Seriously, fandom?

[nilchance]

Chub!Jensen controversy and now a big-bang set in an obesity research center?

Trigger. Biiiiig trigger.

I am sore tired of catching this merry fat-hating bullshit every time I turn on the TV ("now on Dr. G, Medical Examiner: OBESITY CRISIS OBESITY FATTY FATTY FAT FAT DEAAAAATH!"), but fandom too, for serious?

Argh.

ETA: Also, okay. I understand that the underlying message is that Jensen has to come to love himself. HOWEVER. It comes with the understanding that Jensen is expressing his love for himself by losing the weight "for Jared", to go find Jared and love and enlightenment and that.

Here's the thing. Very rarely do fat people actually get that way by cramming fast food and abusing their bodies. They get there through genetics, or thyroid issues, or antidepressants (hi there!), or a history of yo-yo dieting that resets their resting point of ideal weight. A history of eating disorders. So forcing one's body into a thinner shape by exercising to exhaustion (thus making exercise an unpleasant chore that one HAS to do to BEAT OBESITY), or limiting calories to deprivation, is a shock to one's system. It's not necessarily self-love, though it may be motivated by the desire to be lovable or to live longer (because of fear of obesity killing them) or because they can't be happy until they're thin.

Self-love is unrelated to a number on a scale. It's recognizing one's worth, unconnected to one's weight. The beauty of your body as it is, flaws and all, not as it could be. Pursuing health is an awesome thing, and a great way to love yourself, but pursuing thinness is not the same thing.

Comments

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

I gotta admit, I'm not sure where the fat!Jensen thing comes from. Given that in all the photos of him available (even when he was younger, pre-Hollywood) he's relatively slim, I'm inclined to believe that's probably just what his body naturally wants to do. He might need to make a specific effort to exercise to bulk up, muscle-wise, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that he's fanatically counting calories to keep the shape he has.

(There were a couple of photos I remember where he looked 'puffy', but honestly - most people look 'puffy' because of water retention, not fat. There's plenty of things that cause it, and generally it's pretty quick to go away without any massive dieting efforts.)

[eponin10.livejournal.com]

Very rarely do fat people actually get that way by cramming fast food and abusing their bodies. They get there through genetics, or thyroid issues, or antidepressants (hi there!)

Gods, yes. I so hate that antidepressants do this. I'm on them for nerve pain, and probably will be on them for the rest of my life. I love the fact that I'm mostly pain free now, but they made me put on 50 lbs, which I hate. I wasn't skinny by any means before the meds, but I was very happy and comfortable with the way I looked, and unfortunately, the meds are making it impossible for me to get back there. *grumbles*

[ninasis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty much he took a couple of photos at bad angles that made it look like he had the beginnings of a double chin, and some folks in fandom - who were already doing the whole Jensen is Functionally Illiterate thing (PETJA?) - started the whole Fat!Jensen trend. But of course, that was all out of love...they really love Jensen, really.

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

... sometimes fans really confuse me on a fundamental level.

[spae.livejournal.com]

Can't say I've ever seen the puffy pics - but, to be fair, all photography is about light and angles, and unless you have a pro taking them, you're gonna get unflattering ones *speaks from bitter experience* :\

In my experience, there's a thickening of the waistline and broadening of the shoulders that comes with healthy maturity [perhaps witnessed in whatever that spn episode was that Jensen wandered about in a towel, compared with his performance as 'Monty Cora' in Dark Angel]. Jensen's got a man's build now - and I very much approve. ^^

[spae.livejournal.com]

*echoes your o_O at that attempt to excuse it*

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

He was TINY in Dark Angel. And he's still pretty small now - maybe some people are also being confused by the fact that in SPN they generally seem to dress Dean to really bulk out his shoulders? (Lots of layers of shirts.)

But if you look at him just dressed casually, he's still pretty slim, particularly through the waist and hips.

[arabella-hope.livejournal.com]

Well, I am sorry that it gave you that reaction.

[unrund.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I skipped that entry at first because it sounded rather boring and not really in my area of interest. Then you posted and of course I had to read it.
So .. I didn´t actually get your impression from it. My impression was one of complete hilarity because seriously? Seriously? There is so much wrong with this that I was torn between beating my head against the desk and laughing so hard that I was in danger of choking on my own spit. I´m about 20 pounds away from that fictional characters weight and if you threw eight hours of exercise daily at me I would end up with a few torn ligaments and out of comission for a while.
I´m not even going to touch upon that 'diet', yo-yo-effect, skin flaps from losing weight too fast and the strange, strange thing of losing weight without getting stuck on one weight and not going down for a few weeks.

