SFF's Big Fat Problem

October 27, 2022 8:08 AM

Meg Elison asks, Has there ever been a richer time to be fat? We live in a time when there is mainstream discourse about body neutrality and fat acceptance. On the other hand, R. K. Duncan says, This is going to be a Jeremiad, not a hopeful essay. ... If you are fat, stay if you need righteous anger, but please don’t make yourself read this if you need something soft right now. This essay is for thin SFF fans and creators.
posted by Etrigan (28 comments total)

Interesting juxtaposition, thank you.

I incline more toward Duncan's point of view, but Elison's piece gave me a little hope.
posted by humbug at 8:34 AM on October 27, 2022

SFF=Science Fiction Fantasy.

I know everyone here already knows what that means but I didn't so I thought I would share.
posted by amanda at 8:53 AM on October 27, 2022 [36 favorites]

So it's not about small form factor PCs?

Thanks for the heads-up.
posted by box at 9:08 AM on October 27, 2022 [4 favorites]

I don't recall the short story or author or the plot, or well even the decade but what clearly amused me was that in the well established space station culture there were two trends in physiology, very long and thin, like 10 feet or two meters. The other was a trend where the favored aesthetic was to be as close to spherical as possible.
posted by sammyo at 9:55 AM on October 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

sammyo, that might be Lieber's _A Spector Is Haunting Texas_.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:02 AM on October 27, 2022 [3 favorites]

"historically literate enough to be offended by the nonsense of stigmatizing fat in a medieval setting."

I just devoured KJ Parker's trilogy that begins with Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City and in the third novel there's a description of a fat person from a culture that prizes fatness because of its association with wealth.

"We have enough records and enough armor made for them to know fat knights weren’t somehow out-of-shape for battle."

I never watched Moana but have wondered how well or poorly they portrayed Polynesian bodies. Actually come to think of it, I don't remember Lilo & Stitch well enough either. Do people get to be fat without it being a stereotype?
posted by spamandkimchi at 10:26 AM on October 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

Also what an unexpected exhibit of dieting and anti-fat culture (from Elison's essay).

I have a copy of an anthology most people have never seen: 1983’s The Science Fiction Weight-Loss Book, coedited by Isaac Asimov and a young George R. R. Martin. It’s a fascinating mix of work from that time: a diet-crazed Asimov writes in his introduction that he himself struggled in the “battle of the bulge” and looks forward to a time when science might solve this problem: the fat body problem. There are shorts within from Orson Scott Card and Robert Silverberg about self-loathing and food deprivation that encourage the reader to sympathy for the authors, if not everyone who struggles with the endless hunger of self-denial and suffering in the name of thinness.

posted by spamandkimchi at 10:30 AM on October 27, 2022 [5 favorites]

two very interesting reads, and a great juxtaposition.

I read a lot of SFF, and try to be an attentive reader to the 'unspoken' that flows between the words on the page. there is lots of food for thought here.

as someone working on writing a SFF type novel, I will strive to be fully conscious of any bias or depictions I might use that are harmful to marginalized communities. thank you.
posted by supermedusa at 10:43 AM on October 27, 2022 [5 favorites]

spamandkimchi, from Tia Carrere, who voiced older sister [& former surfing champ] Nani in Lilo & Stitch: Nani looks like what a local girl would look like, with the sturdiness of her legs and her body. She’s not like Cinderella painted brown.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:46 AM on October 27, 2022 [12 favorites]

I also remember at least a couple of Cory Doctorow's stories having to do with being able to lose and keep off unwanted weight, their supposedly being inspired by Doctorow himself losing a lot of weight some time ago.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:00 AM on October 27, 2022

Not sure about the "nonsense of stigmatizing fat in a medieval setting", this article on Mediavalists.net seemed to think there was some stigma around it, though with more ambiguity than in the present day.

To be sure, fatness could often be seen as ugly, effeminate, stupid, slothful, and sinful, while thinness was associated with holiness and muscular, lean body was considered manly and martial. However, only listening to the medieval fat-shamers is oversimplifying matters: body fat could also be seen as a sign of prosperity, social status, success, and even rulership. ..

