Fat-shaming Friday: Fat People Should Feel Ashamed for Their
Obvious Poor Nutrition Choices...Paleo Label Can "Help!"
From reading our blog, and probably from your own
experiences, you know that not ALL fat people make poor nutrition choices, and
you also know that NOT all skinny people make good nutrition choices. Well, the
following 2010 commercial for Paleo brand foods begs to differ:
This commercial is a perfect example of mass media fat
shaming. It makes a TON of assumptions about fat people, the overarching one
being, of course, that fat people make poor nutrition choices and need help.
The depiction of the "main character" (the man making poor nutrition
choices and suffering (some research un-supported) consequences) is meant to
make fat people feel ashamed and ignorant of their own diets and bodies. It is
also supposed to make them feel othered, ugly, and shameful if they have made
these same "choices" or fall into ANY of the fat stereotypes explored
in the commercial.
So for this Fat-Shaming Friday, we wanted to offer you an
analysis of just one of the many commercials that participates in
fat-shaming. We'll start with the
paleo-approved grocery section. This
section is very small and easy to pass up.
Our main character, Red Shirt Guy, slows down a little when he walks
past this particular section, but like most people, probably either doesn't
know what paleo means or doesn't care because he is just there to buy some
milk, bread, frozen pizza, and beef.
Little does he know, this decision to buy LITERALLY MILK, BREAD, FROZEN
PIZZA, and BEEF is going to prove fatal.
He then moves on to pick up his first purchase: MILK. Unfortunately, this guy lives in a world
occupied by HARSH side effects from basic foods. Milk is called "Acne Milk," and
without even drinking it, he starts breaking out with acne. I probably don't need to tell you that milk
provides a lot of necessary nutrients and helps your bones grow. But if there's a risk for acne, you probably
shouldn't drink it, right? Who cares if
your bones are unhealthy and you aren't getting your serving of dairy? You might get acne! Better not risk it! But Red Shirt Guy clearly doesn't care,
because he quickly moves on to Product Number Two: BREAD.
Oh wait, I'm sorry.
OBESITY BREAD.
Once again, Red Shirt Guy's body begins to change as soon as
he makes the bad decision to pick up a non-paleo-approved food. He gains weight in all the "wrong"
places: his chest (especially "wrong" because he is a MAN), his
stomach, his neck, and his love-handles.
As he moves on to Product Number Three, CELIAC DISEASE
PIZZA, he begins to move more slowly and the music even slows down as his gait
turns into a waddle.
The task of selecting a frozen pizza (which is obviously
going to automatically give him the digestive disease previously mentioned)
proves too much and Red Shirt Guy falls down and must be assisted by the SKINNY
grocery store employee. Obviously too acne-covered, obese, and diseased to
walk, Red Shirt Guy is using an electric wheelchair in the next scene, and
STILL being assisted by the SKINNY clerk.
] The skinny clerk then pushes him to final, deathly,
Product Number Four: BEEF. Skinny Clerk,
in an attempt to be "helpful," picks up Pale-Approved Grass-Fed
Beef. But Red Shirt Guy, who is now far
too obese and riddled with disease to communicate with speech, simply waves a
limp hand at it and instead picks up Corn-Fed Beef that has a confident Heart
Disease label stamped across the front.
As Skinny Clerk (who looks suspiciously similar to Red Shirt Guy at the
beginning of this perilous adventure) watches, Red Shirt Guy looks into the
camera vacantly and falls out of his motorized chair to the tune of hospital
machinery.
Thankfully, our narrator (male…weird! see yesterday's post for significance) cuts
in here to give us the encouraging advice that "You don't have to end up
like this!" Thanks, narrator! I was feeling pretty down and discouraged
about making similar purchases. Please
tell me how I can avoid dying shamefully in a grocery store!
He then goes on to tell us, "Reverse your bad health by
making better choices!"
Well, what kind of better choices could I possibly
make? Could it have anything to do with
buying from the pitifully small paleo-approved foods section?
"Paleo food label!
Leading you to the food that leads to better health!"
Oh, thanks so much! I
won't be buying any obesity bread in the foreseeable future!
This commercial relies heavily on emotions, specifically
fear and disgust, to shame fat people.
The slowing of the music, sound of hospital machinery, and thud when he
hits the floor all contribute to the overall feeling of fear, in addition to
the misleading labels of ACNE! OBESITY! CELIAC DISEASE! HEART DISEASE!
His lack of spoken
communication and consistently poor choices dehumanizes him, and this is even
continued by Skinny Clerk, who accompanies him like a guy walking his dog. We may feel bad for him at first because he
gets acne from drinking milk, which is just so not fair, but by the time he
gets to the beef, we're pretty irritated with him for making stupid choices,
and we may even sympathize with Skinny Clerk, who is clearly just trying to
help a guy who doesn't know how to help himself.
Finally, this commercial follows a common trend in
fat-shaming culture within the final few seconds: "Leading you to the food
that leads to better health!" Fat
people don't know any better, even though it is right in front of them, so we
have to lead them there like animals.
Obviously this commercial is riddled with issues--we just
discussed them--but it is also riddled with implications and consequences not
even considered in the ad itself. Because the commercial dehumanizes fat
people, it makes them easier targets both inside AND OUTSIDE of the commercial
for disgust from others, which of course contributes to self-loathing and
shame.
The shaming doesn't stop with the ad, and this isn't just an
innocent, humorous jab at fatties. It's part of an entirely larger problem that
makes fat people easy and acceptable targets for shaming by taking away their
humanity. See enough of these commercials, and anti-fat attitudes will slowly
take root.
Tomorrow we'll be talking about anti-fat trends that are
popular among teenagers: the bikini bridge and the thigh gap. Come back and check it out! It'll be a good one.
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