![]() She traces it to the transatlantic slave trade. In her book, Strings turns to primary sources like artwork, medical journals, and newspaper articles to pinpoint the shift away from fatness. “The very belief that fatness is a choice breeds both medical and cultural bias.” That women would rather risk their lives than risk gaining 30 pounds shocked Strings. “I ran across two women, both women of color, mind you, who were afraid of taking their HIV medications for fear of gaining weight,” she says. Sabrina Strings, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, began studying the history of anti-fat bias after working at an HIV adherence clinic in the early aughts. Until the 17th century, Western beauty standards favored fat bodies and full figures as signifiers of wealth. But over 95% of dieters gain back all the weight they lose, and many fat people don’t want to be thin.Īnti-fat bias is a relatively recent invention. Culturally, we believe body size is controllable, fatness is a moral failing, and everyone would prefer to be thin. The very belief that fatness is a choice breeds both medical and cultural bias. And when police murdered Eric Garner, their defense team falsely argued that Garner’s weight would have killed him that day if police hadn’t. Employers pay them less than their thin peers, and they endure verbal and physical abuse from strangers. Even implicit weight bias wears down fat people’s mental health. When Hollywood almost exclusively casts fat people (or thin actors in fat suits) as antagonists, dehumanizing them becomes that much easier.įat people receive worse health care, which is often attributed to healthcare workers' anti-fat biases and medical equipment made for smaller bodies. “We learn how to treat fat people from the way that fat people are portrayed on screen,” says Caleb Luna, author of REVENGE BODY and co-host of the podcast “Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back.” Pop culture keeps demonizing fatness and fat people, reinforcing our culture’s pervasive anti-fat bias. Art by Max-O-Matic Images courtesy of Warner Bros., Lucasfilm, and Walt Disney Pictures Dehumanizing Fat Peopleīaron Harkonnen, Jabba the Hutt, and Ursula are just three characters in pop culture’s long history of fat villains. Whether it's casting thin actors in fat suits or simply denying fat characters empathy, the fat villain trope not only points to a long history of anti-fatness but sustains biases that continue to marginalize fat people today. And who can forget Harry Potter’s abusive uncle and cousin, Vernon and Dudley Dursley? ![]() Disney’s fat villains include Alice in Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts, Mulan’s matchmaker, and even Mickey Mouse’s feline nemesis Pete. Indeed, they are ubiquitous: The Batman has the Penguin, while James Bond franchise boasts Goldfinger, Oddjob, Whisper, and Henry Gupta. Payne, a researcher who studies the intersection of anti-fatness and technology at the University of Colorado Boulder Internet Rules Lab. “Once you start seeing it, you can’t unsee it,” says Blakeley H. In reality, fat kids are more often bullying victims than the bullies themselves, according to one 2015 study.įrom the fat cats of political cartoons to Disney animations, and from sitcoms to science fiction- especially science fiction - the fat villain has long been baked into pop culture. In the almost 40 years since Jabba debuted on-screen, his name has become synonymous with the “fat bully” in playground name-calling and sitcom barbs. Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace. (According to canon, all Hutts are also physically strong, fast, and blaster-proof, but that’s conveniently never depicted onscreen.) Even if they’re not fat by their own species' standards, an ingrained anti-fat bias makes us associate their size with their evilness. Through Christian values, she says, “The fat body is the symbol of your moral shortcomings and your evidence of sin.”Ĭanonically, all Hutts are of similar stature to Jabba, as seen in the most recent Star Wars series, The Book of Boba Fett, which introduces the Disney+ generation to twin Hutt villains. Simply by existing, a fat villain highlights the thin protagonist’s virtue, Canadian sociologist Fiona Whittington-Walsh tells Inverse. ![]() Next to a bronze-bikini-clad Princess Leia chained by the neck, he and his supposedly prodigious appetites were designed to evoke disgust. The slug-like Star Wars alien licked his lips and flicked his tail with slopping sound effects to match. When Jabba the Hutt first oozed across movie screens in 1983’s Return of the Jedi, no one assumed he was anything but a villain. ![]()
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