Well! I’ve offered weight-loss advice in the past, but have given up on that.
Me, I believe I can control my weight in a wide range. If I felt like topping 300 lbs I could do it, or so I believe. And I could starve myself to play Heath Ledger in a movie if that were an option.
However, I don’t believe this ability is the root of human value. I see other people accomplishing many cool things which I cannot (though controlling my weight isn’t my only ability). Weight seems to become a contest, one where some people think they are better, or some fear they are worse; loggerheads produced.
Fat people often remark on an addiction to food. Who knows, maybe they are reporting accurately. Compared to the kinds of things going down in the world today, it hardly makes them the Devil. And ‘fat’ is not mutually exclusive with too many things (including sexual target-hood).
Paragraph 1) Being fat is comparable to having some debilitating and ultimately fatal diseased.
Paragraph 2) Being “fat” is comparable to a highly valued physical feature that is indicative of good heath
So which is it? Is being fat comparable to having a fatal and debilitating disease, or is it comparable to having a deirabe feature? Because it can’t be both.
If it’s akin to bulimia then of course it’s insulting to call somebody fat, just as it;s insulting to call somebody a drunk or to call them anorexic.
If it’s akin to being tall then of course you can make jokes about it in an advertisement. People make jokes about height in advertisementsall the time. It’s not a mockery.
Once again, I’m confused. Is this a symptom of a fatal illness, or is it akin to being tall?
Because in our society labelling somebody as having an illness is indeed slur.
I’d say that’s your own fault. You’re latching on to individual words rather than looking at the overall meaning. All she said was “Making fun of fat people is wrong. However, merely describing people as fat is not making fun of them, and should be okay. Just being told you are fat shouldn’t be an insult.”
Yeah, she should have said “short” instead of “tall”, due to which one is usually considered a bad thing. But then people would harp on how short people seem to accept short jokes–the analogy breaks down at a certain point, as all analogies do. Short people often come to terms with being short, knowing there’s nothing they can do about it. Oft times, it’s not nearly as big a deal as some people think. Fat people are constantly told that it’s their fault, even if they have been trying their best to fix it. And their being fat is treated as a big deal. So said jokes are more insulting to them.
But I can understand why Stoid wants to equate it with tall, as why shouldn’t tall be merely a description, and not have some oddly positive meaning? We’re not some third-world country where people are often shorter due to lack of nutrition. And, even if we were, why should the malnourished shorter people be disparaged anyways?
And I’ve never heard of saying someone has an illness as being discouraging. Mental illness, maybe, as we’ve got to fight the bigotry there, but illness in general is usually a straight up description without positive or negative connotation. So I don’t see how the medical illness part is confusing. Again the point is to use it as a description, not an insult.
Finally, I can’t resist this:
You might want to check your own spelling first. It;s not heath that is deirable to me.
Or shortarse. Or unclean. Or any other undesirable trait.
Look, having a disease or being ugly is not socially desirable in any sense. It is offensive in this society to draw attention to such factors unnecessarily. Maybe in some societies that isn’t true, but not inthis one. In this societ we are taught that calling attentionto someone’s disfigurement, whether by stating or speaking, is rude. It’s not acceptable to joke about.
Stoid, why is “cunt” flat-out unacceptable (at least in the U.S., in my circles), but “retard” as a noun is a-okay? Just playing Devil’s advocate. Seems inconsistent. “Cunt” is a simple word describing in a colloquial way a part of the anatomy, though it can also be used as a hateful slur (and most typically is). Replace that with, “‘Retard’ is a simple word describing in a colloquial way a group of developmentally challenged people, though it can also be used as a hateful slur (and most typically is).” Any material difference? Is it possible that offense is in the eye of the beholder, and certain offenses seem to be the consensus as bad, and others not so much? IOW, it ain’t just about the simple utility of words, it’s ALWAYS about context and whose ox is being gored.
