I down-rez, but not THAT small. You can make it big enough to be clear on a screen while still keeping it small enough that it would be useless to print. I usually go for around 850-900px on the long side, which is around the full-height of a maximized browser on most computer screens. You get reasonable detail, without “giving your work away.”
Yep. It’s pretty clear from the discussion that most people aren’t seeing what she’s trying to show, which is a failure of her goal.
My skepticism of the belly slapping story was founded mainly on the doubt that there are actually people who go around slapping their bellies expressly to make fun of fatties. Why? Because I have never heard of that here and if it were true, it would be both comically and also incredibly shitty of those people.
Now you tell me that yes, apparently belly-slapping to make fun of fatties is totally a thing that people in Spain do! All the time!
Any lingering doubts I had that this lady’s story is both true and does probably represent someone trying to make fun of her for being a fatty have now gone away forever. Lost… como lágrimas bajo la lluvia.
I believe you misread Nava. The gesture is not made “all the time,” but if a Spaniard were inclined to indicate a person is exceptionally fat, they are most likely to use that “patting on the upper abdomen” gesture. Much as an American would puff out his cheeks and make a wide, round motion with both hands around his middle to indicate “fat.”
She told you no such thing. Starting to draw a belly’s curve, and NOT slapping the belly, as Nava described, is hardly belly-slapping. Methinks an improvement in reading comprehension is called for.
It’s not a worthwhile project. I’m fat*. People don’t react with disgust when they see me. It has literally never happened. It’s happened when I’ve flirted with someone, but never just walking around. Anyone who thinks this happens on a regular basis is projecting their own body image.
And that’s the only way the project would be worthwhile, as a psychological experiment. She can see that most people will not think these people are looking at her with disgust, and perhaps change her mental map so she doesn’t feel bad about herself.
I mean, honestly, I thought she was kinda cute for a big girl. She had a bit of a baby-face going on.
*My height (I am BigT after all) and how I wear my weight makes me look less fat, but I’m still obviously fat. And try and think about what it means that people actually see me before making some dumb insulting joke.
I should amend. I do down-rez for website viewing for bandwidth reasons and because there’s no point in posting a 12 or 36MP image for web-viewing, but it’s still 1600x1200 for me. I just meant that I don’t rez down to extra small levels to protect against copyright violations. In other words, it sounds like I do what you do. It’s not super common, but I do see photographers who have images that are like five or six hundred pixels across on their long side. I don’t get the point of that.
…or maybe, as every study ever done has concluded, fat women get considerably more shit for being fat then fat men do.
There is a difference between knowing that overweight women “get . . . more shit for being fat” and believing that this woman has *not *made her point with her photo essay.
Many people have chimed in expressing their thoughts that that disapproval from passers-by is all in this woman’s head. At least two of those people have attempted to support this statement by offering up the fact that they, as fat men, have never noticed any particular opprobrium directed towards them. I therefore propose to you that the idea that women get more shit for being fat than men do is in fact apparently something that at least some people do not realize.
This. She is intentionally impeding traffic in a busy pedestrian area. I think those looks of loathing have nothing to do with her being fat and everything to do with her apparent lack of getting the fuck out of the way.
I give those same looks to people who stand in the middle, blocking entire aisles with their grocery carts, so they can talk on the phone while they pick at their nails. No matter what they look like.
The picture where she’s standing in the middle of the sidewalk with the unfurled map is a good example. The lady that’s scowling at her (who isn’t exactly skinny herself) looks like a typical NYer, wishing the annoying tourist would get the fuck out of the way.
Checked with my Wife (who had been heavy [size 22-24] until the cancer treatments a couple of years back). Nope, never a comment from anyone. She is also a jolly type.
Like I said before, only small children have ever commented on my weight and that was a very few, and they think anyone bigger than Barbie is “fat”
Also, I get/got hit on by men more than disapproving stares from strangers. I get much more attention, both negative and positive, when I am pregnant than just being my regular chubby self.
