but ZOMG YOU ARE FAT ON THE INSIDE WHICH MEANS YOU’RE GOING TO DIIIIIIE.

You CAN NEVER BE SAFE FROM TEH FATZ! It waits in your closet until you’re asleep!  It swallows your grandmother and then puts on her comically small glasses and nightgown!  IT IS FILLING OUT A CREDIT CARD APPLICATION IN YOUR NAME RIGHT NOW AND THE INTEREST RATE IS USURIOUSLY HIGH!!!

Basically the news here is –hold onto your hairnets– just because you’re slim doesn’t mean you’re healthy.

We here at Manolo for the Big Girl are all about health at every size and an unhealthy lifestyle at ANY size is, well, less than ideal.  I’ve got plus-size friends who RUN FREAKIN’ TRIATHLONS and you know I’m sorry, but if you can run a triathlon, you really don’t need to worry about what size pants you wear.

Also, where is the reverse of this Skinny Fat phenomenon?  Where is Porky Slim? I’ve got amazing blood pressure and cholesterol and I get my vitamins by Any Means Necessary (this apparently involves nude sunbathing, I Am Not Making This Up we’ll talk later) no one is asking me on tedious morning television shows saying “OMG GUYS! This girl is fat AND YET SOMEHOW she’s not a walking timebomb of sloth and disease!”

Yesterday we chatted a little bit about Kevin Smith being kicked off a Southwest plane because he was what in the medical community is known as a fattyboombalatty and thus a safety risk.

Of course they ignored the fact that he could fit in his seat, fasten the safety belt AND put down the armrests (earlier reports said he couldn’t).

I listened to the SModcast wherein Smith tells his side of the story.

What struck me most was he wasn’t ready to “scorch the earth” as he put it, until after he was seated on the NEXT flight.  Apparently he’d bought two seats and a fat woman was seated at the other side of the three-person row.

Get this.

The crew asked the fat woman to come with them, and then had a conversation with her, and very nearly did the same thing to her as they’d done to Smith earlier that day.  Plus they made her ASK him if it was okay that she was seated next to his completely empty seat.

What broke my heart was what Smith said about the look on that woman’s face. “It was like she’d been through Fat ‘Nam.” She’d suffered every humiliation, had every judgmental look, and the one big of her dignity she could still hold onto was that she could put her armrest down.

THAT’S when he decided to go on his rampage. Until then he thought that some guy –NOT the captain or the flight attendant– just didn’t like his movies and decided it would be funny to bounce him from the plane. It was when he saw the humiliation of the face of that unfortunate fat woman that he decided to lay siege.

Let me tell you something about Kevin Smith:

In the Fall of 1998 I got to spend an afternoon with him when he came to my university to discuss…Chasing Amy I think.  You might not believe it if you’ve only seen his movies, but he is absolutely a scholar and a gentleman and could give any of the traditionally gracious Sons of the South a run for their confederate money in the manners department. So when in his most recent SModcast he said his motto has always been “death before discourtesy” he’s not lying.  He’s better behaved than some Anglican Bishops I know.

What bothers me so much about this whole thing other than it’s just ANOTHER indignity to heap on the pile is this problem just isn’t going to go away.

“The average legroom in coach is getting smaller. The seat width remains unchanged in decades even as Americans get bigger. Airlines are increasingly using small regional planes to serve less-popular destinations. To combat slow demand, they’ve eliminated capacity, resulting in fuller planes and stiffer competition for upgrades. And airlines’ rules requiring obese passengers to pay for an extra seat are being enforced more strictly.

[...]

Macsata says airlines’ “fat tax” overlooks the fact that seat size hasn’t kept up with increasing girth. From 1960 to 2002, Americans have become on average of about 25 pounds heavier. The typical seat width — at 17 inches to 18.5 inches — hasn’t changed since 1958, he says.

Tealer says she has never been asked to buy another ticket but says coach seats can be painful. “Your hips are pressing against the armrest. I’ve had bruises, muscle pain.”

The armrest test to determine who should buy a second ticket also is discriminatory against women, says Tealer, who’s a board member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, which is battling the second-ticket rule. “Women carry weight more in the hip area. People of color tend to be bigger.”

The federal Air Carrier Access Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in air travel but doesn’t cover size. But obesity can result from debilitating or chronic medical conditions, Macsata says.”

–Smaller Jets Squeeze Big and Tall Fliers –Roger Yu, USA Today

So basically people are fatter and taller than in 1958 but the seat size? Still the same.

I don’t fly often –as I said, I’m a road-trippin’ kinda gal–  but when I was flying back and forth to New York a lot with Andre we always took Jet Blue into the JFK Terminal 5 and it was always pleasant. Yes, actually actively pleasant. And Jet Blue isn’t even paying me to say that (although they totally should!  Cough it up Jet Blue! Mama needs a vacation!)

