Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Fat is the new wog

On Saturday night, Nerida brought over Better off Dead - an absolute classic - and apart from shamelessly objectifying John Cusack, we laughed about the fact that the lead roles were played by fat chicks. At least, by current standards, they were fat chicks. They had, like, thighs. And hips.

It occurred to me, since we had a wog in our midst, that fat needs to follow in the footsteps of wog. Wog was a terrible insult, until the wogs of Australia embraced the term. Perhaps, in some places, there may be some stigma still, but you can pretty safely call your friend a wog and know that it will be taken as meant - slang for "of Mediterranean descent". Fat needs to mean "not what the media thinks is thin". If we start thinking of everyone who the media thinks is "not thin" as fat, we can all accept that we are fat and move on.

"Do I look in fat in this?"
"Why yes, you do."

"I'm fat, I need to lose 5 kgs."
"Yes, and no."

And then tonight I read Sweet Machine talking about "But you're not fat", and she was echoing my thoughts, from a different angle. Sweet Machine is fat. Her thighs are wider than her femurs and her stomach is not concave. She might even be harbouring organs in her torso. She is fat. I am fat, my thighs look like swiss cheese and when I tried on a delightful tight dress with a seam down the middle of its front, I looked like I was carrying an arse up front. (If you thought this was unattractive, you should have seen that little number!) But the thing is, even when I weigh less, this is still true. So I will always be fat. Time to get over it - not to accept that I am fat, but to embrace it. To say "Yes, I am fat, thanks for noticing."

Given that it took a while for wog to make the transition, I am not expecting this to happen overnight, but I may try very hard to never say "But you're not fat" to anyone again. I hope not too many people will be offended by "Yeah, you're fat, and you look fucking fantastic."

5 comments:

  1. I love your logic. I am more than ready to embrace 'fat' just as it embraces me, as to be anything else I would have to survive on a sole diet of lettuce leaves to live up to the media's idea of 'thin' - and I'm just not willing to do that to me or my family. Make fat the new black, I say.

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  2. You can tell me I'm fat and look fucking fantastic any time you like ;-)

    I've started to use fat as a descriptor for myself in conversation, it does tend to make people blink a little but I must say no-one says "but you're not fat" to me :P

    The real challenge for me is in helping my boys deal with being called fat. Tom gets very upset if other kids say it to him, David seems to be a little more philosophical about it, he's quite taken with my suggestion that he congratulate people on their excellent powers of observation.

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  3. Yeah.... you tell people in chat rooms your are fat... they get all, "Don't say that about yourself.. I am sure that you are not!" and when I reply, "Well I am fat, but I don't care as I am completely ace in every other way and it wouldn't be fair to be perfect"... they just flounder around as they have no idea what to say! YAY for being FAT!!!!!!

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  4. Yeah, Mim, I reckon it must have guys who were called "wog-boy" at school who decided it wasn't going to have power over their kids who started the wog embracement* movement. We all remember how horrible it was being called fat as a kid. It is only very recently that I can genuinely laugh at the picture of me in a bikini as an egg with 2 rubber bands...

    *Yes, it's a word! I said so.

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  5. Hey Nerida, you should up the ante, "I'm ace in every other way, AND I'm fat and don't care - sorry, I seem to be perfect." :)

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