Manolo for the Big Girl

Francesca notes this interesting, albeit somewhat disturbing, article about “thinspiration” videos at yesterday’s New York Times magazine:

You don’t have to search very hard to find the excruciating online videos known as thinspiration, or thinspo. Photomontages of skeletal women, including some celebrities and models, play all over the Internet, uploaded from the United States, Germany, Holland and elsewhere. These videos are designed to “inspire” viewers — to fortify their ambitions. But exactly which ambitions? To lose weight, presumably. To stop losing weight, possibly. Thinspo videos profess a range of ideologies, often pressing morbid images into double service, as both goads and deterrents to anorexia.

::snip::

Setting aside the mystifying proposition that anorexia be seen as a lifestyle choice (as some extremist pro-anorexia sites maintain), as well as the age-old riddle of whether popular culture can produce mental illness, what seems most significant about the thinspiration videos is that they’re not propaganda or even entertainment, but an effort, however misguided, at art. One thinspiration filmmaker whose YouTube screen name is “hungryhell,” and who spoke on condition of anonymity to keep her struggles with bulimia private from people who know her, emphasized to me in an e-mail message that her work “represents what I have been feeling at that time in particular.” She added, “The songs I use . . . say exactly what I need to but can’t figure out how.”

According to the article, “thinspo” videos come with little or no commentary, and therefore are hard to classify. Francesca agrees with the reporter that they seem to be less a form of “thin is in” propoganda and should be considered more as works of (not necessarily good) art — in the sense that they are a means of creative expression, the result of a (probably disturbed) person’s compulsion to produce something out of photos, video, and music which represents his or her inner turmoil. And like any art, it may be seen as ridiculous or meaningless or moving or disturbing or infuriating. And the more one feels an emotional reaction upon watching it, the more it is a powerful piece of art - as infuriating as it may be.

There is much in the article which we could explicate here, but Francesca will say just one, and leave the rest for you good folks to discuss in the comments:

There are so many, many ways in this world that a person can be in pain. So many ways to destroy oneself. And so much strangeness! What the internet has done is to give more people new ways to share their pain — or whatever it is — with the rest of the world. And it has given us a new window into other people’s mental goings-on. Sometimes what we see is perplexing, or puzzling, or ambiguous. This doesn’t make it new, and it doesn’t make it politically important. It’s just an interesting fact about humanity, that sometimes we produce strange and perplexing things. People were creating disturbing works long before the internet, and long before thinness became an ideal. Just, their works were stored in the attic and no one ever saw them, unless they were Sylvia Plath.

Yet Francesca is intrigued by this question, which the Times reporter has “set aside”: “the age-old riddle of whether popular culture can produce mental illness.”

Indeed, would the makers of thinspiration videos be as obsessed with thin bodies if popular culture did not value thinness so much? If there was no internet for them to post videos on? Are more people troubled because of our society’s mixed messages, or is it the same percentage of people, but they have newer and creative ways (such as anorexia) of manifesting their sickness? Francesca will leave it to you to discuss.

Francesca knows that you think she is always on top of her to-do list and perfectly motivated and organized all the time, but she has a secret for you: Francesca sometimes – not often, mind you, only once every long while — wastes time on the internet.

One of her favorite destinations is the “What’s New” section at Snopes.com, the site where one may investigate the veracity of internet rumours and odd news stories. Each day, in addition to well-researched information that tells you that, no, Bill Gates will not give you a dollar for each person to whom you forward that email, they post a roundup of strange or silly news from around the world.

Today, two articles caught Francesca’s attention with their references to the Big Girls . . . and made Francesca’s head come oh so very close to exploding! Yes, the Francesca has lost her equanimity! It is an occurrence to cause the concern!

First, is yet another frustrating story about a woman who had a real, live health problem, and was grossly misdiagnosed by her doctor, who saw her fat and decided that losing weight was all she needed to do:

The unidentified woman said after visiting a health clinic to complain about a swollen abdomen, she was allegedly told by a doctor to attempt to lose weight to deal with the problem, the Swedish news agency TT reported Friday.

The woman said she returned to the clinic several other times after the problem persisted and was denied when she asked for an ultrasound.

A private doctor eventually conducted an ultrasound and discovered a cyst inside her abdomen which weighed nearly 18 pounds.

The news agency said the Medical Responsibility Board has since been informed about the woman’s initial doctor, who was a temporary employee at the clinic, and his inaccurate diagnosis.

