Fat jokes are everywhere, but you don’t really notice them…until you do. And once you do notice them, you just can’t stop. There’s one in every sitcom, in every show, every film, no matter the genre. The thing is, though, fat jokes aren’t funny; they’re unoriginal, outdated, and hurtful. How is it that fat people can’t watch any popular piece of entertainment without being degraded and insulted? I’m sure, I really am, that writers can do better than using the old, “I used to be fat, ugly, and sad,” storyline like they did for Monica on Friends, or Schmidt on New Girl. I’m positive that writers can do better than the “fat sidekick with too much personality to make up for their looks,” like Fat Amy from Pitch Perfect.
I’m so sure that writers can do better, because they already do. Shows such as Shrill, Orange is the New Black and, most of all, My Mad Fat Diary, an amazing teen drama which features a fat protagonist with depth, personality, needs and, importantly, sexual desire, do better. Rae (Sharon Rooney), 16 years old and 16 stones (it’s British), is such an amazingly written character that I am in awe every time I watch an episode. The show begins with Rae meeting her new therapist, Doctor Kester (Ian Hart). We quickly find out that she’d been in a psychiatric hospital the entire summer after a suicidal attempt, mostly due to her Eating Disorders. This is certainly a delicate matter and it has to be tackled delicately. My Mad Fat Diary does this exactly: it engages the conversation with seriousness, honesty, and a ton of humor. But guess what? This kind of humor has nothing to do with the fat jokes I was talking about; this kind of humor is actually funny.
Rae is a sweet girl, sure, but she also says terrible things to her mother or her best friends all the time. She is an adolescent girl with adolescent dreams and needs. Her fatness quickly fades to the background to make room for her sexual appetite, which is the protagonist of all of Rae’s thoughts and dreams. This is crucial when talking about fat jokes: according to many Hollywood writers, fat people don’t have sexual desire. If they do, it’s laughable, ridiculous, and outrageous. How could anybody not be repulsed by a fat person? This seems to be the running joke in contemporary American media.
From Shallow Hal (the absolute worst), to Insatiable (also the absolute worst), fat people are only allowed to be completely asexual beings, or perverts with weird and funny taste. This is very true for pretty much all of Rebel Wilson’s appearances. From Fat Amy (Pitch Perfect) to Penny Rust (The Hustle), her characters are always praised as positive representation; however, it’s quite clear that whenever she shows up on screen, it’s only to make people laugh at her and her very eccentric sexual taste.
A joke I could never forget is delivered by the titular Mrs. Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Madge Maisel is a Jewish girl (played by a non-Jewish actress) who has just found that stand-up comedy might be her vocation. She’s also obsessed with weight and fat to the point that she measures her body, writes down such measurements, and begins her speech at her own wedding by saying that she hasn’t had food in three weeks to prepare for her big day. Now, let’s go back to the joke. One minute and ten seconds into the pilot, while telling her wedding guests the story of how she met her husband, she says the following words: “First of all, my roommate Petra was friendly and fat, which was perfect. I’ll have someone to eat with who won’t steal my boyfriend.” Once again, a fat person could never get a boyfriend. That would be insane.
Not only does this show see fat people as beings without any chance of sexuality or love, they are also constantly portrayed as ridiculous characters, the butt of the joke. Jane Lynch’s character, Sophie Lennon, is a great example. She plays a comedienne who, unlike Midge, uses a persona for her acts: Sophie from Queens. The real Sophie, though, does not wear a fat suit and is nothing like her character, she isn’t funny. Although she is clearly supposed to be a selfish and quite antagonistic character in the show, the real message is clear: a fat suit makes you funny which means that being fat makes you funny.
Unfortunately, though, this doesn’t surprise me at all coming from the creator of Mrs. Maisel, Amy Sherman-Palladino. Remember Gilmore Girls? When Rory (Alexis Bledel) used an entire article to fat-shame a ballerina? Or all the other comments Rory and Lorelai (Lauren Graham) constantly make about other people’s bodies? Sherman-Palladino’s fat jokes haven’t changed since then: she truly, truly hates fat people. Watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel means being bombarded by poorly written fat jokes and simulated feminism. Miriam’s manager, Susie (Alex Borstein), is constantly the punchline because she’s always mistaken for a man. Miriam’s best friend, Imogene (Bailey De Young), is terribly worried that she’s blocking the view in gym class because she’s pregnant – the list goes on and on.
The lines between regular dialogue and fat jokes become blurred, and ASP is ruthless: she hates fat people and she wants you to know it, and laugh along. The result is disastrous. Mrs. Maisel is a landmine for fat people, people in recovery from Eating Disorders, people currently battling Eating Disorders, and young kids whose body image is still in the making. It normalizes Eating Disorders and legitimizes hatred toward fat people. All of this could surely be attributed to the era it is set in, the 1950s, but at the same time, this is a show made in 2017, not in 1950. ASP made a concrete choice to show such a scene and to add this facet to Maisel’s character. A choice that adds to her long career of fatphobia showing that she, and so many other writers, directors, and program creators, have not grown since their beginnings.
The biggest problem I have with fat jokes is that they’re simply unoriginal. I’ve seen it and heard it before. I’ve seen fat Monica on Friends. I’ve seen the weight loss competition on The Office. I’ve seen fat Schmidt on New Girl. I’ve seen Insatiable, Shallow Hal, Brittany Runs a Marathon, Gilmore Girls, I Feel Pretty…I’ve seen them all. None of them can come up with funny jokes when it comes to fat bodies. I swear I would be on board if they were, but I have yet to hear a good fat joke from a thin person. The solution? Don’t write them if they’re just going to be the same, unoriginal, cliché, unfunny fat jokes. A good rule of thumb is to just look at the joke and if it is something that could have made it into Shallow Hal, then it’s maybe a good idea to rewrite it. I have to give it to her, ASP’s fat jokes pale in comparison to what the Farrelly brothers have written for this movie. From the “Is she behind the rhino?” joke to the sound effect that goes along with Rosemary’s (Gwenyth Paltrow in a fat suit) walk, the Farrelly brothers have really set a hard-to-reach precedent for fatphobia in movies and TVshows.
All things considered, not all fat characters are portrayed under this unflattering light. My Mad Fat Diary, Shrill, Orange is the New Black are all shows that portray fat characters as characters, not punchlines. Their fatness is there, along with so many other characteristics that make them fully-rounded humans. Ultimately, don’t just use fat bodies as the butt of a joke; rather, try and give them a real personality with strengths and flaws. After all, isn’t it a writer’s job to capture our reality and put it on the screen?
