I know I’m behind the times, but we’ve been so busy getting ready for Issue 6, television has been the last thing on SLiNK HQ’s list of things to do, so we played catch up and sat down to watch the much tweeted about ‘My Big Fat Fetish’. I started watching it with our graphic designer Samantha, but at the sight of what appeared to be the beginning of plus sized porn we made the switch to a documentary on Syria instead. But this time I was braving it alone and determined to make it through from start to finish.
Maybe I’m now immune, but I didn’t despise it as much as I though I was going to. Like anything in ‘main media land’ that deals with pus size inevitably it’s done in a tacky, ott and unbalanced manner, although, isn’t that most documentary’s these days, whether it’s about Gypsies or Jews or cyber dating, documentaries need to pull on the extremes in order to draw an audience, I always just wonder whether the general public has enough of a brain to realise that the stereotype created in a documentary is just that, a minority, a section, a stereotype and not wholly representative.
The problem I have found more and more, especially when I find myself mid argument or justification about why and how SLiNK isn’t and doesn’t promote obesity (shockingly this happens way to often) is that people can’t actually quantify plus size, obese, fat or whatever delightful term you want to choose. Due to programmes like My Big Fat Fetish, the general perception appears to be that if you are plus size / fat / obese / not a size 10 you must…
a. be sitting at home eating all day
b. be the size of a small (or big take your pick) Island
c. Apparently totally and utterly immobile just sitting doing point a. all day.
Until we can start to have a healthy balance within the media that shows plus size women as an ACTIVE part of society, after all curvy girls are daughters, wives, mothers, siblings, doctors, lawyers, business women, pretty much anything we want to be! It is impossible to start creating a sensible if any meaning behind these terms.
And this is key, size is not necessarily related to health – you can be plus size and active, but documentaries like My Big Fat Fetish are incredibly dangerous in terms of encouraging women to eat to the point of immobility. While the women were happy and comfortable in their bodies (yay!), the second mobility becomes an issue, that isn’t just a warning bell, that is a big old crazy siren. By being immobile, women like Patti are not only injuring their health both mentally and physically she was systematically controlling and destroying her sons life too. To sit in bed all day is no life at all. There is so much fun to be had outside ones home it seems crazy to miss out!
While eating for camera seems like a quick fix, I did think Patti showed that it was a fairly slippery slope, while you may be making cash from sitting and eating (literally) if you cant go out and enjoy it, then really what’s it all for? No one can defend eating yourself to immobility, health whatever your size is about making sure you eat and move.
And while SLiNK obviously loves guys that prefer curves, the feeders? Well quite frankly it seems controlling and abusive. They don’t love the women they’re with for the way they are and who they are, they want to change them and in some instances feed them to immobility so that they have ultimate control and quite frankly I’m far too much of a lover of independent woman to understand or be down with any of that. Why can’t a man love his curvy woman for who she is right there and then? I suppose that would be a bit like asking people to understand that plus size doesn’t necessarily mean unhealthy… it’s just too much to ask for! I think Channel 4 should come and chat to SLiNK, we’ll get the message across!
If you want to check out the show head to http://www.channel4.com/programmes/4od