Fun fact: Jet Blue was founded by David Neeleman, a former member of Southwest. Neeleman’s idea in creating the Jet Blue identity was to –catch this– “to bring humanity back to air travel.”

What a novel idea.

So filmmaker Kevin Smith got kicked off a Southwest Airlines plane for being too fat.

He was able to get his buckle done, but he couldn’t put the armrest down beside him, so the pilot said no go.

He’s a big dude, but he’s not like, Richard-Simmons-Crying-in-Patriotic-Hot-Pants big. He’s about 5′8″ -5′9″ and looks what, maybe 250-300?

That is not the sort of big that I associate with getting kicked off commercial flights.

His story:

I was told 5:20 flight was packed, but I could go Standby. They sent me to gate. Told lady whole story, and she said there wouldn’t be two seats on that earlier flight. I said I only needed one seat & that I didn’t buy an extra seat because I’m fat (which I am), but because I’m anti-social and didn’t want to sit next to someone & possibly have to make convo (in person, I’m very shy). She said she understood. I was issued the solo ticket. I get on the plane: open seat in the front row. Put my bag away, the sit between two ladies. As I’m about to buckle my extender-less seatbelt, the woman who issued the ticket to me appeared in the doorway of the plane, came over to me and said the Captain said I wasn’t going to be allowed to sit there because I was a safety risk. I asked for clarification and was given none (also asked “Please don’t do this” but that, too, fell on deaf ears.

Ladies on either side said I wasn’t a problem. SWA-lady said arm-rests the decider. Arm-rests come down, and voila! I’m legit! I’ve passed the stinkin’ arm-rest-test. And still, the lady asks me to get up and come with her off the plane. I get up without a fuss at all, quietly grab my bag, make eye contact with a fellow Fatty who was praying he’d pass, and leave. You think I wanna f— around on an airplane? I was right: I fit in that seat. But I can’t risk not complying: I’m more afraid of AirFeds. (via Twitter)

Yeah.

I can’t even tell you the anxiety I got when I read that. I don’t fly much, because I much prefer driving (your pal Plummy here loves nothing more than Seeing America. I’m totally that person who, if I was your dad, would make you stop at The World’s Largest Collection of Ear Wax Scupltures In The Shape of Abe Lincoln) but when I was doing quite a bit of air travel, I would always pray and magically think myself thin enough to fit in the seat.

As I’ve said before, I’m 5′10 and a size 20/22. That’s big, but again, not the sort of big I’d associate with getting kicked off planes.

Also, I’m curious as to what exact safety risk not being able to put your armrest down entails. I’m serious.  Will your little mask thing not drop down? Will your under-seat flotation device not dislodge? I really want to know.

I never flew Southwest that often to begin with but you can damn well be sure that Southwest won’t get the chance to do to me what they did to Kevin Smith (who, fun story, burned a hole in the carpet of my first apartment in 1997).  The only money they’ll EVER get from me is the cost of a postage stamp because I’ve got a nice letter brewing.

Perhaps you’d like the address too?

Southwest Airlines
P.O. Box 36647 – 1CR
Dallas, Texas 75235-1647

…comes the cover of the March issue of Vanity Fair, according to which everyone in “New Hollywood” is a thin white woman:

Whether the problem lies with Hollywood, or with Vanity Fair, or both is up for discussion.

Sources:

Jezebel

Shine

A la Levni Yilmaz, the sardonic force behind the (not always safe for work) Tales of Mere Existence:

Discuss.

From Why I Hate Fashion by Tanya Gold

“But I got so fat that even fashion wouldn’t pretend it could fix me. You can get so fat they don’t actually want you in their clothes. It is bad marketing; if very fat people wear their clothes, thinner ­people won’t buy them. There was no point rattling through the rails any more, seeking a satin redemption – nothing would fit my unfashionable bulk. I was ­consigned to M&S smock-land, across the River Styx. And it is lovely here; no heels, no stupid dresses-of-the-moment, certainly no thongs. Fashion has died for me, with an angry little hiss. Ah, peace.”

Okay, it’s time for Miss Plumcake to give an Important Life Lesson to all you budding writers out there, so take heed because I’m only going to say this once:

Don’t

be

pathetic.

Seriously, just don’t. The one exception is if you’re funny. Really funny. Funny to the point of inspiring incontinence, and not just in old people on cold days, because you know how they like to dribble. Then SOMETIMES you can get away with it, but even then, it’s better to err on the side of NOT sounding like you own fourteen cats and have an impressive collection of cobwebs in your lady garden. See,  professional media is not myspace, you’re not a 14 year old girl and no one gives a patent leather damn about your speshul speshul poignant pain.

Oh, uh, too harsh?

Let me explain.