This tendency became particularly pronounced in the fourteenth century, when both literature and men’s fashion reflected the idea of a powerful but athletic build. Knights were supposed to be athletes, and martial fashion reflected this. The titular verdant cavalier in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is broad of chest and slender of waist, and Chaucer’s Sir Thopas with his “sydes smale” (slender waist) goes riding over hill and dale. Surviving clothing from the period, such as the pourpoint of Charles de Blois kept in the Musee Historique des Tissus in Lyon (c. 1360s) is constructed to give the impression of a broad chest and shoulders and a tiny waist. In his Book of Chivalry, written about 1350, Charles de Blois’ elder contemporary Geoffroi de Charny complained of men who didn’t fit into the day’s fashions squeezing themselves into shape like so many mid-career William Shatners...

posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:28 PM on October 27, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm still not sure how I feel about the one novel being called out in detail in the latter essay being a Black author's debut. There are... a lot of other possible choices there.

(I love Six of Crows getting a shout-out for the grifter and femme fatale being unashamedly fond of sweets and happy to regain her shape after *spoiler*. Another good one's Ancillary Sword, where a character is clearly indicated as beautiful and fat, and that trait is part of what makes her beautiful.)
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:34 PM on October 27, 2022 [3 favorites]

There is a Robert Heinlein (I know, I know) short story about two men on the moon who are trapped by a cave-in or something. Anyway, their air is leaking away slowly, and finally -- spoiler! -- one of them saves the day when he seals the hole by pressing his bare thigh against it until help arrives. (A tremendous ass-hickey results, if memory serves.)

No skinny ass saving you on the pitiless moon the way a big leg will.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:24 PM on October 27, 2022 [5 favorites]

Not SFF, but related to other interests here.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:01 PM on October 27, 2022

The medicine that saves my life makes me fat, and it’s made some people really unsee me. I’ll save this article for when I need some righteous anger. Thank you for the warning, and for posting it 💚
posted by The Last Sockpuppet at 3:56 PM on October 27, 2022 [18 favorites]

Not sure what Orson Scott Card was trying for when he wrote Fat Farm but he was sure unhappy about something, link is to a pdf of the story.
posted by beaning at 5:05 PM on October 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

This is... not one of the better articles I've read here. Yes, there are places where someone is cheaply portrayed as fat = corrupt or grotesque or whatever, and some of those can be egregious. But this piece lumps that together with bad examples. We don't make fun of Donald Trump for being obese per se: we make fun of him for being a hideous shitgibbon who constantly makes fun of much fitter people for being a tiny bit imperfect. It's the hypocrisy. If the guy just constantly ate hamberders and shrugged about not being in the best of shape and never called out anyone else on their body, then yeah, it would be shitty to call him out for being fat. But that's not what's happening. And Thor, still in the fat suit, kicked the crap out of Thanos.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:19 PM on October 27, 2022 [3 favorites]

I mean, that's how people excuse it, outgrown_hobnail, but it's definitely not always the case that the urge behind it is so pure, or the the reasoning so clear.

Some people just see fatness as a flaw in itself, and say so, even about people who are hypocritical.
posted by sagc at 5:26 PM on October 27, 2022 [17 favorites]

Also, come on - fat characters can do cool things, and still end up punchlines for their weight.
posted by sagc at 5:29 PM on October 27, 2022 [7 favorites]

The Heinlein story is "Gentlemen, Be Seated!".

And there were three folks trapped in the tunnel.
posted by Windopaene at 7:06 PM on October 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

might be a good time to link the anthology such a pretty face. (rip meisha merlin)
posted by Clowder of bats at 3:38 AM on October 28, 2022

Windowpaene: The Heinlein story is "Gentlemen, Be Seated!".

