Sexist, Fatphobic Quote of the Day

The monster was blocking the whole length of the entranceway to the building. His back was to me, his front facing the window-paneled door. (I guess so he could watch the traffic?) I say it was a he, but that was only a hypothesis. I just could not imagine any self-respecting female–monster or not–ever getting as pudgy as this thing was.

(From Death’s Daughter by Amber Benson. Which is actually a terrible book all around. I’m glad I picked it up for $.39 at the Goodwill so I don’t have to worry about actually spending money on this crap.)

“Oh, I don’t mean *you*…”

I was catching up the other day on episodes of Pushing Daisies that I missed when I was away. And I got to season 2, episode 8, and a bit of my immense love for the show went away. (Warning: spoilers!)

Fat Opera Characters In Love

Last night I went with my class to see The Magic Flute at the Volksoper Wien. The first thing one noticed when the curtain rose was the huge mechanical dragon (which was quite well-done, by the way); the second was that Tamino was fat.

I’d never seen this opera performed live before, but I’ve seen several taped productions and I’ve never seen a fat Tamino. I’d never even really thought about it, which is odd considering how many other fat opera singers I’ve seen shine in lead romantic roles.

And I loved it.

I heard a few people in my class complaining about it–not specifically because of his fat but because they had expected Tamino to be thin and Papageno, the comic sidekick, to be fat. To which I say, isn’t playing against stereotypes a good thing? Doesn’t it make you think? Didn’t it make the thought cross everyone’s mind, including my own, Well, what’s the matter? Why can’t Tamino be fat?

But the main reason it made me happy was that Tamino and Pamina’s body types were close to the size and shape of me and my fiancé, and neither they nor anyone else in the opera cared.

Discussion Question: Fat Characters

What makes someone a fat-positive character and not just a fat character?

Does it have more to do with the character’s personal attitudes (e.g. not apologizing for their weight, demanding respect for their body as it is), with other characters’ attitudes towards them (e.g. not treating them differently than characters of “normal” weight, or getting called on it if they do), or with the way fat characters are portrayed in general in relation to thin characters (e.g. the fat girl isn’t the only character who can’t get a date, the thin guy eats as much as the fat guy)?

Discuss.

Review: The Curse of the Holy Pail

(I wrote this review out on paper yesterday because I didn’t have computer access, so you get two posts in a row today. Aren’t you lucky?)

I read Too Big to Miss a few weeks ago and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped. The writing was mediocre at best, and my excitement at finally discovering a book with a fat female lead was overshadowed by the fact that the way Jaffarian handled the fat acceptance/self acceptance themes didn’t add to the story but distracted from it. I hate novels that preach at me, even if I agree with what’s being preached. But I did find the storyline and characters enjoyable and figured any kniks in the writing style, as well as further development of the characters, might be worked out later; the first book in a series, in my experience, is usually one of the worst. So I kept reading to see how it turned out, and I’m glad I did, because I enjoyed The Curse of the Holy Pail a lot more.

The writing is, to be frank, still subpar. Lots of “telling, not showing,” awkward infodumping, and ending chapters or changing the course of a conversation in what seems to be the middle of a thought. I can tell that Jaffarian is going for an informal, down-to-earth style of narration, and when it works it’s lovely, but I often found it distracting.

But The Curse of the Holy Pail succeeded where Too Big to Miss did not in presenting an array of different body types without sounding preachy or unrealistic. The characters are fleshed out more, and some interesting things are set up for future character development. Even Steele, the recurring “villain,” is developed into a multi-dimensional character with complex motives–something I wish had been extended to Odelia’s charicature of a fatphobic family.

The mystery itself is over-the-top and slightly silly–it reminds me of Remington Steele, in a very good way–but it is not so exaggerated as to be unbelievable. The plotting is excellent, and the twists at the end are unpredictable and at the same time make perfect sense. The romance subplot was both sweet and heartbreaking, and I won’t lie that that’s a good part of the reason I want to continue reading the series.

Altogether it’s a fun and lighthearted read, immensely enjoyable despite its flaws.

xposted

More Fat Characters

After making this post, I thought it would be a good idea to start a community for discussing fat characters in fiction, so I made one on LiveJournal. Check it out.

Fat Characters in Literature

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books had a wonderful post recently about plus-sized heroines in romance novels.

Yesterday I requested Such a Pretty Face, a sci-fi/fantasy anthology about plus-sized women, from my public library. I look forward to reading it.

A few weeks ago I read Too Big to Miss and I honestly did not enjoy it that much. I felt preached to, which I think is a risk any author takes when she creates a character who has to justify something about herself to other characters or to readers. I also didn’t think the characters were developed as much as I’d like, but it’s a series so I might read the second one and see if I like it any better.

The only book with a fat heroine I recall reading before that was Pigs Don’t Fly, which I found in the library all the way back in middle school. The narrator is the daughter of the village prostitute, but can’t follow in her mother’s footsteps because she is fat (“I was a huge lump of grease, wobbling from foot to foot like ill-set aspic”) and therefore so ugly that no one would ever pay to sleep with her. Part of the plot is her losing weight and becoming more attractive, naturally. Even years before getting involved in fat acceptance, I found it ridiculous.

As for fat male characters, the only one I can think of off the top of my head is the title character of the Thraxas series, which I enjoy greatly despite its flaws. But I don’t know how fat positive that really is; although Thraxas is generally unashamed of his size, he is also portrayed as eating about six times as much as a normal human and is mostly asexual.

This has all got me thinking about my own stories–should I ever have time to work on them again–and how I could include more variation in body type without making fat the central aspect of a character’s personality. I have some ideas so far; hopefully they’ll work out. One is for a chubby, ass-kicking female vampire and her male sidekick/narrator, who has alternately been, in the story’s planning stages, a private investigator, a romance novelist, and an elementary school teacher. I’m still not sure where I’m going with that one.