The Fat Body in Queer-Centered Television Charlotte Stout
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1 Queer Sexualities, Normative Bodies: The Fat Body in Queer-Centered Television Charlotte Stout Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Prerequisite for Honors in AmeriCan Studies Under the Advisement of MiChael Jeffries May 2020 © 2020 Charlotte Stout 2 ACknowledgments Without support and help from many people, this project would not have been possible. Many thanks: To my thesis and major advisor, Professor Michael Jeffries, for your support and guidance this year on my thesis and throughout all of my time at Wellesley. Your confidence in my research and your thoughtful comments on my work shaped this project into what it is. To Professor Clutario, Professor Fisher, and Professor Creef for serving on my thesis committee and giving me your time, even remotely on Zoom, to discuss my work with you. Thank you to Professor Musto for giving me space to discuss my thesis with you even as the world was rapidly changing and you had only known me for one semester – your kindness meant a lot in continuing my work from home. To my father, Dave Stout, for picking me up from Wellesley every year and helping me settle into a new lifestyle after we all left campus in March. Thank you for holding me accountable to my work and encouraging me to dive deeper into it while I was at home. Your surprise smoothies and creative meals fueled much of this work! To my mother, Rebecca Coles, for believing in me and encouraging me to pursue my passions and the subject matter I’m interested in. Your steadfast support all the way from California has helped me to keep going even after I had to leave campus. To my sisters, Emily and Claire, for always cheering me on and for persistently asking to read and learn from the work I was doing. Your sincere interest always made my day and I love discussing everything with you. To Rachel, for always taking the time to discuss every small concern and idea I had to help me develop my thoughts. Thank you for always believing in me and in my thesis. Thank you for being silly with me. You make everything easier. To Loogee, for spending countless hours in the Clapp library with me as we attempted to hold each other accountable. To Auriel, Christiane, Audrey, Erin, Izzy, Alexis, Alex, Angel, and Dillon for giving me a great group of friends and a fun place to come home to at the end of every day. To the Tupelos for giving me space to make music and have fun. You are an incredible group of people and I feel so lucky to have known you all. Thank you to everyone involved with the production and creation of the television shows I chose to write about. These shows are important and beloved by many, including myself, and I feel lucky to be able to write about something I love as much as Queer television. As I finish this thesis, the world continues to respond to COVID-19. Thank you to frontline workers who have continued to work during this time. None of the work any of us do would be possible without access to essential services. 3 Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………4 Chapter 1: Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City………………………………………20 Chapter 2: Pose………………………………………………………………………….42 Chapter 3: The L Word………………………………………………………………….71 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………97 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………….102-108 4 Introduction In July of 2018, Netflix released the trailer for its newest venture into teen dramedy television, Insatiable. Starring Debby Ryan as Patty, the show is a revenge-story gone wrong, all prediCated on Patty’s transformation from a bullied, desperate fat girl into the “hottest girl in sChool.” As reCently as 2018, Netflix released a show in whiCh Debby Ryan donned a prosthetiC Chin and, as author Roxane Gay put it, a “lumpy stomaCh pillow” as a fat suit and beCame an unconvincing CariCature of a fat girl.1 Viewers of the show Could delight in seeing the torment of a fat girl with the safety of the skinny, Hollywood-ready body underneath, all while laughing not only at the bullying of Patty but also at the cliChed, harmful portrayal of her lesbian best friend, Nonnie, depiCted as deeply in love with her. Nonnie and Patty fulfill common stereotypes about fat and queer people, with little interrogation of these stereotypes by the show’s writers. Insatiable is not the only current show to attempt to tell the stories of queer people and fat people, but it does a remarkably deplorable exeCution. As media sCholars Katie Milestone and Anneke Meyer observe, “representation is so important beCause it is an aCtive process of creating meanings…the words we choose to desCribe a group of people…shape the meanings of these people.”2 Thus, television representations influence how people perceive groups: Patty from Insatiable is miserable with her body, therefore fat people in general are miserable. Inside of every fat person, there is a skinny person waiting to break free. Nonnie is a lesbian in love with her best friend, so all queer people must be infatuated with their friends. This study investigates the representation of fat people in shows that follow a predominantly LGBTQ+ Cast. Though there is preexisting sCholarship on the 1 Roxane Gay, “Insatiable is Lazy, Insulting from Start to Finish,” Refinery29, August 23, 2018, https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/roxane-gay-insatiable-review-fat-shaming-essay. 