My answer (for you!) to this question might be, “yes, but ‘fat’ needn’t be hateful, ‘retard’ always has a derogatory aspect to it,” but that seems inconsistent with what you wrote. So I won’t answer for you!
In the end, words are words, pure and simple, symbols that by their nature must be “interpreted” and thus “given meaning” by both speaker and listener.
Yes, words can be intended by the speaker to offer “insult”. If the listener chooses to take them personally, he’s insulted, but it’s his choice.
I can remember at age thirteen considering why “fuck” is considered a “dirty” word. Really, how could a word be dirty? I arrived at the conclusion that what was really fucked up were people’s minds and I set about on a crusade to “desensitize” them to their culturally imposed provinciality.
You can imagine my success.
My advice, sticks and stones, etc. Take it to heart.
Not much, really. “Fuck” gets used a lot more and the amount of emphasis you place on the word governs how much emphasis and strength it’s intended to have.
“You’re a stupid cunt, you know that?” can actually be an affectionate riposte to a close friend in places, believe it or not.
Except in cases of blatant deformity, it’s also entirely subjective, and therefore an opinion no one asked for.
“Fat” is essentially an objectively true or untrue descriptor, except perhaps when one is just a little bit overweight, and may be useful as such in some situations to distinguish or describe someone.
Which, by the way, is something I am on the fence about - referring to a genuinely retarded person as “A retard”. I think I come down on the side of not ok, simply because it diminishes them and makes their disability their identity. They are persons first. That they are retarded persons is secondary.
So you won’t mind if I call you “fatty” from now on? I wonder, if you don’t consider it an insult can I still get in trouble for it? I’d be more than happy to oblige you considering the silly stance you’re taking.
I see how you saw it, but as has been pointed out to you, you were mixing and matching different things and sorta working at it.
Adding to that, different fat people are fat for different reasons. Many are fat because they are compulsive eaters. The ad was not mocking them for being fat (which wouldn’t be ok either), it was mocking them for being compulsive overeaters (which is far worse).
That’s the real issue with language. By nature it’s socially constructed. It isn’t as though one person alone in a room somewhere is operating it, like the Wizard of Oz behind a curtain. You can’t file a complaint with the Wizard, and have him change the connotations that words have acquired with time.
And you can choose to be offended or not. I’m glad she now chooses not to be offended. When people talk like that, it’s because of a whole history of social conditioning that values people on immediate appearance–and especially on weight. No one alive today in the developed world can remember when having more weight immediately conveyed privilege and wealth. Marketers have turned this around; in a world where calories are finally cheap, they can create desire with images of people (especially women) who are almost perversely thin.
Well, “political correctness” is one of those terms that has gone through so many shifts in connotation that today I really have no idea what someone means when they say it.
But there’s miles of difference between using the word “fat” to describe me in an appropriate context, and using the word “fatty” to refer to me or speak to me. One is a descriptive term that is accurate. The other is intended to be an insult. (The word “fatty”, which can be neutral if describing tissue, exists only as an insult in reference to a person. The same is not true of “fat”.)
If this distinction escapes you, then you should probably be extremely cautious in how you speak.
In fat but i don’t have food as my bugbear, I follow a very strict prescribed nutritional plan. I simply am stuck in a body with serious joint damage and cat get out and exercise. I deal with it, but I hate being told it is because I eat everything that is set in front of me, I eat less than probably 75% of the adults outside of a freaking famine area. I would love to be able to sit down in a restaurant and order a huge meal and top it off with a huge piece of chocolate cake with my moms cooked fudge frosting on it. As it is, I might be able to have a couple bites of a piece of wedding cake once or twice a year [I actually find them incredibly disgustingly sweet as I have become unacustomed to eating full on sugared items]
I’m not sure if you are addressing me or not. I did get caught up in the comments, but I thought I was also answering the op:
But I guess I was saying that being fat is not a big deal, while you’re talking about the accusation of fat. So… I think ‘fat’ as an accusation/insult is rude. It is okay if your doctor tells you that you’re fat.
