# "Fatty" jokes on TV and Movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 13, 2012, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fatty-jokes-on-tv-and-movies/628145 "2012-07-13T21:47:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fatty-jokes-on-tv-and-movies/628145/61 "2012-07-15T13:11:46Z")
> [@Rala](#): > > I didn’t think it was subtle. . Thanks. Sounds like it wasn’t. To be honest I was wondering if I was making the whole thing up. I spent some time on the net looking for a reference to this aspect of the movie but couldn’t find it (of course my search skills suck). At least I know I ain’t dreaming things up. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fatty-jokes-on-tv-and-movies/628145/62 "2012-07-15T13:21:11Z")
> [@KayLovesPurple](#): > > Speaking of fatty jokes, I’ve been recently watching the whole run of Friends. A series I like a lot and find funny, yet there was something about it that left me with a bitter taste: all the jokes about Monica’s childhood as a fat kid. Every single time it comes to that, they mention she was eating an ungodly amount of food, helping promote the stereotype that fat people are so because they eat A LOT. If they only decided to stop eating so much they will get thin, too (Monica easily lost all the weight as soon as she wanted to, and kept it off forever for all we know). How is that a stereotype? Eating more _does_ cause weight gain. ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fatty-jokes-on-tv-and-movies/628145/63 "2012-07-15T13:54:13Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > How is that a stereotype? Eating more _does_ cause weight gain. Not for everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fatty-jokes-on-tv-and-movies/628145/64 "2012-07-15T13:56:29Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > …Glad you “got it” but wonder if you could actually respond to the point that was made? > > Keira Knightly has a [BMI of 17.6](http://eleganceistheonlybeauty.blogspot.com/2012/04/celebrities-how-much-they-weigh.html), or perhaps [17.0](http://thinspire-stars.xanga.com/683956473/k-e-i-r-a-k-n-i-g-h-t-l-e-y/), depending on which source you believe. Under 18.5 is considered significantly clinically underweight and is associated with more health risks than is being overweight. In another recent thread it was pointed out that the average female model’s BMI has become lower as the average real woman’s BMI has gotten higher. > > The comment was a valid one: seriously clinically underweight is increasingly held up, to women at least, as an ideal. Most women with BMIs associated with the [lowest mortality](http://www.nejm.org/action/showImage?doi=10.1056%2FNEJMoa1000367&iid=f01) rate (near the border of “normal” and “overweight” as clinically defined) think they need to lose weight, which is hardly surprising when what is idealized in the media is much less, and sometimes to unhealthy degrees. > > To equate **Laggard** ’s making that point a bit inelegantly with the subject of how the fat are teased with some approval by many onlookers\* is disingenuous. > > \*Funny enough given that 2/3s of American adults are clinically overweight or obese. I suspect that those who are insecure about their own self-image are most eager to find someone worse off than they are to harass. It reminds me some of how the bottom of the White South was most eager to (literally) beat up Southern Blacks, as they were the ones below them on the ladder. No, it’s really not all that hard. No need to pull out the BMIs. It’s not nice to refer to someone as a ‘walking skeleton’. I personally don’t care about rating celebrity beauty or lack thereof, because Hollywood is a superficial business. But if I were the type to be offended by fat jokes that come out of Hollywood, I wouldn’t be so hypocritical as to call out some Hollywood starlet as a ‘walking skeleton’. If she was joking, and she apologized for the joke, then that’s a classy move. But if she was seriously calling Knightly a ‘walking skeleton’, and then trying to shrug it off as a joke…well that isn’t very honest. And it seemed to me that it wasn’t a joke, based on her posts in this thread. So that is my opinion on that. I don’t have a beef with Laggard. But I don’t think the fact that Knightly may be at an unhealthy weight is an excuse for her to be called a ‘walking skeleton’ by someone who is willing to dish it but not take it. ETA: [QUOTE=Laggard] Not for everyone. [/QUOTE] But for enough people that, generally speaking, we can just say that overeating causes weight gain, right? I mean, it goes without saying that there are exceptions to every rule. I mean, some people have actual, factual tape worms. But generally speaking… ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fatty-jokes-on-tv-and-movies/628145/65 "2012-07-15T13:58:50Z")
nm. ---
**Author:** ![planetcory](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/planetcory/32/1032_2.png) [@planetcory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/planetcory)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fatty-jokes-on-tv-and-movies/628145/66 "2012-07-15T14:15:12Z")
Now we’re all caught up with Laggard’s response as opposed to what it was in response to? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fatty-jokes-on-tv-and-movies/628145/67 "2012-07-15T14:37:45Z")
Agreed that it was a “not nice” way to reference being seriously clinically underweight and **Laggard** apologized for any offense anyone may have taken by that word choice; probably on par with referring to Chris Christie as being a “tubbo.” Pretty damn mild and honestly not completely out of line when making the point that was beng made, that being a tubbo is acceptably insulted by worse than just being called a tubbo and fairly pervasively, but being just as significantly underweight, “a walking skeleton”, is held up and perceived by a fair number as “hot.” “Thin” as **Laggard** pointed out, does not equal “fit”, can be very unfit in fact, and “fat” can be “fit.” And oh god not _another_ time of the same trying to simplify obesity’s causes into a four word sentence! Can we cut it off at the pass, please? Yes “overeating” leads to weight gain, by definition because overeating is definable as eating more than what your body currently needs to support its activities without gaining fat tissue. No, the obese are not all gluttonous or lacking in will power more than are those who are normal BMI. A child (or adult) who is obese is not necessarily stuffing his/her face all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fatty-jokes-on-tv-and-movies/628145/68 "2012-07-15T14:45:13Z")
Nicely cut off at the pass, Dseid. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fatty-jokes-on-tv-and-movies/628145.md?page=3)