What most angers Francesca is that when a woman comes back repeatedly asking for an ultrasound, it means that she feels, in her body, that something unusual is happening.  Perhaps she had always been thin, and suddenly gained weight even though she had not altered her eating or exercising routines. Or perhaps she had always been overweight, but this time something was different — she could feel it. Either way, if a woman is insisting that there is something going on, then there very well may be something going on. But the “doctors” at this clinic did not consider that possibility, because obviously if the woman is fat, then all she is is fat. Nothing else about her is important, not even the possibility of a cyst, and not even the possibility that she is intelligent enough to know her own body.

Grrrr!

Second, we have here a sad, sad story about a woman in New Zealand who relied on an oxygen machine to breathe, and who died after the utilities company shut down the electricity at her house:

Muliaga’s husband, Lopaavea, told the court that he contacted Mercury Energy in early May 2007 to try to arrange paying their overdue power bill in installments but was unsuccessful.

He made a payment in May but the power was disconnected eight days later. At the time, he testified, he thought he only owed $26.67.

Mercury Energy said at the time that $130.12 was owed.

An emotional Lopaavea Muliaga said he was at work when the power was cut and arrived home to find his wife dead and two ambulance officers at the house.

He said by the time of her death his overweight wife needed the oxygen machine 16 hours a day to help her breathe.

In the wake of Folole Muliaga’s death, the power company said it would review the way it deals with customers with medical dependencies and those in financial difficulty.

Notice that nowhere does the article state why Ms. Muliaga required an oxygen machine. Perhaps the Associated Press reporter who wrote this story believes that by describing her as overweight, he or she has told us all we need to know. As in, “ah, yes, she was overweight, therefore she her entire respiratory system shut down– because, you know, as soon as your BMI goes into the ‘overweight’ category you only have seconds to live– and therefore she died when the electricity went off.”

Of course, we all know that the vast majority of overweight people can breathe on their own just fine, thank you very much. Ms. Muliaga was not a victim of her fat, she was a victim of whatever profound illness caused her to need the oxygen machine (and of the power company). Even if being overweight is a risk factor for whatever illness it was — and the article does not substantiate this assumption — it still does not tell us anything salient.

What is sad is that so many people think it does, including a reporter and a copy editor at the Associated Press.

Grrrrrr.

Francesca will now uplift herself with  one of these darling, darling cotton skirts, available in Woman and Woman Petite sizes at Talbots:

They are adorned with itsy-bitsy dragonflies, palm trees, or flamingos, and are much more useful and smile-making than the stupid reporters. Francesca hath spoken.

Our internet friend Shannon turned our attention to a delightful fashion-related article in an online publication called “The Smart Set.” Writer Jessa Crispin reviews various books about fashion . . . .

Instead of alleviating our body fears, however, so many books advising what to wear do nothing but exaggerate them. The entire structure of Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine’s book What Not to Wear is built to help you define your particular version of body dysmorphic disorder. Do you think you have short legs? A big butt? Big arms? There’s a chapter telling you how to dress around each perceived flaw. It’s hard to walk out the door feeling hot and feisty when your entire dressing process has been focused on your main source of anxiety. If I tried to dress to hide all the parts of my body I have ever been self-conscious about, the only thing left to wear would be a hazmat suit.

. . . . and ultimately recommends The Meaning of Sunglasses: And a Guide to Almost All Things Fashionable by Hadley Freeman.

If more fashion writing was done in the tone of smartypants Freeman, we could avoid the fear that caring about our appearance makes us a vain fool or a victim. A work colleague recently took one look at the four-inch peep toe heels I was wearing and snarled, “Don’t you know why men invented high heels?” I doubted anything I said would deflect what was coming next, so I just shrugged. “So you can’t run away when they want to rape you.” I understand. I used to be a humorless feminist, too, complete with shaved head and my father’s combat boots. Then I discovered Charles David heels and got over it. If only The Meaning of Sunglasses had existed sooner, I could have spent less time being a self-righteous twit.

Francesca says: It is possible to be intellectual and feminist and fashion-conscious!

Excellent discussion at Shapely Prose going on, about what to wear to a job interview when one has a poochie-tummy such that one looks several months pregnant.

Francesca does not look pregnant, she just looks fat, but as an Apple-shape she appreciates that sometimes even the Spanx will not do it.

For those for whom Spanx is enough, or at least helpful, here is Francesca’s post with information about where to buy Spanx for the interview for the Good Job.

But anyway, as Francesca says, sometimes one must Give It Up and understand that no matter how strong the “slimming undergarments” are, we are not truly succeeding in hiding our love handles and the poochie tummy.  They are there. We know they are there, and so does everyone else. There is no point in kidding anyone, because we cannot. And why should we? The love handles are called love handles for a reason. Being soft and squishie is very, very sexy.

