Huge

I was really looking forward to Huge. The commercials were pretty great. There were things that I liked very much not the least of which was how many young fat actors now have jobs. I thought they created some interesting relationships and portrayed a variety of characters. It's a little hard for me to understand how they're going to maintain the fat rebel character when she's choosing to remain at diet camp but it will be interesting to watch. And most of all I liked that they showed how damaging dieting can be to a young person's sense of worth.

I'm not that well versed in eating disorders but I don't think there are fat bulimics. I might be wrong and maybe the portrayal of a young woman who eats a bunch and then throws up was intended to show a beginning bulimic. It just wasn't clear to me.

The Times did a review that begins with an assertion that gainer blogs are an offshoot of the fat pride movement. Um. Wrong. Someone trying to gain weight is pretty much as loopy as someone trying to lose weight in my opinion. Fat pride (a descriptor of the movement that always makes me a little tense) has nothing to do with trying to be fat when you aren't. It's about owning the body that you have and making food and exercise choices that are about ... food ... and exercise.

I think there many as many ideas about "the movement" as there are fat people. I've never loved size acceptance. It feels passive. Fat pride feels active but I don't feel any more pride about my weight than I do the color of my eyes. I'm fat. It's just one thing about me. It's become central in my identity because of the cultural crap about it. Not because I needed or even wanted to focus on it. I'm not ashamed. I'm not proud. I'm just fat.

The main character's rebel stance is an act of defiance. I understand that. I think that's often the way it begins. But the review in the Times takes home the message that being fat is about being discontent. And I can see how they got there. I'm not sure how they can establish a grounded notion of size being a fact of diversity. It's a show about a diet camp.

So we'll see.