Ah, right -- that title is pretty funny, too, and Heinelin was never funny. And they played cards for most of the story, too, I think.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:57 AM on October 28, 2022

We don't make fun of Donald Trump for being obese per se: we make fun of him for being a hideous shitgibbon who constantly makes fun of much fitter people for being a tiny bit imperfect.

You might really, honestly, believe that's what you're doing, but your explanation of how you're not making fun of him for being fat still comes down to you saying that he's too fat to make fun of people who aren't fat.
posted by Etrigan at 7:25 AM on October 28, 2022 [14 favorites]

"Your body is disgusting because your spirit is bad" is not in fact a great insult. For one thing, it just means that hey, if someone thinks that a fat person has a bad spirit it is then okay to make fun of their looks, right? So if you think Donald Trump is a bad guy and a hypocrite, then if you think that any fat person anywhere is a bad person and a hypocrite you can insult their appearance. This suggests to me that people who want to insult fat people will suddenly discover that all the fat people they want to insult are bad people and hypocrites.

Honestly, people who have not done a lot of introspection and work on themselves are usually socialized to enjoy mocking anyone they can think of as a legitimate target. We're socialized to want to insult, other and hurt people; that's what our society is built on. In a way, I guess it's great when people feel that they have only a small number of "legitimate targets" to mock, but how much better it would be to, like, do the work on yourself so that you don't enjoy cruelty and don't seek out bad people so that you can have fun insulting them.

Also, in re being fat specifically: there are a lot of people who feel that it is fine to make fun of Trump's appearance because he is a bad guy but who don't feel that it would be okay to use anti-gay slurs about Peter Thiel because he is a bad guy. Why is that? I mean, I think it's because those people think that being fat is bad and shameful while being gay is not, and thus in their day to day lives they would like to insult the "nice" fat people but hold back because it is frowned upon to insult the nice ones. When they encounter a "bad" one, then they get to reveal what they really think.
posted by Frowner at 8:35 AM on October 28, 2022 [24 favorites]

Not sure what Orson Scott Card was trying for when he wrote Fat Farm but he was sure unhappy about something

He's reportedly struggled with his weight for some time.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:35 PM on October 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

Apologies if this article was also linked above: A.K. Mulford's "When Do Fat Girls Get to Be the Main Character?" is also germane to the topic, posted a day before the Tor one.
posted by xenization at 8:38 PM on October 28, 2022 [1 favorite]

Strong agree with Frowner here. To put it another way: anytime you make fun of someone, yes, even that asshole, for their body... you're not insulting that asshole. That asshole doesn't give a fuck what you think! But you ARE making everyone who has that same body type or feature, in your vicinity, who DOES listen to you, self conscious and frustrated.

This comment brought to you by a lifetime of self-consciousness about my stubby fingers, courtesy of JKR.
posted by snerson at 6:40 AM on October 31, 2022 [1 favorite]

I especially liked this point from the Duncan article: It’s Sarah Monette’s The Goblin Emperor’s taking time to mention the grace and balance of a fat character when it doesn’t bother to be concerned about those things in anyone else.

especially when you compare his description of The Goblin Emperor to A Master of Djinn: and it opens on a fat man walking up some stairs in the heat, while the reader is invited to be disgusted by his laziness, his grossness, to disdain him as a fat man before they are invited to hate him as a colonizer.

Even as we're making some movement towards more diversity in body shapes, there is clearly a heroic way to be fat and a villainous way to be fat. Good fat characters inhabit their bodies more, have the muscle to support their fat. Bad fat characters are clumsy, never having had to work a day in their lives, or rely too much on assistance for mobility to develop the necessary strength to actually move their bodies. The ableism is not subtle.

It's about a use of shorthand I don't know we'll able to get completely away from, in the sense that there will always be readers and authors writing for readers who need some sort of shorthand/coding to indicate this is a bad character. JKR had Molly Weasley being plump and motherly versus Aunt Marge(/Umbridge/Rita Skeeter) being bulbous and froglike or whatever. It comes about because we think about people's bodies as costumes instead of an intrinsic part of who they are.
posted by snerson at 6:57 AM on October 31, 2022