There is only one thing to do: Stand up straight, be confident in one’s beauty and specialness, and –if being not pregnant is important to you — take up an extreme sport so that you can say, in all truthfulness,  “on Saturdays I go bungee jumping, and on Sundays I parachute.”

Of course, you could lie and say those things even if in actuality you spend your weekends  at the sci-fi/fantasy conventions (and who wouldn’t rather do that?), but then you run the risk of your potential boss saying “really? I’m a parachuter also . . . but I never see you at the club.” That would be bad.

Francesca says: Do your best to look the way you would like to look for your job interview, and leave the rest to the goodness of the cosmos.

Francesca has been trying to think of a way to put a light, frothy spin on this question, but cannot think of any, so she will just put it out there.

When Francesca was perhaps 11 or 12 years old, her Aunt Bianca came from America with a gift for Francesca: a book in English called Nothing’s Fair in Fifth Grade.

Francesca thinks the book was meant to be fat positive, in the way that fat positive was in the 1970’s and early 1980’s: the message was that Fat Girls are people too, and can make great friends, so do not make fun of your fat classmates!

The story ends with the Fat Girl losing a few pounds, which is correlated with her emerging popularity and happiness. Still, the book ends with the image that though she has lost some weight, she’s still quite heavy - and that’s basically OK. On the last page she notes that she can finally see her shoes, and Francesca, who was fat as a child, remembers relating to that line.

So Francesca asked Aunt Bianca to send her more books about fat girls, and received in the mail Me and Fat Glenda and Hey, Remember Fat Glenda?

Francesca barely remembers Me and Fat Glenda, probably because the main character was actually the skinny girl, who had conflicts with her hippie parents, and since Francesca’s parents are as far from hippie as two people can possibly be, she did not relate. But she well remembers the sequel.

In this book, Fat Glenda has lost a lot of weight. So much weight that she is now, if not slender, at least slender enough that boys are starting to notice her, if not exactly the boys she wants (and therein lies the conflict and the comedy). But — Francesca noticed then — on the cover was a VERY slender girl, admiring her figure in a mirror.

Francesca was disturbed, but did not know why. Now she knows: while the book gave the message that being thin would not solve all your problems, it also gave the message that being thin brought with it the wonderful problem of boyfriends. Clearly, if Glenda had remained fat, the entire plot of this book would be unthinkable, because fat girls need to focus on losing weight, not on boys. Or, at least, that is what Francesca got from it at the time.

Francesca wants to know: Did you read the Fat Glenda books as a child? And if so, what did you think of them then?

Were there other books with fat characters that you loved? Hated?

Must-see images:

Here

and

Here

Hat tip: Patia herself

Francesca’s last couple of posts, and the comments to them, leave her with an important question: For purposes of this blog, just how big constitutes big?

In recommending plus-size fashions, Francesca’s rule of thumb is that an item of clothing is fair game if it is available in a Size 16 and/or higher. Size 14 is often available in “regular” stores, albeit not as often as size 12, while Size 16 is usually the smallest size available in the plus-size stores. Francesca knows that one could write an entire blog on the travails of the girls who wear size 14, which is often considered too big for the regular stores and too small for the plus-size stores. But she has to make a mental border for herself somewhere. So, for this blog, size 16 is usually it. That is why she sometimes recommends clothing by J. Crew, who are not exactly known for catering to fat girls, because they do have an entire Size 16 section on their site (as well as fashions for the Tall girls, to whom Francesca sometimes wishes to nod and wink), though their failure to offer sizes 18 and up makes Francesca feel a bit squeamish about referring to them too often.

Then we come to the selections for the posts on “Big Girls in Art.” Several readers said that they do not believe that the woman (apparently Salome) in this painting is actually big:

Oh, oh, oh, now we have come straight into the hornet’s nest! For, though this woman  probably does wear a Size 16 or 18 on the bottom (she is a beautiful and voluptuous Pear, and very aesthetically pleasing, and probably has a hard time finding skirts and pants which fit her hips but are not too wide at the waist) Francesca fears, some readers may have looked at this image and thought “if that girl is big, what am I?” They may also have thought “Why is Francesca buying into the Big Bad Media idea that a woman with any fat on her is Big?”

Francesca will answer the second question first. In an ideal world, the Big Bad Media would not categorize people by their size at all. But the whole point of this blog is that our world is not ideal, and women’s whose hips or tummies or breasts are more than an arbitrary size are considered “Big” either in terms of where they can find clothes, or whether they are considered “too big” or “too fat” by others, or both.

