I’ve seen some massive outpourings of fat hatred today. The Age ran an article on the Marie Claire debacle and the comment thread on that is a fat-hate bingo bonanza. I really don’t recommend you read it unless you’re feeling robust.
This is exactly why what Marie Claire have done - not only in publishing Kelly’s vile nonsense in the first place but in refusing to make any kind of meaningful statement, retraction or apology that does not entirely miss the point - is so extremely abhorrent. Maura Kelly doesn’t have to watch Mike and Molly. I don’t have to read Marie Claire. But it doesn’t matter whether I do or not… other people do. Other people take an outspoken expression of hatred towards fat people and they fucking run with it. They think, oooh, this person Maura Kelly said that and it confirms my own small-minded beliefs and makes the heart of my unexamined privilege sing a little. I am now going to start exercising my own ‘free speech’ because I feel emboldened by this kindred bigot who is actually paid to say this stuff. Oh, it’s so nice to be right! It’s so nice to know that other people are just as fucked-up as me that they feel physically squeamish just when they see human beings that don’t fit into a narrow prescribed ideal. I shall tell this to the world. And more than that, I will do the world a big favour by telling fatties — horrible, stupid, lazy fatties — that they don’t have to be fat, that I know what is best for them. I will do everyone a favour by making it just that little bit more okay to be a judgmental douchebag and to hurt the feelings and damage the lives of real, actual people living in fat bodies. And when I do this, the ripple effect will become incrementally larger, until the fat hate festival hits full swing. Thanks, Maura Kelly. Thanks, Marie Claire!
↧
Maura Kelly and the fat hate festival
↧