The Four Color Media Monitor

A writer for the awful leftist feminist Mary Sue site demands more fat people in comics, mainly superheroes, as though the lack thereof is the worst thing that could possibly happen:

I can count on one hand how many fat superheroes I’ve encountered in comics, and these characters are still mostly white, mostly blonde, and almost always played by thin people if they ever make it to TV or film adaptations, which is honestly just infuriating. Our limited positive representation in comics is stripped away as soon as audiences have to look at those characters on-screen.

I think perpetuating a blond stereotype when there's black-haired heroes like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Robin and Donna Troy around is not a good way to start. There's also brown-haired heroes like Mr. Fantastic, Spider-Man, the Silver Age Atom, and redheads like Jean Grey. So don't act like you literally read comics on a consistent basis, lady. Because it's obvious you don't.

And, don't act like obesity has no negative effects on health, please. Because my father's suffered from being overweight, and in 1994, he almost died from a heart attack. Since then, he's had to eat mostly fish and far less fatty meats to avoid falling victim to the cholesterol that nearly killed him nearly a quarter century ago. Did I mention he even smoked cigars when he was younger? Thank goodness he eventually gave up on them, as they were hazardous too.

We’re just that disgusting, right? At least, that’s what we’re told. “Fat” is just an adjective, but it’s one often used as an insult. Fat people are assumed to be lazy, unintelligent, selfish, greedy, and poor—and because it’s harder for fat folks to find work, especially fat women, we’re forced into positions where poverty rules over our ability to do anything about the weight everyone finds so offensive. Gyms cost money, fresh food is more expensive than preserved, and clothing that fits and makes us look even semi-professional costs far more than it does for smaller people.

*Ahem* I don't think fat people are inherently lacking intelligence, but failing to take care of one's health, even if not the worst thing one can do, is still very poor conduct. I will say that one of my favorite TV shows was Cannon (1971-76 and a reunion TV film from 1980), starring the late William Conrad, and he was depicted as plenty smart and resourceful in spite of his physical flaw, so that puts the lie to the notion you can't make great art with somebody who's overweight.

On the other hand, this is hilarious how the writer makes it sound like you can only wear down obesity through a gymnasium. Not so. You can do exercise like push-ups at home and jog around the block, among other stuff that can help lose weight. Say, why wouldn't she want fresh food and fancy clothes? Is this some kind of frump from the Satmar enclaves like Kiryas Joel in New York's Monroe district writing this farrago? Considering how much socialist welfare and food stamps they live on there, it's hard to believe she'd find it that hard to afford those luxuries, so maybe she'd do better to just go live in that neighborhood instead of wasting so much time lecturing us about obesity.

Seriously though, comics cost quite a bit at 3-4 dollars a pamphlet, so I don't see why she's complaining about fresh food and dress but not the cost of books these days.

Fatness scares people. In fact, cis men say that their biggest fear in online dating is that their matches will turn out to be fat. Eating disorders abound because of people’s desperation not to see themselves, or be seen, as fat. Tabloids focus on cellulite and weight loss, knowing how hungry we are to shame the celebrities whose lives we covet for imagined flaws that make us feel better about not being them.

Huh, what do "cis" men have to do with this? Personally, I think it's more like fat cis men worry a slender girl won't date them because their overweight state is discouraging, but I think they may not need worry too much, since I've heard some women, if not all, will appreciate a good sense of character coming from a guy, and let the physical matters wait for later. And quit trying to imply overweight folks have no flaws, health-based or otherwise. Because the one who wrote this balderdash certainly does. Besides, as the Harvey Weinstein scandal proved, flaws come in very dark forms indeed.

In fictional media, fatness relegates characters—especially women—to comedic roles, lacking love interests or full lives. The trailer for the upcoming I Feel Pretty, starring Amy Schumer, set off a wave of controversy for its plot, wherein a fat woman takes a hard fall and wakes up without any of the insecurity she suffered before. She feels confident and beautiful and powerful in her body, then realizes that this is weird, because she presumably shouldn’t feel this way at her size.

Uh uh, the aforementioned William Conrad proved otherwise. So too in fact did John Candy, Roseanne Barr and John Goodman. Keep boring us out of our skulls, please. Besides, the Schumer stuff doesn't exactly ring reality.

Here’s the thing: Fat people are beautiful and powerful and should feel confident. Instagram models and fat positivity movements seek to help us get to that point, and I applaud people like Corissa Enneking (Fat Girl Flow) and Jessamyn Stanley, who are dismantling myths about fatness, ugliness, and laziness on an everyday basis, to audiences in the thousands.

As I feared, it sounds like the writer of the propaganda is a member of the "fat acceptance" crowd that's causing overweight people to miss the opportunity to better themselves (Hat tip: Breitbart). Which isn't doing anybody any favors health-wise. The best way to feel confident is to exercise, and not act like being obese makes you a member of a different race or something.

The first time I encountered a truly fat character who wasn’t a murder victim, or a villain, or a joke in a comic book, it was the genderbent Zeus in Matt Fraction and Christian Ward’s ODY-C, from Image Comics. Tall, imposing, powerful, and undeniably fat, Zeus walked onto the color-drenched pages of this reimagined Odyssey and stole my breath away. Aside from Squirrel Girl, whose thick thighs literally save lives, I had never seen a fat woman with such a strong, undeniable presence in the panels of a comic.

Okay, good for you, so you found what you consider the perfect depiction of a fat character. But if they're acting as though obesity (and genderbent-ness) is "normal" and not a single thing wrong with it, that's bad. Obesity can run the risk of heart disease, and that's why it's best to keep healthy and avoid becoming overweight.

Out of the thousands of comics available for purchase at local comic shops and online, this list of positive, powerful fat characters simply isn’t long enough. Faith Herbert is in a number of Valiant titles, it’s true, and Squirrel Girl appears multiple times in the Marvel universe, but taking just a handful of fat superheroes and peppering them throughout multiple works isn’t the way to achieve better fat representation.

We need more fat characters. We need more fat superheroes.

Ah, so truly, this isn't about fat co-stars. It's about fat SUPERHEROES, and only those. Please. Why do superheroes matter so much and not adventure comics starring characters who don't wear costumes? Or, how about a character not unlike say, Adam Strange, who's not a superhero, certainly not in the typical sense?

If anything, even if we need more fat characters, what we don't need is denial that obesity is unhealthy. If we do that, we risk being...unrealistic. I've got a hunch even the buffoon who wrote the silly piece knows her vision is anything but reality.

While I acknowledge that there are a wealth of issues in the comics industry—not least of which a lack of women and non-binary creators, as well as creators of color—the hyper focus on thin characters is one that concerns me, especially as a fat consumer. It took years for me to see a fat woman experiencing a full life on a TV series rather than being relegated to the role of “funny, fat sidekick” (that woman was Sookie St. James from Gilmore Girls, played by Melissa McCarthy, for the record), and it took even longer for me to see a powerful, fat woman in the comics I read.

Yup, as expected, she won't acknowledge there have been women and POC working in comicdom in the past, like Ann Nocenti and Christopher Priest, and at this point, I don't see the need to continue. All I can see here is somebody who's not really an expert on the field, and should be just taking her boring op-ed and going on a trip to the Yukon instead.

In the end, if she wants fat characters, fine, but she'd do better to create and develop them herself, for heaven's sake. And quit trying to act like there's no health hazards involved, because there most certainly are, as my father learned, the hard way.

Labels: msm propaganda, politics