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Marie Claire Blogger Says Fat People Gross Her Out. Yeah Well, Marie Claire Grosses ME Out. #rant

Maura Kelly has a blog post over at Marie Claire this month that has definitely caused some trouble and some traffic. If you haven’t read it, take a look because I’m already on a roll rant wise and explaining will  diminish my grrr factor.  ;-)

My thoughts, in list form because it’s way to early for me to format properly.

  • Why did Marie Claire let this thing get posted? There’s a line between opinion and hurtful, and Ms. Kelly walked far enough over that line that anyone reading this thing would have to have known it would upset people. So, the editor who cleared this is either clueless or knew it would get a lot of attention and damn the torpedoes as far as reader feelings.
  • You had a woman with a history of anorexia write about her feelings on a show about fat people? Seriously? Why would you ask someone who battled with body image issues to write about fat people? Oh and, if you haven’t noticed, yeah, I’m saying “fat”. Because using words like “morbidly obese” suddenly seem to make it okay for people to talk about being overweight as “unhealthy” and then their criticism is more about them helping than hurting. 
  • If you want to bash a show like “Mike & Molly” for making fat jokes and focusing on the “ha ha funneh” side of being overweight, this post is part of the reason it happens. Writers make the fat jokes and the comments because they know people respond to them. Part of the reason they respond to them is because posts like this openly and loudly look at being overweight as ugly, wrong and “gross”. 
  • The CNN article that Ms. Kelly referenced is actually way more level headed and thoughtful on the subject. I’d much rather people read this and, in the end, CNN gets more points for taking a less biased look at the question.

Look, bottom line, Marie Claire owes readers an apology. Blogger apology is one thing. But Marie Claire let this thing go out and, my extension, validated the thoughts within. Unless you want to be read only by a vast army of fat-fearing, size obsessive people, it may be time to say something.

Because, right now, you guys are really grossing me out.

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3 Comments

  1. I saw the pilot episode of “Mike & Molly” and OMG I wasn’t disgusted by seeing two overweight people be intimate!! (shock sarcasm). Now, I only saw the first episode so I can’t judge the series really but I know that I did not hate it as much as I thought I would w/regards to how they treated the overweight issue. Yes, the made lots of fat jokes and I am tired of shows/movies feeling the need to point out when someone is overweight via self-deprecating humor, etc. Nevertheless it was nice to see a show that had intimacy b/w two characters that were not Hollywood’s traditional definition of beautiful (although I think Melissa McCarthy is gorgeous but whatever).

    Marie Claire disgusts me. I think Mike & Molly and Huge could bring about a lot of interesting, important conversation about the depiction of weight issues in Hollywood but sadly Marie Claire went for the simplest possible angle. CNN did a nice job of trying to tackle this issue in their article but it’s something that should be discussed at length WITH RESPECT to all types of people.

  2. Have they seriously not replied yet? are they all out of town?

  3. Going to link and comment at my tumblr. Marie Claire has entered the realm of the failtastic.

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