The worst reactions about my weight I have ever gotten were from my immediate family. My dad called me a “fat bitch” which I was 12, constantly asked about my weight, eating, and exercise habits until I was in my mid 20s and I told him to knock it off or I wouldn’t waste my time talking to him. My mom has made back handed remarks about my clothing and the fit of them. Family can be much more cruel than strangers. I wonder if the photographer in question has some underlying familial issues she needs to deal with before she starts blaming strangers for judging her, who could honestly care less.
Like an “honorary member of the force” type of gesture. Around here, it would be nothing for a sheriff to put his hat on a handicapped kid.
The woman also happens to look a lot like a handicapped woman that I know who is early 20s and she would get a big kick out of the cop’s hat and would want a photo with it on.
I think this is true, but I don’t think it has much to do with her photo essay.
I propose that these things are bigger factors in the reactions captured in the few photographs that she selected to use in her photo essay:
(a) Her dress is dramatically different than the environment and pretty much screams “tourist who dresses from second hand store and may be color blind”
(b) She carries herself in a way similar to a physically or mentally handicapped person. (e.g. severely rounded shoulders, hips forward, toes/knees pointed inward).
(c) Her hair is markedly unkempt and wild looking and may add up with the rest to make her appear homeless (who happens to also have a camera?)
And the biggest factor of ALL:
(d) She is in the flow of pedestrian traffic with a camera set up. This causes those “I’m sorry, I need to get through / get by” situations where people look at the person and do smile as a form of apology.
If (a) - (c) were true, but she were walking with the flow of traffic… I doubt many people would give her much more than a passing glance. But, when you set up a camera on a street, ANY STREET, and then stand there – you are going to have people looking for what the big deal is.
ETA: In the article, she says that she is a teacher at a college. IF I’d ever walked into class with a teacher wearing undersized stretch pants and shirt, looking and standing like her. I would have a hard time taking her seriously as an educator. (And I would have a hard time paying tuition to a university that would let a teacher teach wearing such clothing).
So, maybe the point is that people give mean looks to the poor, because she comes off more as a poor person.
I looked at the cop picture several times. It seems at least as likely to me that they were making fun of the clueless person standing in the middle of traffic talking on her cell (or whatever she was doing) as they were making fun of the fat chick.
People should be able to go out in public without being mocked. Staring is rude - my sainted mother taught me that. And obese people get a lot of shit that they don’t deserve, especially if they are women. But I wonder if the photographer did a little more to trigger the reactions she photographed than simply appearing in public dressed semi-sloppily and being obese.
I expect she wanted to trigger sympathy as well as discussion. I think she got more of the latter than the former, at least on the SDMB.
Maybe she should drop trou and put on a Pope hat.
Regards,
Shodan
If they didn’t ask to pose with her before doing the hat thing, I will eat that hat. I’m not saying cops are always perfect, but purposely messing with someone who clearly looks distressed just doesn’t sound right.
I’m offended, but not because of her size, at all. She’s a professor and writes that poorly? That’s what’s offensive here.
Wow. How fat have we gotten in this country when a woman her size has to overcompensate for not being fat enough to warrant stares by acting all weird and looking super awkward on purpose? I’m disgusted with us as a nation.
chucks the rest of my deep fried twinky into the trash
So in your mind, the possibilities are either that the photograph is staged because nobody would ever do something that terrible but then on the other hand it’s actually kind of understandable because who doesn’t see the fun of playing me-almost-touchy hat games with apparently mentally retarded strangers behind their backs? But the one thing that you seem absolutely sure that it definitely isn’t is a gesture consciously meant to mock the person that the camera points at although even if it is who cares because they are probably just mocking her because she isn’t sitting up straight and her hair looks messy so of course what should she expect if she looks like that.
Nope, that doesn’t bring any social maladies into focus for me at all. Clearly a failure of art!