Transcript for The Fat Body (In)Visible
[music]
Jessica Jerchow: The way people view fat today is—I wanna right away say disgusting. We’re told we can’t even love each other in public because it’s so revolting.
Keena Bowden: I just feel like it’s love/hate. I think some people are scared to show their appreciation for big women, and some people don’t care after awhile. I feel like it’s an indifference.
[music]
J: While I have all the confidence in the world, I’m being told every day that my body is revolting.
K: I look at it like this. You know, there’s so many beautiful natural wonders of this world. And all these natural wonders, they’re huge, right? You know, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon. All these things are big, and people come all around the world to see it. So it just lets me know, being a larger woman, I’m like an attraction, you know? You can’t miss me, and I’m a good thing to look at as well.
J: When they see a fat body, it’s very challenging to their politics. It’s very challenging to what they view as their moral code—it’s very challenged by a fat body, especially a confident fat body. I think I’ve always felt moderately at peace with my body, I think my issue’s always been everybody else. I first realized I was fat when my mom stopped introducing me as her daughter, and started introducing me as her fat daughter, her fluffy daughter, my chubby Jessica. I stopped being a human, I started being a body.
K: For me, I’m at my heaviest. And ironically—not ironically– at my heaviest, I’m at my happiest. I first realized I was fat [laughs] probably at a young age. I was an eleven-pound baby, so I never had a skinny phase, and my family just accepted me.
J: Dieting for me started really young. It started off as restricting, and by 10 I was in Jenny Craig. And then Weight Watchers, and pills and special phsyicans.
K: When I look at the word "diet" I see the word die. I have never dieted. The only time I kind of could think of dieting, I was young, probably like 7, when a doctor said "you should cut out x y and z" and I did it, but afterwards I was like, "Psh. This ain't for me," you know what I mean?
J: In high school I got a personal trainer, got my calories down to what almost killed me and still couldn't lose any weight. when I moved out of my mother's house I gave up dieting for good.
[music by Beth Ditto!]
J: Fat acceptance is just the radical idea that every body is a good body and that regardless of your shape or size you deserve just as much respect as the next person.
K: Fat acceptance is just accepting your body where it's at. Whether you're bigger or you're smaller, just accepting what it is. Your arms, your double chin, your thighs; you know just not worrying about how people may view you
[music by Common!]
(Jessica and Keena trying on clothes)
"I like the panelling, like what it does for your shape. That was my favorite part. I love the body."
K: Growing up I compared myself to images I saw on tv. As a young black girl it wasn't really as much the size as it was the skin color. Watching tv you don't see really a lot of young black girls on tv. It wasn't until my later teens that I felt more conscious about my body cause that's when I saw music videos. My "a-ha" moment was through the
fat community. The fat acceptance group. And that really started when I was in high school, when I saw it was a celebration of plus-size women. And that's been going on for probably ten years now, since the early 2000s. From there, the light bulb went off. I love myself more. I didn't want to wear the baggy clothes to hide myself. My mother told my to cover my arms—I didn't want to cover it. You know, I just feel more comfortable in my body because I saw other women who looked like me doing the same thing. So it was like, why can't I?
J: I think high school is a struggle to feel visible for anybody. As a fat person, I think I took on the role as the class clown because I wasn't allowed to be the object of desire by my classmates. I think once I started finding that people were attracted to me and that men and women found me desirable as I was, I felt it was an invitation
and permission to start loving myself as well, and as much as they did.
I get negative feedback quite a bit on the street. Recently I was walking home and I live in my own world—I know a lot of negativity happens around me, so I just try to phase it out. But I was walking home and a woman called me a fat
piggy bitch. for no reason. She just yelled it. And in my head I heard, "Miss piggy, bitch!" and so I looked at her, and I said “thank you,” and I kept walking. And I was feeling great about myself, and a man said, "Did you hear what she said to you? She called you a fat piggy bitch!"
Which just seemed ludicrous to me, because I didn't irritate her in any way. But by purely existing, she felt it was necessary to take me down.