That is not to say it wasn´t well written, just so no one can say that I hate it because it was bad in anything other than form.

/end my two cent

[esorlehcar.livejournal.com]

ETA: Also, okay. I understand that the underlying message is that Jensen has to come to love himself. HOWEVER. It comes with the understanding that Jensen is expressing his love for himself by losing the weight "for Jared", to go find Jared and love and enlightenment and that.

Having read the story, the "underlying message" rang very false given the staggering amount of fat hate the author managed to cram into the story. From Jensen the friendless loser virgin who spent all his time in his apartment stuffing food into his face to the doctor drilling into his head (again and again and again) that this was HIS fault, that he was a bad person for being fat, to his enrollment in a program that required participants to maintain a GROSSLY unhealthy amount of weight loss (2% of body weight every week) or be expelled, to Jared's comment that Jensen's body was like an ugly shirt he needed to take off, to Jensen's casually and repeatedly referring to the other participants as "cattle" and just to add that lovely misogynist touch, "she-cows" (and yeah, I realize this was supposed to symbolize Jensen's self-loathing, but given how much disgust for overweight people permeated the entire story, I have difficulty not reading it as an editorial comment)--the whole thing was just a mess of fat shaming, severely unrealistic expectations, and glorification of the kind of "beauty is far more important than health" shit this culture shoves down our throats at every opportunity.

I'm sure the author honestly thought she was writing about accepting yourself, and a lot of people seem to be taking it that way, but I have trouble imagining the story having any effect beyond reinforcing to readers who are unhappy with their weight that their bodies are gross, that they are to blame for it, and that they should lose any extra weight by any means necessary, health be damned.

Sorry about the repeated edits--I'm posting before coffee, which is never good idea.

[siubhlach.livejournal.com]

Didn't you know? It isn't why you weigh, it's what you weigh that is important *eyeroll*

Common sense? I always liked the line from Men In Black for that: "A person is intelligent; people are stupid, panicky animals and you know it"

[amalthia]

In my family fat and 40 = diabetes. :( One of my grandmother's sister lost her leg due to the illness and died rather young due to complications. So I've kind of had eating healthy and exercising drilled in my head from my grandmother who does not want any of us in her situation.

[caarirose.livejournal.com]

Same comment as your wife.

*hugs* I do love you

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

Always, baby.

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

My response to that is usually, "I ate a skinny girl and forgot about it? Damn!"

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

D'oh! You and me, baby, always with the brain-share.

[ixchel55.livejournal.com]

LOL! I think my best answer to date was something alone the same lines: 'So that's the bony thing sticking in my throat!' *G*

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

Parts of it kind of made me feel like all I've done to accept myself has been... well, lying to myself, in a way.

This is why I really object to the fic and to narratives like it, because they introduce that sharp niggling thought that maybe you have no right to love yourself. Telling yourself that's bullshit may intellectually help, but emotionally? I don't know.

Women can become so used to questioning their own instincts, feelings and decisions because of those persistant whispers from society: you're not good enough, look at all these people who disagree with you, maybe if you tried harder...

Anyway. *hugs* I'm sorry.

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. It's just become medical dogma, fat = death, and an excuse to bag on fat people when it's mostly a repressed "fat = ewwww" reaction in truth.

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

Aww, no problem. *smish*

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hear you. I'm still fighting my internal "omg you're hideous, fatty!" internal program every time I look in the mirror; I don't need to hear it from anybody else.

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I've gotten just as much if not MORE crap from people of size who have bought into the "obesity crisis"; unfortunately, nobody is immune. But thank you!

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

See, I have plenty of diabetes in my family and in T's family. I get those same "deeeeeath!" lectures. But I don't believe that loving your body and avoiding diabetes/disability is an either-or proposition. I have fibro; I control it with meds and exercise. I still have no great urge to diet.

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

That makes you wayyyy wiser than me. ;)

Re: This is going to get rambly, so bear with me >_>

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

I agree, the issue is complicated.