Are You Teaching Yourself to Be Fatphobic?

I've been watching this TV show on Netflix called "The Blacklist". It's a detective, FBI thing, I'm seven episodes in and I've noticed it's fatphobic as fuck.

Let me give you some examples of what they've said: One of the detectives says to an ex-girlfriend, "Please tell me your new fiancee is fat and unemployed." Another example is one of the lead characters says, "I need to take donuts into work today. Not that Mrs. Smith's ass needs any more bear claws." There have been others but they're just two I can think of off the top of my head.

Before I was a fat activist, I would not have even noticed these "jokes." They are literally the only jokes in the show, because it's not a funny show. I'm like, "Seriously?" Obviously, there are no fat people in the show because the directors and writers must be fatphobic as fuck but it just reminded me that I am so hyper-aware of the media that I consume and if there's any fatphobic shit in there, then I stop watching it. I'm going to stop watching this show because they don't like fatties and I'm a fatty so if you don't like me, I don't want to watch your show.



The media that we consume informs us of who we are and what's acceptable.

 

This is just a small example, but before I was into body positivity, I would watch anything that was entertaining. A lot of the times, those things that were entertaining were super fat phobic. One of my favourite shows used to be "The Biggest Loser." I'd love it. I'd be like, "Oh, look at those greedy fatties. They're just so fat and they need to go to this fat camp." I was so fatphobic and I was fat, but I loved watching these fat people being abused.

What did that teach me about who fat people are? That they're these weak, pathetic people that need to go away to this camp where they're assaulted to be a good member of society. The magazines that I would read, it would always be like, "Lose your belly in three minutes. Go on a diet and lose 5,000 pounds." It was just gentle learning. Wait, nope not gently, it is actually violent learning; always pushing it in your face, "Fat is bad. Fat is bad. Fat is bad."

So look at the things that you're watching. Do they make fatphobic "jokes"? Stop watching it. Because the more that you watch these things, the more that you create neural pathways that tell you being fat is bad. Hopefully, you will, when something comes up, you'll be able to say, "Holy shit. No. That's not funny. That's not cool" and be able to look at it critically.

Good luck with cleansing the films and TV that you're watching to get rid of all that fatphobic shit and if you would like some more advice on loving yourself and feeling confident, then check out the link below. I have my free ecourse, Extreme Confidence Makeover. It's ten days and it's awesome. Check it out. Bye, Queen.