K: I hate to say it, as ironic as this may sound, I still feel invisible today. I would say probably most of my life as big as colorful as I am, I still feel invisible in a sense.
J: The way I make myself present and visible is I really allow myself to give into anything I've ever wanted to wear. And a lot of the time that meant looking like a cartoon character. I get called baby doll a lot. People always ask me if I'm working birthday parties. But in allowing myself to dress the way i always wanted to, I never allowed myself when I was hating my body, I make myself very present for other people.
Recently I met a woman online, maybe two years ago that was involved in an online community called Fatshonista, which is a fat fashionista, on Livejournal, which just brought me into this myriad of blogs and books and people that were involved in this movement that gave me a more substantial argument to when people initally would say "Fat is bad," and I could only say, "No it's not!" I was then introduced
to this community that gave me substantial reasons why fat was ok, why my body was beautiful, why I deserved more than what society was ready to give me.
K: I discovered Fatshonista— I was always inspired by the outfit posts. I got inspired and posted my own, and from there on it was a wealth of information.
J: With the Fatosphere, there’s a lot of fat fashion blogging, what fat girls wear. There’s not a lot on what fat girls think in relation to what they wear. Fat touches everything I do.
(Keena and Jessica shopping)
“I like this one...this is cute. Are you gonna try it on? I really like this! Did you make it?”
K: Again, I really don’t see a lot of art out there that reflects me. You know, I’m a plus-size woman, I like Afro-centric themes, so I’m like, you know, “Let me play around with this!” I don’t think I’m the best artist, but it’s my work. I’ve always wanted to see the few black artists out there show images of bigger women. When it comes to crocheting, the challenge is sometimes there aren’t as many patterns in plus sizes. But the beauty is in just winging it, just adding more stitches. Same thing with constructing clothes. Clothes are nothing but shapes. I made a skirt in 45 minutes. I was draping the fabric on me, you know, two squares put together, bam, you’ve got a skirt.
J: Fat style is one of the biggest ways you can be political as a fat body, because it’s very subversive, given that we as fat bodies are given less choices. When you’re thin, you’re given the mall at your beck and call. When you’re fat, there’s going to be one store with matronly, shaming clothes.
(Jessica trying on a small tube bra)
“It fits fine!” [laughter] “Keena, does this fit good?”
K: When you look good, you feel good, and people feel good around you as well. People don’t expect for larger women to wear brighter colors, or god forbid, a miniskirt, or god forbid, stripes. So it feels good to step outside the box and wear things that aren’t the norm for larger women. And get compliments for it, because you rock it a certain way!
(Footage from Re/Dress Indie + Fashion Show)
J: Recently I went to an Indie fashion event at a plus-sized thrift store called Redress, and it was really inspiring to see all these fat bodies, all these loving fat bodies in one space, being really positive. A lot of — most, if not all of — the people present were part of my online community. My fat acceptance activists, my fatshionistas, it was just really inspiring to see people doing what they love and promoting this self-accepting, positive environment.
We’ve noticed that it’s really powerful to see more than one fat body enjoying each other’s company in public. And I think initially, people are too intimidated to say anything, but occasionally you’ll get people who make comments. I just think it’s really intimidating for people to see fat bodies together. It’s really powerful.
[crowd noises]
I think because I make such a point in making myself visible on my own terms, there’s very little places where I feel invisible. I feel hypervisible when I’m in restaurants eating. I feel like the spotlight’s always on me. When I’m at the doctor’s, it’s a weird mix of hypervisibility and invisibility. I feel so detached from my body, and I feel not a human, but I also feel under the microscope, and sort of like a mutant as well. So it’s really—going to the doctor’s is challenging.
