99% Meets 1%

While waiting to get on the expressway after dropping my girls off at school, I sat behind a red Mercedes coupe sporting a vanity plate that said “SI RED.” I wanly smiled at the little DMV-approved joke as I read the little plastic frame holding the plate, and then I really was seeing red.

Glaring back at me was the witless quip, “You can never be too rich or too thin.”

Really?!

A Few Things Up Front

Before I continue, I want to clarify a few things. First and foremost, I do not hate thin people; what I hate is the idea that even thin people must still strive to lose weight to be valued.

The other point is that I do not begrudge people their financial or material successes. They worked for them, they earned them (presumably), and they should enjoy them. However, given that Avarice is one of the Seven Deadlies and just plain rude in general, I find unmitigated greed rather loathsome.

Now Back To My Rant

“Too rich?”

Isn’t that the line of thinking that brought about record-high unemployment and foreclosures? Isn’t that the logic used by the CEO’s of too-big-to-fail banks giving themselves bonuses?

Then, more disconcerting than that, one can’t be “too thin.” What does that mean to the people, many of them young women, literally starving themselves to death to meet an unrealistic ideal?

Privilege On A Plate

That sassy little statement of privilege brought the following to mind: Wealth has always been a cultural marker of success and prestige, whether it is measured in land, heads of cattle, precious metals, or colorful bits of paper.

Right alongside wealth has been Fat. The Fat body meant wealthy enough to afford food on a regular basis, the time to enjoy it, and the health that came with a well-nourished body. Then, about 100 years ago, there was a major shift in body status, moving from millennia of Fat being esteemed to giving power to the thin body - the thinner the better.

Today, the power and status of the thin body permeates Western culture, with all the happiness and admiration associated with wealth also being attached to the thin frame. Yet when portrayals of those who abuse wealth and power are created, those characters are still drawn as Fat.

The equation of rich and thin disappears when wealth is bad and society reverts back to its ancient cultural programming and still pictures the Fat body, now constructed as greedy, over-indulgent, out of control, burdensome, and even diseased, as a physical representation of wealth. We’re not merely fighting against a stereotype; we’re fighting against eons of ingrained imagery.

No pressure.

What ideas do you have to change the negative stereotype of greed and abuse of power portrayed by the Fat body?

Born and raised in Northeast Ohio with her BA and MA from the University of Akron, Mary has 20 years experience in the corporate sector working for local companies and Fortune 500s in customer service, PR, sales, advertising, and broadcast media. She currently teaches English Composition at Stark State College and UA. Her passion is living and teaching tolerance while pushing for Size Acceptance. She hopes to inform as many everyday Americans that the issue of Size is not an issue at all but merely a distraction from the real issues, such as the decline in public education, our infrastructure, economy and healthcare system. Mary loves irritating people by speaking her mind and presenting them with annoying facts, contrary opinions, and life's little ironies; when not doing that, she loves being with her family.