Critical Analysis of Twilight
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Monstrous Musings: Why are there no fat vampires?
Monstrous Musings: Why are there no fat vampires?
Natalie Wilson at the blog Womanist Musings criticizes a couple pieces of Twilight humor for mocking fat people and asks why there are no fat vampiros (depicted positively).
palabras clave: twilight, criticism
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This connects to an issue that annoys me. People with the huge double standard that tells them it's ok to judge underweight people, but cruel and unacceptable to judge overweight people. Being overweight is very unhealthy, and should be no more or less accepted than being underweight. I don't often take Mrs Meyer's side, but complaining about her (or anyone) not shining a positive light on obesity is unfair and hypocritical, because I'd bet my life none of these people would complain about her not shining a positive light on anorexia. Meyer is right not to glorify ANY unhealthy weight, over or under. I hate people who bitch about a lack of 'fat acceptance' because they aren't in favour of anorexia acceptance (as they shouldn't be) so why is one dangerous weight bad and the other in need of defence?
Even in the case of the unhealthy obese, they are always portrayed as lazy or greedy or unhappy. This coincides with society's idea that overweight people are bad people and deserve to be unhappy until they are skinny, not healthy, skinny. Why? Why can't obese people be happy? Far more unhealthy, but skinny people are portrayed as happy all the time.
Portraying fat people in a positive light is not the same as portraying obesity in a positive light. Every character has flaws. Just because one is being portrayed positively doesn't mean their flaws are being glorified.
Besides, I wouldn't say you can be fat and healthy, because there's a difference between having body fat and actually being fat (and fat enough that you would make enough of a distinction between fat and 'normal' people to do an article like this one) You can have body fat within a certain range and be healthy, there is enough leeway in that range to give body shape diversity, but once you go over or under that range you are harming your health. It is not until someone went over that range I personally would consider them fat, and once they are over they are not being healthy or taking proper care of themselves.
I would like to see some curvier vamps though. I guess I can understand why slenderness would be part of the myth in some cases, but still if a vampire stays with the basic appearance they had as a human, something true for quite a few vamp myths, it makes sense there would be a wider range of body types than we see, especially vampire characters who were turned a while ago when the cultural preference was for curvier women. I'd love a vampire with a body like Miracle Laurie (Mellie on Dollhouse) for example. She is by no means fat, she has a lovely body, she just isn't stick thin.
I once overheard a teen girl in a bookstore say something like "I'd rather get skin cancer than be pale."
If by fat positive character she was actually meaning a positive character who is fat, I have no problem with that. Just from the way the article as a whole was phrased to me it still sounds like what she meant was a character whose fatness was shown as a positive, which is just not something I agree with.
As for the part about wanting fat positively in response to fat negativity, I don't think that's the way to go about it. She should want health positively. Sure, fat acceptance, because judging someone on their weight is definitely very wrong, but I think acceptance and positively are not the same. You use an example of things like the girl who would rather have cancer than be pale, which I agree is terrible and ridiculous, but you don't fight admiration of being one type of unhealthy by promoting being a different type of unhealthy.
I'm just waiting for someone to do an article like this where the point is promoting good health, no matter what weight it makes you. Whether you are at your healthiest small or large that's what you should be. Me for example, at my healthiest, which I'm admittedly not often at due to an unshakeable love of candy, (so eating well but not obsessively and doing a fair amount of exercise) I get scrawny looking in some areas. It makes my body look worse than when I eat more and move less in my opinion, but I'm still better like that, because good health should be more important than what is considered aesthetically pleasing or displeasing.
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