It hits home so well. There is no love for the altos in the Disney Universe. At one time I could hit that one high note in Rent and belt with the best of them. Not so much anymore...the low notes are my friend. Another time, perhaps. A day in the sun may very well arrive for us altos. No longer will we be straining for the likes of Elsa or Ariel. On that gracious morn, we will passionately make up our own choreography at stoplights while recklessly abandoning the boring lower 3rd. (Moana seemed a little more mezzo--we thank you, Disney).
Altos aside, Disney is kind of making some good strides in the area of representation. Yes, of course we need more--more diversity, more progression, more proactivity in the matter rather than reactivity (reactivity--as in suddenly realizing “oh crap...most of our princess have been white and end up in the same higher socioeconomic category”).
Readers don’t need me to tell them that diverse representation matters. Progress is still painfully slow, and Disney is by no means perfect about it (it’s an industry, after all). At least they are doing something, though? For certain, the Disney Princess line is its own area of pop culture influence, and it is strongest among our young girls. So the fact that someone, anyone, is being intentional about celebrating varying ethnicities, cultures, and languages, makes me giddy. Sometimes, in order to fully engage with the message of the "strong female” character, it’s important for young girls to be able to see themselves in more demographics on the screen. And, moreover, to encourage better human relations overall, it is important for all girls to see someone up there who is different from them. It’s twofold. Our young women need something like this. Society needs something like this. Perhaps it’s indicative of my addiction to sitcoms and after school specials and media built on naïveté...I’m just hoping it means more understanding and less polarization for our future.
I do have to wonder what those brainstorming sessions are like. The writers are probably all seated in this sparkling high tower around a giant round table made of mahogany and sunshine. Some wear thick glasses and others have crazy hair to indicate their whimsical lives. They probably drink lattes and have animated powerpoints and sing songs when they hit writer's block. Glitter is everywhere. (...No it isn’t. They don’t do any of this. There’s a conference room and a white board and some laptops, maybe. I made all of it up. JUST LET ME HAVE THIS, OK).
What brought about our favorite characters like Mulan, and Rapunzel, and Moana? Who decided the delicate design that would bring about Tiana and Ariel? And what goes into consideration when deliberating over the next project? There must be some pulling into archives of old fairy tales, digging through old pages and stories. It sounds perfectly delicious to me. I’d play in old documents all day if I could. I adore watching the pieces of lives and fictions knit together into something that the world needs. And what does the world need these days? What princesses are we lacking? Who should be the next female for our kiddos to look up to? I can’t answer for sure. I don’t know what her name is, or where she’s from, or exactly what her adventure should be, but I can say one thing for certain:
I want our next Disney Princess to be fat.
I said it. Fat.
... now that we are all nice and uncomfortable, let’s dive in.
I won’t waste time throwing out a bunch of statistics. In America, obesity has arrived in full force. Even though it seems like common sense--we eat too much and exercise too little--science would suggest that it is far more complicated than once thought. Obesity presents a problem, sure, but there are so many other crises looped in and around this tangled cultural web we weave. Hunger is a problem. Nutrition is a problem. Even healthcare is a problem, and its a problem because the medical world freely admits that our hypothalamus is a force to be reckoned with, and hormones are weird (if you’d like a more solid explanation, this Ted Talk does great job). It’s easy to say that produce is cheaper than it once was--but in a world where we are consistently stricken for either money or time, it’s difficult to spend and spend on foods that spoil easily and are not often provided for on WIC and other welfare programs.
So, that’s why I’m not going to talk about health and nutrition here. Your fat friends already know that they can’t lose weight eating cheetos and pasta. They already know that it takes hard work and discipline. They already know that excuses don’t work and there are thousands of ways to motivate yourself. But what most of the world doesn’t take into account is that we have a new diet fad every decade, and even plain-Jane diet and exercise plans fail (most of the contestants on the hit show, The Biggest Loser, can testify to that). Proponents of Whole30, the Paleo diet, and Beach Body are super on board with digestive health. However these same proponents generally recoil when I tell them that I can digest dairy just fine, but leafy greens have me writhing on the floor in pain for three hours. While most health plans like to tout that “thinness does not equal health”, the promoters of those plans also get really mad when they realize that fat athletes exist--including but not limited to fat yoga instructors , fat dancers, and fat marathon runners. What I’m getting at is that we don’t need such a plethora of information to just be nice to each other.
We don’t need it. We don’t. Are you hearing me? WE DON’T NEED IT. Food may be a stronghold in some people’s lives (including my own). And appetite can certainly be a struggle, amongst the many other seven deadly sins. But I’m done with looking at someone’s size and assuming a number of things about that person. I’m done with living in a world where most young girls start dieting at age 10. I’m done with people looking at the spread of my hips and asking what it is I need to change. Why is this conversation suddenly about me? What about what you need to change? And how about you stop walking up to strangers on the street and saying mean things, SHARON FROM HR?
How about it? How about we say, “no more.” How about we halt this weird expectation we have on bodies and promote the understanding that they don’t all work the same way. How about we start in the church. Because, I need to make this loud and clear, friends. Making an appetite your god and bowing down to the altar of food is a sin. But being fat? Being fat isn’t.
