Their faces are not shown probably for privacy reasons, no other. Chill.
The use of Headless Fatties has absolutely nothing to do with privacy. Journalists take uncredited photos of strangers all the time and use them to illustrate stories. For example, on the story of unemployment you can find no end of photographs of people in crowds. With a little research I found 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 stories that use photos and videos of supposedly unemployed people, and I’m sure you’ve seen countless other examples.
But considering the state of the economy, being unemployed, while undesirable, is not something that society is exactly shaming right now. Unemployment is seen as not in the control of the unemployed, since people just aren’t hiring now.
Okay, fair enough. Let’s look at another group that is often derided as responsible for their own plight: the homeless.
The homeless are routinely dismissed as being too lazy to “fix” their problem. Sounds a helluva lot like how people talk about fat people. Likewise, homeless people are treated as though they should be ashamed or embarrassed to be homeless, just as fat people are expected to be ashamed or embarrassed of their bodies.
Yet, search for stories on homelessness and I easily found 1, 2, 3, 4 stories with photos of supposedly homeless people.
None of these photos chop off the heads.
And before you say, “Well, the photographer probably had their permission” let me direct you to The Photographer’s Rights (PDF), which explains the legality of photographing people in public:
The general rule in the United States is that anyone may take photographs of whatever they want when they are in a public place or places where they have permission to take photographs.Absent a specific legal prohibition such as a statute or ordinance, you are legally entitled to take photographs. Examples of places that are traditionally considered public are streets, sidewalks, and public parks.
So, it’s not a legal issue and it’s not about protecting people from potentially embarrassing photographs. What is left?
It’s simple: photos, such as the one above, are primarily intended to focus your attention on the size and shape of the bodies, as well as any errant behavior (as with the two fatties eating ice cream), while removing any evidence that these are the bodies of actual living, breathing human beings.
In short, it is to objectify fatties by disconnecting their humanity (most vividly expressed in our faces) from their fatness.
Unlike sexual objectification, which seeks to turn the bodies of (primarily) women into sex objects, fatty objectification seeks to turn the bodies of fat people into Exhibits A-Z of the Obesity Epidemic. Fatty objectification allows people to see only the fatness, the grotesque morbidity, that threatens our country. Fatty objectification trains society to notice only the fatness of the body, rather than to acknowledge the humanity in the eyes of a fatty. Above all, fatty objectification reinforces the belief that the problem is our bodies and that those who possess a fat body deserve neither dignity nor recognition.
So no, this is not an issue on which I, or my fellow fatties, will “chill.” This is a deliberate process of dehumanization that every news outlet is guilty of perpetuating.
We are not your illustrations. We are not your examples of shame. We are human beings and we demand to be treated as such.
Peace,
Shannon*standing ovation*