142: Soap-Box-O-Rama
Comments from:
Katy
And Kalvin
I talk about fat acceptance and how you can’t save another person and why I don’t use the mute button while I’m shitting and on the phone.
Voicemail: 206-350-2565
E-Mail: podcast (at) ilovelard (dot) com
I absolutely loved the line that was like no one wants to be compared to fat people. It’s strange that I hadn’t thought about how we are medicalizing obesity. It’s the same sort of thing as what happened with being gay. It had to be pathologized first before there could be a “cure”. I have always had pretty decent experiences with therapy, but maybe I’ve been lucky, or I wasn’t in too terrible of need to begin with. I just like people listening to me! Well, I suppose that’s obvious. And it’s hard to usually work the mute on a cell phone, but there usually is one.
Comment by Kalvin — March 18, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
Sorry it took me so long to comment on this. First I had post-finals brain melt, and then I had spring break brain-melt-from-lack-of-use.
God, I so agree about the whole cycle of abuse via tabloid, where they berate a female star for being fat, and then when she loses a shitload of weight first they glorify her for it, and then when she becomes scary skinny they’re like, “Oh god, how could this happen?” And really, you do have to be exceptional, and put up with a lot of shit, to make it as a woman or man of color/a fat woman, whereas there’s always a market for skinny white people even if they’re not super-talented.
I don’t think that you have the obligation to save anybody. We’ve talked about this before in regards to your mom, so you know I think you did the right thing in cutting her off because you couldn’t help her and it was hurting you. I also think maybe me being suicidal is a flawed analogy to Britney Spears. My main point is, you don’t have to want to help her, but I do think it’s cruel to take pleasure in the pain of a sick person. It’s like laughing at a disabled person when they fall off their crutches.
Comment by Katy — March 27, 2008 @ 2:54 am