“But Melinda,” sayeth the reader, “no one is making fun of fat women. People aren’t dumb enough to say rotten things to their larger friends.” I would tend to agree with that. That’s not a norm. Statements like “fat-a**” and “lardo” (or in the words of comedian Zoltan Kaszas, Uncle McFatFat) yelled out on the street usually come from real life trolls who don’t have much to do with their day. But I can tell you as someone who has gained, and then lost, and then gained, and then lost, and then gained, and lost, and then gained again (I really wish I was exaggerating on that)--the subtleties of change in all the ways people interact with you are small and awful. Talks on modesty morph from “lest we tempt the gentleman” to “no one needs to see that” and “we need to dress for our size.” A gradual, complicated relationship with ultimate frisbee takes shape. People believe your words less, and suddenly male friends who you’ve never shown any interest in make sure to stand about a foot farther away from you in conversation. There’s no way to explain to anyone that stores just don’t make clothes that fit your shape, so a slow acceptance floods your wardrobe--even if it’s the hottest day in July, you’re going to be wearing 3 shirts at a time to make sure everything is covered.
Don’t take my word for it, though. Have a taste of the words penned from my fellow fat lady writers:
“At the same time that I was tentatively opening to the idea that my humanity was not hostage to my BMI, the rest of the nation had declared a ‘war on obesity.’ They’d whipped up a host of reasons why it was right and good to hate fat people: our repulsive, unsexy bodies, of course (the classic!), but also our drain on the healthcare system, our hogging of plane armrests, our impact on ‘the children,’ our pathetic inability and/or monstrous refusal to swap austerity for gluttony (like thin people,who, as you know, are moderate and virtuous in all ways).” --Shrill, Lindy West
“People don’t expect the writer who will be speaking at their event to look like me. They don’t know how to hide their shock when they realize that a reasonably successful writer is this overweight. These reactions hurt, for so many reasons. They illustrate how little they think of fat people, how they assume we are neither smart nor capable if we have such unruly bodies.” --Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, Roxane Gay
“...More contemporary diet-devotionals have failed to critique this damaging lie. The clear problem here is the perception of what fatness says about a person’s character and personality--yet, there is no effort to change the perception.” --Praying Away the Fat, J. Nicole Morgan
Oh, how it makes my heart ache.
A life of Love has so much more to offer us, and we’ve sacrificed it on the altar of false edification. This is not how we treat each other. This is not how we treat ourselves.
A few months ago, I was driving along a main road, hands exactly at ten and two. At this point in my life, both of my hands were in pain most of the time. I had spent the five minutes from my house to the stoplight flippantly praying for that, and then moving on to ask God for help in my struggle with food. I had been asking Him pointedly what I needed to do, and what He had to say to fat girls. I really wanted to hear His heart on the matter, but instead I heard a very clear “they’re never going to heal that way.” Just like Him, to slyly change the subject. I hesitated, and then glanced at the steering wheel. My knuckles were white. I didn’t realize how hard I was gripping the wheel and how much pressure I had been putting on my palms. As I loosened my grip, the pain immediately began to ease. By the time I reached my destination, it was gone from every finger except my right thumb.
He’s always so kind when He reminds me that I’ve lost the point.
Abiding in the roaring ocean that is His love is the only thing that brings about the end of strongholds. It becomes far less about changing what we do, and far more about remembering who we are.
Sarah Bessey puts it this way: “Once you taste Love, you are ruined for the empty shells of religious performance.” And again, later: “Living loved, we relax our expectations, our efforts, our strivings, our rules, our spine, our breath, our plans, our job descriptions and checklists; we step off the treadmill of the world and the treadmill of religious performance. We are not the authors of our redemption. No, God is at work, and his love for us is boundless and deep, wide and high, beyond all comprehension.”
It may be that we have an unhealthy relationship with food, or it may be that our bodies are just our bodies. But we can’t empty those portions of ourselves without filling them with something else. We don’t have to live in a hollowed out husk of effort because we have a Father who desires to fill our glass to overflowing. It may be complicated, but He does complicated. It’s not too hard for Him, and hurtful words from those with good intentions don’t have any place here. There’s only Him, speaking truth over us, calling us by name. Grace upon grace. Wild and good. The giver of good gifts. The Divine Romancer of lost causes. Sisters, the Lover of our souls addresses us not only as followers--but as gorgeous daughters, holy and dearly loved.
Oh, how He loves us so.
“Meg, I give you your faults.”
“My faults!” Meg cried.
“Your faults.”
“But I’m always trying to get rid of my faults!”
“Yes,” Mrs Whatsit said. “However, I think you’ll find they’ll come in very handy on Camazotz.”
--Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
...and hey, if some are tired of having to look upon fat ladies in their everyday lives: there’s always the option of, you know, sucking it up.
Some Notes:
- Skinny shaming, in addition to fat shaming, is a very real problem. I did not address it here because I cannot speak to it personally, and therefore wanted to avoid bringing it up while not doing it justice.
- I use the term “fat lady” indiscriminately in this post because I no longer believe that “fat” is an insult. Any offense to this was definitely not intended.
