Marie Claire’s offensive “fatties” article pisses everyone off

What the hell were they thinking? Because as if the title “Should Fatties Get a Room? (Even on TV?)” wasn’t bad enough, there’s the article itself, for Marie Claire. The piece, by Maura Kelly, takes on — sort of — the sitcom Mike & Molly, about a couple who meets at Overeaters Anonymous. Kelly admits she hasn’t seen the show, but at her editor’s urging agrees to take it on. Here is some of what follows:

My initial response was: Hmm, being overweight is one thing – those people are downright obese! And while I think our country’s obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it’s at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny. No one who is as fat as Mike and Molly can be healthy. And obesity is costing our country far more in terms of all the related health problems we are paying for, by way of our insurance, than any other health problem, even cancer.

So anyway, yes, I think I’d be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other … because I’d be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room – just like I’d find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.

Now, don’t go getting the wrong impression: I have a few friends who could be called plump. I’m not some size-ist jerk. And I also know how tough it can be for truly heavy people to psych themselves up for the long process of slimming down. (For instance, the overweight maintenance guy at my gym has talked to me a little bit about how it seems worthless for him to even try working out, because he’s been heavy for as long as he can remember.) But … I think obesity is something that most people have a ton of control over. It’s something they can change, if only they put their minds to it.

She then offers some earnest tips on diet and exercise and finishes, “What do you guys think? Fat people making out on TV – are you cool with it? Do you think I’m being an insensitive jerk?” Shockingly, people think she is. Also, “fattist”, “ignorant,” “cruel,” “uneducated,” — and that’s just for starters. Indeed, the comments section makes some very concise and well-argued points about assumptions about health; size-ism and the shock of seeing such a post on the site of what’s considered a forward-thinking ladymag. And one commenter, Beth, had such a scathing retort that I think it deserves to be seen in its entirety:

Dear Maura Kelly, I sincerely apologize for my disgusting body and all the various rolls of fat on my person. When I married my fat husband back in June I didn’t realize it would offend anyone when we got to that “you may kiss the bride” moment, or we would have skipped it. If I’d realized how unacceptable it is for me to have love or happiness, I would have called the wedding off entirely, of course. I have told my husband that there will be no more kissing or cuddling or FATTY SEX until we both lose some weight. I hope he understands… I really am so sorry for being so fat and happy all this time! In your very honest and sensitively written article “should fatties get a room?” you write that fat people should walk more, yet you also write that fat people walking across a room is something you find disgusting. I take long walks around my neighbourhood most days, is this too much? I want to find the correct balance between getting thin and not upsetting anyone with my jiggling body parts. I also swim twice a week and go to the gym once a week, are these activities also disgusting to you? Perhaps I should start doing these activities at night so nobody has to be offended by them. Do you think that would be best? I don’t own a television so I haven’t seen Mike and Molly. But I do hope they take garbage like off the television soon. As you say, it’s implicitly promoting obesity. Surely anyone who watches it will see the yucky fat people making out and suddenly think to themselves “I should gain some weight, that looks like fun.” And then where would we be? By the way, I haven’t ever had any health problems before but if anything does come up I’ll be sure to stay away from the doctor so as not to be a drain on anyone’s health costs. Thank you for writing this meticulously well researched, world-changing article. I really think you are going to cure obesity with this! Yay! Your plump friends are very lucky to have a friend like you who is in no way a hateful bully or an ignorant sizeist jerk. Best wishes, Beth

The author does defend herself in comments, saying that she wrote the post quickly, apologizing for any offense, wishing she could take it down and adding, “Though I don’t think of myself as anorexic any more, being freaked out by obesity to the insensitive, even cruel, point that I was is certainly a vestige of the anorexic mindset; maybe so was being righteous about how easy it is to lose weight. (Because once I lost an extreme amount of weight, of course—about half my body weight—etc.).” Below, her official apology from the website:

I would really like to apologize for the insensitive things I’ve said in this post. Believe it or not, I never wanted anyone to feel bullied or ashamed after reading this, and I sorely regret that it upset people so much. A lot of what I said was unnecessary. It wasn’t productive, either. I know a lot of people truly struggle to lose weight — for medical and psychological reasons — and that many people have an incredibly difficult time getting to a healthy size. I feel for those people and I’m truly sorry I added to the unhappiness and pain they feel with my post. I would like to reiterate that I think it’s great to have people of all shapes and healthy sizes represented in magazines (as, it bears mentioning here, they are in Marie Claire) and on TV shows — and that in my post, I was talking about a TV show that features people who are not simply a little overweight, but appear to be morbidly obese. (Morbid obesity is defined as 100 percent more than their ideal weight.)  And for whatever it’s worth, I feel just as uncomfortable when I see an anorexic person as I do when I see someone who is morbidly obese, because I assume people suffering from eating disorders on either end of the spectrum are doing damage to their bodies, and that they are unhappy. But perhaps I shouldn’t be so quick to judge based on superficial observations. To that point (and on a more personal level), a few commenters and one of my friends mentioned that my extreme reaction might have grown out of my own body issues, my history as an anorexic, and my life-long obsession with being thin. As I mentioned in the ongoing dialogue we’ve been carrying on in the comments section, I think that’s an accurate insight. People have accused me of being a bully in my post. I never intended to be that — it’s actually the very last thing I want to be, as a writer or a person. But I know that I came off that way, and I really cannot apologize enough to the people whom I upset.

What separates Kelly’s “extreme reaction” from say, a fat-hating Internet commenter is the platform she was given in a major national magazine’s web site. And while it’s not clear how much oversight is given, or is logistically feasible, in such a forum, it’s Marie Claire‘s editors, not Kelly, that ultimately is responsible for deciding what content represents their brand. That brand has included positioning the magazine as a smarter, more socially aware alternative to other ladymags — when editor Coles took over in 2006, she blasted the hypocrisy of previous cover model Ashlee Simpson getting a nosejob after saying you should love your body as it is, and promised to restore the magazine’s place as “the smart girls’ book.” Is it “smart” to alienate a major segment of your readership for the sake of provocation and pageviews? Article by Jezebel