What Does Body Liberated Media Look Like?
As a writer, producer, and entertainer who’s been working for almost a decade, right now seems like such an impossible time to break into the industry, seemingly at almost any career stage. Thin, white, straight, and “quirky - lite” is back in style and once again, marginalized voices are tossed to the side. Though, fat artists and audiences alike have always felt like fatphobia never truly went away.
Over the last few years, fat and bigger bodied people have created spaces for ourselves in TV/FIlm, Podcasting, and general media, bringing our stories and experiences to mainstream audiences. I think of projects like Survival of the Thickest, How To Die Alone, where we have Michelle Buteau and Natasha Rothwell, both playing hilariously vulnerable full bodied Black women, on shows they both produced respectively. I think of Larry Owens and Keyla Monterroso Mejia on Abbott Elementary, Influencer Samyra on Tiktok advocating for larger sizes in fashion, Journalist and Plus Size designer, Nina Parker, Jon Paul Higgins and JoHo Daniels on the BFF: Black Fat Femme Podcast. I replay the clip Da’Vine Joy Randolph winning her oscar for best supporting actress in The Holdovers at least once a month. Fat people are doing it! We’re doing what I wished we could do when I was a chubby little girl who grew up loving TV/Film just 20+ years ago. Yet even still as I write this, I’m afraid to call out more people, at the risk of offending someone by seeing myself, a person living in a bigger body, mirrored in them. (Like, “bitch who you calling fat?” Whole time fat isn’t even a bad word! The internalized fatphobia is being unpacked as we speak!) Including body diversity in media has changed the landscape forever, but there is still more work to do; being included is nice, but we need to make body liberated media a priority.
Many people fail to realize what prioritizing body diversity could do for entertainment. There could be more ADA compliant sets, better wardrobe quality for all bodies, even story telling itself would change (bye bye fatphobic jokes, tropes, and fatsuits). The first step in doing this is educating ourselves and understanding that fatphobia is racist, ableist, and directly linked to anti-Blackness. To put it simply, if you believe people should be oppressed because of the size or look of their body, then you are perpetuating racism. Unpacking this would require one to take one step further to unlearn their “unconscious” bias (I use quotes because I don’t necessarily believe it’s unconscious all the time), by including fat/body liberation (not to be confused with body positivity) in their anti - racist work.
And most importantly, Fat artists need more opportunities and support to showcase their experience, skills, and point of view. This is not a call for “I’m fat, give me a job” but too often fat people are overlooked and not even allowed to compete in their respective fields. I want us to have a chance at even being considered, which is the bare minimum. Though, I know that as always, fat people will give ourselves permission to forge our own opportunities to be seen anyway, despite the literal tiny boxes society wants to force us into. Next time as you scroll through social media, take a look at who’s making really unique shit, who’s starting the conversation, who is making the coolest, trendiest, flyest shit and often times it’s a fat creator who built their platform from nothing – what more needs to be done in order to earn the same respect as our non - fat peers in media?