The point of Big Girls in Art is to show that indeed that mysterious fault line (and Francesca chooses that term on purpose) is indeed arbitrary. There was a time when the woman with very generous hips was considered the ideal, and was celebrated in what was then The Media. There was a time when having a large butt was so attractive that women wore bustles to make theirs reach out to Indiana. In other words, Francesca wants to demonstrate that the problem is not us, it is this strange, arbitrary idea that thinner is better - an idea started, Francesca thinks, partly because thin women serve as better hangers on which to model the fashions on runways, and partly because having the time and money to maintain a perfectly flat belly indicates wealth in our age. The problem is not us or our genes or our class, it is the time.  Not so long ago, the woman whose genes made her predisposed to the waif-like frame was the one with the problem.

And in answer to the first question . . . if the woman in this painting is big, do you know what you are?

Beautiful.

Manolo for the Big Girl has an extremely intelligent and well-read readership!

In the next few weeks, Francesca will highlight comments from various readers in which they tell us about their favorite books. Francesca has not yet read these books, but plans to! Thanks to all who tell us about their favorite reads so we can all feed our minds and souls as well as our voluptuous bodies!

Leah wrote:

Speaking of books that change your body image, my two cents is to recommend Eve Ensler’s The Good Body, which is not specifically for big girls but does a beautiful job of putting body insecurity and the market frenzy that feeds on it in perspective. At the end of a book that is alternately poignant, hilarious, and shocking, I found I was able to see myself in a much more appreciative light. I’ve shared it with most of the women in my life and now, I suppose, I am sharing it with you! It’s a quick, easy read that you will find hard not to pass around to women you love, no matter what their shape.

In response to Francesca’s recommendation of Guy Gavriel Kay’s fantasy novel Tigana, Icy wrote:

Try The Lions of al-Rassan if you’re looking for another fabulous read, and the  Sailing to Sarantium two book series.

And regarding the idea that some books improve with age (that is, our age), class factotum says:

Great Expectations  changed from a boring chore in 9th grade to a “I can’t wait to see what happens next” my sophomore year of college.

Oh, yes, Great Expectations! Francesca loves! (now, but not in 8th grade)

For the funny bone, Das Boots says:

To share the love of David Sedaris, I very highly recommend Barrel Fever and Other Stories. Mr. Boots and I made the mistake of getting the book on tape for a road trip, and had to pull off the road several times until we could stop crying. It’s seriously that funny.

Readers also recommended other books by Sedaris:  Me Talk Pretty One Day(a favorite of Francesca’s, too!), Naked, and Holidays on Ice. Here is a Box Set of audio cassettes of four of his books!

(At a reader’s suggestion, Francesca bought  Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and loved it. She warns that Sedaris is best enjoyed like rich chocolate, in bits and pieces; don’t read it straight through.)

More to come next week. Happy reading!

In honor of the recent TV airing about the “health at every size” issue and fat acceptance, I bring you this timely excerpt from the Fat Girl’s Bible: The superfantastic Wake Up, I’m Fat! by the large and fabulous Camryn Manheim.

It is from the chapter about her time at the New York University Tisch School for the Arts, where the professors and administration of the Drama “hocked” her (as they say in Yiddish) about her weight and her admittedly bad attitude (”Camryn, you have a bad attitude!” “Did you say I have a fat attitude?” “No, I said you have a bad attitude!” “I heard you! I’m too fat for class!”). Now, pay careful attention, ladies, to this paragraph from page 64:

I was doing speed in the morning to get through the day and Valium at night to get to sleep. Speed in the morning to get through the day and Valium at night to get to sleep. Speed in the morning. Valium at night. Speed in the morning. Valium at night. Speed. Valium. Speed. Valium. Speed. Valium. (Pant, pant) Speed and Valium . . . it’s got a certain rhythm, but you can’t dance to it. Life was going by at a hundred miles a minute. I wasn’t eating a thing and I was exercising more than ever. I was playing tennis, racquetball, swimming. I was really improving my cardiovascular system and destroying it at the very same time. By the end of the summer, I had lost about thirty-five pounds, and when I returned to NYU I was celebrated by my peers. My teachers took a brand-new interest in me and I felt like a star. I was afraid if I stopped taking the speed I would gain all thirty-five pounds back, so I decided to keep taking it during my last year at NYU. I was a wreck but a trimmed-down wreck, and that kept NYU happy. By spring I was the thinnest I had ever been in my adult life, about eighty pounds less than I am now. I don’t think anyone ever noticed that I was on speed, but then, ya know, I could have been in denial.