I don’t care that this lady has decided fashion is eeeevil. I really don’t. I don’t care that she blames the accidental death of a sixteen year-old on her high heels –heels I’m sure Anna Wintour personally FORCED onto her feet because surely a young woman can’t make her own informed decisions– instead of just marking it up to a sad accident. I don’t care that she calls the models who appear in fashmags “anorexic children” because apparently it’s okay to judge people’s bodies when SHE’S doing the judging. I don’t care about any of that.

What I care about is crying in baseball.

You know how there is no crying in baseball? Well, I come from the newspaper biz and let me tell you, there’s no crying in journalism, either, and there’s ESPECIALLY no airing of your own depression/anxiety/unresolved abandonment issues from that one time in 1987 your dad missed your ballet recital.

Do you know how you deal with that when you’re a REAL journalist? Alcoholism and failed relationships, that’s how. None of this namby pamby moaning on the internet under the guise of journalism. No, it’s cirrhosis and child support and eyebags so big they’re being knocked-off in Chinatown, THE WAY THE LORD INTENDED IT.

I don’t even have the energy to talk about the problems with the bulk of her emo screed article, like how just because SHE doesn’t like something doesn’t make it evil (as opposed to when I don’t like something, because, to quote Lady Beauchamp: “I’m right because I’m always right and anyone who says I’m wrong is mad and wicked.”) and that for propagating the stereotype that big women are happier wearing tent dresses and shunning fashion she deserves to be taken behind the woodshed and beaten soundly by a pair of size 42 Christian Louboutin peep-toe glitter pumps (which you may then send to me) until she realizes that being frumpy is not the same as being superior, and caring about fashion is not the same as being owned by it.

Fashion isn’t going to make you beautiful any more than eschewing it is going to make you interesting, ducklings. Remember that, and will someone please fix me a cocktail? Mama’s feeling a little piqued.

One more note  about operas and fat ladies (see what I did there? With the note? Because it’s like music, get it?)
Soprano Daniela Dessi walked out of the role of Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata when director Franco Zeffirelli--you’ll remember him from the Romeo and Juliet we all saw in junior high with Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting– said she was too fat to sing one of opera’s most famous consumptives.

THIS is La Dessi (with friends):

What
a
COW.

By the way, that is EXACTLY what I wear each morning as my favorite houseboy attends to my toilette (in my head).

Now for those of you who aren’t familiar with La Traviata or La Dame aux Camélias the Alexandre Dumas fils novel (his daddy wrote The Three Musketeers which incidentally has 30% less fat than other classic French adventure novels) on which the opera was based, it’s your tried-and-true Consumptive Parisian Hooker with a Heart of Gold story à la Moulin Rouge except for, you know, not awful in every conceivable way (I’m sorry it just IS and not even Ewan McGregor’s hotness is going to change the fact that Baz Luhrmann directs like a coked-up housefly with electrodes on his balls.)

Marguerite, renamed Violetta in the opera, was based on courtesan Marie Duplessis with whom Dumas fils had a torrid affair before she died at 23.

She’s seen here wearing a white camellia. Apparently Duplessis wore a white camellia when she was available to entertain guests  and a red one when she was having her Special Lady Time, which I suppose is a lot more elegant than MY tell which involves taking the safety off my .38.

So if Zeffirelli –who has always been for realism in casting– wanted to cast a sickly-thin 23 year old in the role, then why didn’t he? Is his Google finger broken? Because a quick image search showed me exactly what La Dessi looks like.  MAYBE it’s because it’s nearly impossible to find someone that young who can carry a principal with meaning and artistic flair and even LESS likely to find someone capable of singing that role who doesn’t weigh at least a buck fifty.

In fact, the only one I know to have done a credible job –and I’m not saying there aren’t others– is Beverly Sills when she sang Violetta in 1951.  The “youngest prima donna in captivity” was 22 and although she was a good bit slimmer than Dessi, no one was going to confuse Bubbles with a consumptive waif.

Ms Dessi says:

‘I can accept criticism before I put pen to paper but not afterwards. I was working well with the conductor of the orchestra but the problem these days is that theatrical directors have too much say.’

Ms Desi [sic] added: ‘I’m stunned. I still can’t believe what I heard him say. I am 1.60 metres tall, weigh 65 kg and take a size 44. There – that’s the first time I have given my vital statistics in public.’

So basically this woman  is 5′3″ and wears about a size 14, she had the role and had been rehearsing. Then Zeffirelli calls her “too portly to perform” and Dessi walks out, as does her husband who was playing the male principal and the show went on with two lesser voices.

Perfect!

I mean, I’m not super bright, but isn’t a big part of opera the singing? Because I kind of think it is.  Like,  if  it was just a bossy woman with a great rack and interesting taste in headgear  yelling at people for three hours  then I feel like I’d be offered more roles than I am, instead of the current number which is –let me rummage through my datebook– exactly zero.

Shout out to Sarahbyrdd for being the first reader to bring this to my attention!