“I Wanna Be Fat” : Healthism and Fat Politics in TLC’s My Big Fat Fabulous Life

American reality TV has for a long time staged fat bodies in exaggerated and voyeuristic ways. The aim of such programs is to tell cautionary tales about the supposedly disastrous effects of fatness for the individual and society. The fat body needs to change, or be controlled in order to function fully in a capitalist society. One series that interrupts this narrative is TLC’s My Big Fat Fabulous Life (2015-); the title suggests that this narrative is not one of misery and regret, but of joy – certainly an unusual take on fatness in reality TV. It stars Whitney Thore, a woman who claims to be body positive, and who advertises fat politics; politics inspired by fat studies and activism. These clash with the healthist, neoliberal ideology circulated in reality TV. While she announces that she is proud to be fat, her friends and family are constantly shown challenging her. The series thus sends contradicting messages: unable to fully commit to fat and body positivity, it stages Thore’s health problems in a spectacular way and thus undermines the successes and triumphs she experiences as fat role model

“I Wanna Be Fat”: Healthism and Fat Politics in TLC’s My Big Fat Fabulous Life

American reality TV has for a long time staged fat bodies in exaggerated and voyeuristic ways. The aim of such programs is to tell cautionary tales about the supposedly disastrous effects of fatness for the individual and society. The fat body needs to change, or be controlled in order to function fully in a capitalist society. One series that interrupts this narrative is TLC’s My Big Fat Fabulous Life (2015-); the title suggests that this narrative is not one of misery and regret, but of joy – certainly an unusual take on fatness in reality TV. It stars Whitney Thore, a woman who claims to be body positive, and who advertises fat politics; politics inspired by fat studies and activism. These clash with the healthist, neoliberal ideology circulated in reality TV. While she announces that she is proud to be fat, her friends and family are constantly shown challenging her. The series thus sends contradicting messages: unable to fully commit to fat and body positivity, it stages Thore’s health problems in a spectacular way and thus undermines the successes and triumphs she experiences as fat role model.      

Fat Studies: Ein Glossar

Fat Studies beschäftigen sich mit hohem Körpergewicht, ohne es auf die Wahrnehmung als Gesundheitsgefahr zu reduzieren. Sie fokussieren auf den gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit ›Übergewicht‹ als Ordnungs- und Herrschaftskategorie und analysieren, wie dicke Körper normiert und pathologisiert werden. International bereits weit entwickelt, sind die Fat Studies im deutschsprachigen Raum noch kaum bekannt. Die multidisziplinären und internationalen Beiträger*innen des Glossars präsentieren erstmals eine breite Palette zentraler Begriffe dieser jungen Disziplin: von A wie Aktivismus über I wie Intersektionalität bis Z wie Zucker

“An obese turtle on his back” – fat-shaming Donald J. Trump and the spectacle of fat masculinity

This article brings together fat studies and masculinity studies to critically read the various stagings of the fat body of former U.S. President Donald J. Trump in U.S. late-night talk shows such as Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel Live! During his presidency, these and other late-night hosts stressed that Trump was unfit for office, a sentiment often supported by fat-shaming discourses and imagery of the spectacular transgressions of Trump’s fat, male body that deemed his body as unfit for office as well. In these comedic segments, Trump’s fat, male body was utilized as a visualization of his incompetence, failures, and moral shortfalls. As I argue, these fat-shaming discourses are not merely aimed at making visible Trump’s lack of qualifications for the presidency, they result from deeply ingrained stigmatizations of fatness in popular culture. Specifically, I look at the unstable position of fat masculinity in U.S. public imagination, the dangers it supposedly poses to hegemonic masculinity, and the ways in which its intersection with whiteness (in this case Trump’s whiteness) informs this position. Satire, as a specific kind of communication, functions as a catalyst for anti-fat attitudes that are presented as political commentary.Peer Reviewe

‘Only Stones and Stories Remain’: Greek American (Travel) Writing about Greece

Since the early 1960s, numerous Greek American authors of the second and third generation have published personal accounts on their travels to Greece. In this paper, I argue that these authors adopt a double perspective, being both ‘visitors’ and ‘locals’ who are affiliated with both the ‘here’ and the ‘there.’ Returnees often experience a feeling of belatedness when arriving in their ancestral homeland. They overcome this feeling by inscribing themselves into the foreign but - paradoxically - familiar past, and by making a contribution to the Greek diaspora. Although the intersections of travel writing and return writing are strong, in this paper, return writing will be defined as a subgenre of both diaspora writing and travel writing