Remember, boys and girls: You cannot tell just from looking at someone how healthy they are. If they used to be obese and are now thin(ner), the question should not be “how can we celebrate your new-found health and beauty?” but rather “did you lose the weight in a healthy way? Are you actually healthier now than you were before? If so, congratulations! If not, is worrying about your (subjective) beauty more important than worrying about your mental, emotional, and physical health? How can I support you in what you really need?”

Turns out that, in response to the negative publicity they received after Manheim wrote a one-woman show about how awful they’d been, NYU’s Tisch school completely revamped their attitude (fattitude?) toward overweight students. Want to know how Manheim found out? You must buy the book!

Happy reading!

xoxo,

Francesca

So much superfantastic activity in the Fatosphere! The New York Times article garnered much attention. Here, via the Fat-Blogger par excellence, Kate Harding, is the fascinating TV spot featuring 2 of our Blogging Sisters! See how beautiful and articulate they are!

The F-Word

Big Fat Deal

And here is the Kate Harding post where you can join in a discussion. Francesca bows down on her knees to the Kate Harding!

And here is the supplemental video, which was not aired on TV. You must watch this supplement!

And now for Francesca’s commentary:

1. Here you have two Fat Bloggers vs. The Wicked Witch of the West, Meme Roth of the National Action Against Obesity. (Francesca feels the doctor was pretty neutral.)
The Fat Bloggers did a great job of staying “on message,” their 2 messages being:

a) You cannot assume that because someone is fat they are necessarily unhealthy and

b) Being fat does not mean that a person isn’t worthy of respect, equal pay, etc.

Notice that at no time during the on-air segment did Meme Roth or the doctor acknowledge that fat people are human beings worthy of respect. Francesca understands the reasons they think the country would be healthier if everyone stopped gaining weight, but she is PO’ed that they couldn’t even bring themselves to say ” . . . that having been said, it is inappropriate and rude to make fun of fat people. Fat people are, indeed, human beings - we just think they have a problem to work on.” Were they, too, just trying to stay on-message? Or do they think that being fat is a legitimate reason to throw garbage at someone (literally)? See the supplemental video to find out!

2. Francesca feels that Roth does have one point, about which Rachel and Monique were not quite intellectually honest: the fact that, for example, Rachel does not currently have diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol does not mean that being fat is perfectly healthy for her. Type-2 diabetes often does not set in until a person is in her 40’s or 50’s, and so it could be that Rachel will, indeed, someday get diabetes — and that her risk is higher because she is fat. The anti-fat folks are correct that we aren’t just talking about people’s current health but their long-term chances for remaining healthy as long as possible.

That having been said, in her introduction Rachel explained that for her, staying at a “healthy” weight involved starving herself, and that the dieting, for her, led to malnutrition, cessation of her menses, and severe depression with suicidal thoughts.

Frankly, Francesca believes, for all the dangers associated with diabetes, that malnutrition and suicidal thoughts are much, much worse. If Francesca had to choose between the two, she would choose the diabetes.

3. All that having been said, Francesca wonders how long a pole someone must have up their you-know-what to decide to devote her life to running an anti-obesity organization. I mean, seriously. To crusade against something like, say, smoking I do understand, because making smoking less socially acceptable has indeed led to a decrease in smoking in this country. I also could understand if the organization were called National Action for Nutrition and Fitness or National Action for Weight Education, because who could argue with either of those? But being “against obesity” does not make anyone lose weight. Telling Americans that being fat is bad, and that all those increasingly-fat people are expensive and are ruining America, does not help anything. Because, guess what? People get fat for a whole lot of reasons much more complicated than, say, the decision to start smoking. No one becomes fat because their friends say it’s cool. No one becomes fat in order to fit in. And no one stays fat because they are “addicted” to it. You can’t stop eating cold turkey. (I mean, you can stop eating turkey if you want, hot or cold, but you can’t stop eating everything altogether. Hah! Francesca jokes!)

You have to be a very angry, un-compassionate person to spend hours every day being anti-obesity. And, guess what? Being angry and lacking compassion do not help America.

Francesca hath spoken!

4. Gotta love that line “we’ll hear what these men think about their wives.” As if feeling anything but love and pride in your wife is surprising and news-worthy if she’s fat. Give Francesca a break. So much about our society is warped and depressing.

But, things can change. Once again, congratulations to our now-famous blogging superstars!