2 Katie Milestone and Anneke Meyer, Gender and Popular Culture, (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2012), 7. 5 impliCations of the television representations of fat people and of queer people, sCholars have not yet studied this crucial interseCtion. To understand this interseCtion, there must be a full understanding of the fields surrounding this study: fat studies, television studies, and queer studies. What is Fat Studies? Why Fat Studies? Hatred of fat people is pervasive throughout the United States. With a $58.6 billion diet industry, it is obvious that AmeriCans fear fat, and will try many different tactics to avoid being labelled as such: pills, incessant diets, intense exercise regimes, and even surgery.3 However, these radiCal personal lifestyle changes are not the only symptoms of a fatphobiC society, as there is systemiC disCrimination and disparagement against fat people at work and beyond. Many sCholars point out that, with the reCognition that “language creates reality,” many disparaging jokes and comments against different groups of people have beCome frowned upon by the mainstream, save for those against fat people.4 Fat children are subjeCt to “almost constant harassment,” fat adults faCe workplaCe disCrimination, and social isolation is common within the fat population.5 Thus, the societal impliCations of fatphobia harm more than just the bodily expeCtations of the self and effeCtively isolate and condemn fat people. Fat studies, then, is an aCtive refusal of this system, and takes a critiCal eye to societal expeCtations for the human body. Leading fat studies sCholars Sondra Solovay and Esther Rothblum write, “fat studies is an interdisCiplinary field…marked by an aggressive, consistent, rigorous critique of the negative 3 Marilyn Wann, “Foreword: Fat Studies: An Invitation to Revolution,” in The Fat Studies Reader, eds. Esther Rothblum and Sandra Soloway, (New York: New York University Press, 2009), ix. 4 Jana Evans Braziel and Kathleen LeBesco, “Editors’ Introduction,” in Bodies Out of Bounds: Fatness and Transgression, eds. Jana Evans Braziel and Kathleen LeBesco, (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001), 2. 5 Marilyn Wann, “Foreword: Fat Studies: An Invitation to Revolution,” xx. 6 assumptions, stereotypes, and stigma plaCed on the fat body.”6 To better understand this philosophy, one must examine the meChanizations that have ostraCized and continue to harm fat people. Though fat studies is a relatively new field, only emerging fully in the 21st Century after years of sCattered essays and books, the stigma surrounding fatness and fat people has existed since at least the 1890s in the United States. Fat studies sCholars have traCed the roots of widespread fatphobia to rapid lifestyle changes in the late 19th and early 20th Century, citing that increased aCCess to food and industrialization led to a change in the symbolism of fat – if anyone Could be fat due to teChnologiCal advancement, the prestige was lost.7 Fat beCame a sign in the eyes of the wealthier classes of the inability of middle and lower-Class people to enjoy in moderation without overindulging, reinforcing preConceived notions of fundamental biologiCal differences between those with wealth and those without.8 Fatphobia is not just rooted in Classism, but also raCism, as writings from the late 19th Century by white authors detail the inherent inferiority of nonwhite peoples due to, in part, charaCterizations of them as having Corpulent bodies.9 From the 20th Century onward, AmeriCans have been inundated with messages that thinness is a moral obligation, and fatness a sign not only of illness but also of corruption.10 Given fatphobia’s insidious roots, and harmful effeCts on current peoples, fat studies neCessitates a Call to aCtion to change the way society talks about fat. 6 Sondra Solovay and Esther Rothblum, “Introduction,” in The Fat Studies Reader, eds. Esther Rothblum and Sandra Soloway, (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 2. 7 Laura Fraser, “The Inner Corset: A Brief History of Fat in the United States,” in The Fat Studies Reader, ed. Esther Rothblum and Sondra Solovay. (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 12. 8 Amy Erdman Farrell, Fat Shame, (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 41. 9 Amy Erdman Farrell, Fat Shame, 64. 10 Laura Fraser, “The Inner Corset: A Brief History of Fat in the United States,” 13.