clap clap blog: we have moved


Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Dear the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance: if you want people to take you seriously, you might want to stop comparing fat jokes to racism. If we lived in a country where people were regularly lynched for being fat, you might have a case. But when they just get made fun of, you sort of look like idiots. You don't dislike fat suits for the same reason black people dislike whites in blackface. Blackface has the specific connotation of minstrelry, which was a key componant in the post-Civil War campaign to keep blacks repressed. Fat suits have the specific connotation of "Shallow Hal," which while not the best movie, is not really the same thing.