K: A couple of months ago, back in June, I bought an airplane ticker from Southwest airlines to Las Vegas for my friend’s wedding. I got to the airport early, and thought maybe I should ask about my return boarding pass, if it could get printed. That day I wore a miniskirt and a sleeveless top. I didn’t think anything of it, I didn’t think people were watching me, or scrutinizing me. Went to the counter, asked the lady about it, and she was like, “You know, I think that you could use another seat.” And I said, “So what are you implying?” And she was like, “Well, there are a few people who have been observing you, and we feel you could use another seat, so that will be another 179 dollars.” And I was like, “Excuse me? How are you just going to assume that I need another seat?” And she said, “Well, the seat you’re sitting on over there is smaller than an airline seat...” So mostly, it just took me by surprise that they were watching me, and visualizing if I could fit in the seat or not.
Maybe that’s when I’m feeling hypervisible. Unbeknownst to me, there’s someone watching me, and judging by my body frame, that I need to pay another 200 dollars for another seat on an already-crowded aircraft. And you know, we worked it out, I talked to the supervisor, and another thing—I really wanted to lash out, but I couldn’t. You know, you don’t want to be seen as the “Angry Black Woman,” let alone at an airport. So I was looking around, to see if people were observing me, to see what was going on, but it didn’t seem like it. Talked to the supervisor, went on the plane while they were boarding the handicapped, so the aircraft was empty, sat in the seat, put down the armrest. The supervisor said, “Well, you’re borderline on safety. We’ll let you pass this time.” Oh, I’m gonna cry just thinking about it... I just never thought I would be picked out like that. And it’s just, before I got on the plane, I was just thinking, “Man, I should change my body, to appease others. You know, if I weren’t so big, maybe I wouldn’t be a hazard to someone.” But it went well, it just left a bad taste in my mouth. I want to travel more, and it’s just, with airlines charging more for luggage, Southwest is the only place that has inexpensive airline tickets. But I just feel like when I travel, when I go out, I have to be conscious of the space I take, you know? I know I can’t fit in every chair, but I still like being a plus-size woman. I don’t want to change myself to make others feel comfortable.
[music]
J: I just sort of go day to day and talk to people when they approach me. I’m confronted a lot about my body on the street by strangers. It gives me a chance to open up a dialog about fat acceptance and maybe get other fat people I meet involved in this community
K: The Adipositivity project is a project that a woman made to photograph plus-size women and their bodies in the nude. So I contacted her earlier this year when I had a trip to New York. I just had to be a part of it. It was a very very liberating experience and I would love to do it again and I encourage other women, especially women of color, to do it.
J: I make myself present online by just fully exploiting every outlet available. I have a Tumblr to help promote my blog, I’m on Twitter I try to read other blogs, comment, create a community with other FA bloggers, really inundate everyone with my image and my thoughts.
K: I’m on Tumblr, I just mostly post pictures and words of things that inspire me. I want to show a person who is fat and black, afro-centric, and unafraid of who she is. Right now I have over 500 followers. I would never thunk it.
J: I hope that my activism and my blogging and the work I do online helps give people of all shapes a safe place to feel good about their bodies and to talk honestly about what they’re feeling and why they’re feeling it. And just in hopes of this that someday we’ll all feel very neutral and loving about our bodies and fat people won’t feel so isolated
K: My message to young girls who are plus size in this day and age is to love yourself. Don’t let nothing stop you. If you want to take pole-dancing, take it! I’ve done it. If you want to be a dancer, do it. If you want to go to the beach in a bikini, do it. I’ve done it. You know? Just don’t let nothing stop you. Don’t let the naysayers get to your head. Just live life because at the end of the day you want to die knowing that you’ve done everything you wanted to do.
Even my experience with Southwest Airlines…at the end of the day, it’s not going to stop me from traveling, I just have to do it in other ways, you know. I just want to die knowing that I did everything I loved and wanted to do. SO I hope that other women, young or old, big or small, black or white, or in between, they do that as well.
J: If I could say one thing young fat people dealing with bullying and their body image…I don’t really think there’s anything you can say to young teens, because we all struggle with how we feel about ourselves. But it’s not about you. It’s about the bully. It’s about their own issues, it’s about what people are telling them they should feel. And you should just…don’t let anyone police your body.