Surprisingly Insightful Piece on Jossip
Nice critique of the use of fat kids on TV shows over at Jossip, focusing on Desperate Housewives' Juanita Solis; she's been the brunt of blatant fat jokes on the show.
"Also, Madison [De La Garza, the actress who portrays Juanita] is never present during scenes featuring the adult characters talking about her weight."
That is entirely off the mark. Seven years old is still a child, and at that age you're old enough to realize that you're being made fun of. But what's the solution, only hire skinny child actors and put them in fat suits, like Ryan Reynolds in Just Friends?
As I said, this was great to see and surprisingly sympathetic to our cause. Unfortunately there aren't any good solutions here, but again, good on Jossip for calling this crap out.
McCain on Fat Kids: "One of the Most Alarming Statistics" | Fat Rights Coalition Logo Contest
Posted by paul on October 16, 2008
I'm kind of torn on this. In a perfect world, of course, we'd embrace body size diversity and no one, kids or adults, would be exposed to this kind of negativity. And its also true that the Desperate Housewives segment more so highlights the outrageous extremes people go to in the name of social inclusion than it lampoons childhood obesity
So, on one hand, I respect that DH producers are trying to shield this young actress from such body negativity, but Jossip has a valid point, too. Children can't make informed decisions, but this girl still has a right to understand as much as possible the context in which she's being presented, which, despite the show's aim, is to be made into a poster girl for childhood obesity. I also find it problematic that a 7-year-old actress, whose weight is probably more appropriate for her height and age, is playing the role of a 4-year-old. This wouldn't be so problematic if it were a case of a 30-year-old playing a 20-year-old, but for growing and developing children, three years makes for a world of difference in terms of height and weight. It isn't altogether unlike a 14-year-old prepubescent model modeling clothes meant for adult women. Both present false images and promote unrealistic standards.
Good points, but to assume that body disparagement and making jokes of fat children only affect fat kids (so somehow swapping a fat kid for a thin kid in a fat suit is less problematic) is to ignore the whole picture. And which child advocacy groups call for more fat kids on TV? I have never heard of one (outside of fat acceptance), but I'd like to know which ones advocate that so that we can team up. I was recently pondering whether there will be fat girls on Amy Poehler's new show "Smart Girls at the Party."
What the flying fuck??? If that little girl in the picture was the actress in question, she is not fat at all. She has a round face, but otherwise she looks big-boned at the the very most.