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Last week a couple young ladies became finalists in the Miss England contest. Normally this wouldn’t register on my radar as I don’t go in for the whole “women are really being empowered by beauty contests” BS. Ultimately it’s a bunch of gals being judged, in great part, on their physical appearance. If contestants wore mumus and bags over their heads, then I’d believe it was about their talent. Until then I’m not convinced. So why did this register for me at all? Well one of the finalists, Chloe Marshall, is a size 14. Now that’s a European size 14, which translates to a size 10 or 12 here, so my excitement does dim somewhat. I mean really, size 10 or 12 is just normal people in my books, but I suppose in the face of a lot of size fours and sixes as the competition, that’s pretty cool. But that’s still not the reason that I even know about this girl.
The newly crowned Miss Surrey had a lot of support. Many people felt that it was a good thing to see such a lard ass (Kidding! I mean seriously, size 12 is a plus size now?) in a contest like this; they felt it was brave. Well, not former pageant judge, Monica Grenfell. No, she was outraged at Ms. Marshall’s inclusion in the contest at all. In the Daily Mail, she wrote (this is fucking comical): “Who does she think she’s kidding? What’s she’s demonstrating isn’t bravery but a shocking lack of self-control.” She went on to say “It makes me mad when people like Chloe are allowed to glamorize obesity.”
Bitch, are you for real?
Now just for some context, Ms. Marshall is all of 17 years old. And Ms. Grenfell is…well way too old to be slagging a teenager. To read the entire dip-shitty article, go to:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=554870&in_page_id=1879 target=_blank
You’ll get to see pictures of the delicious Chloe and read the silly ravings of “her-career- depends-on-selling-books-to-make-people-thin” Ms. Marshall.
I’m reminded of another recent skirmish a little closer to home involving ’07 American Idol winner Jordin Sparks and National Action Against Obesity founder, Meme Roth. Just as in the first situation, a woman who had to be twice Jordin’s age set to picking on the then 17-year old, about 20 seconds after she won her dubious victory.
Now what both Chloe and Jordin will always have going for them is that they’re freaking cool and beautiful, whilst both Grenfell and Roth will always kind of come off like suspiciously angry older women in search of someone to attack. And frankly, in my books, that’s plenty of reason for both Roth and Grenfell to enjoy a big serving of STFU, but in the name of serious blogging, I’ll actually provide some other reasons for invoking a serious gag order on the two of them. There are five (add your own in the comment section of the blog at will): age, bullshit, success, gender and fear.
Age – Attacking Teenaged Girls Is Shitty and You Know It
This one is fast and dirty. Publicly attacking someone who is still too young to vote over their weight is tacky; doing so when you’re at least twice their age—tackier still. There’s nothing more to say really. Roth and Grenfell should know better.
Bullshit – Monica Grenfell Knows about a Fat-Friendly Fourth Dimension and She’s Not Sharing
Monica Grenfell would have us believe that teenaged girls today don’t just think that it’s okay to be heavy but are, in fact, being pressured to pack on the pounds. Really? I must soon find this parallel universe of which Grenfell speaks, where I will have the emotional space to perhaps work out my weight issues whilst accepting food being foisted upon me by envious thin people.
I have spent a significant amount of time with teenaged girls within the last six years and I can tell you, the ones that I’ve met are not thinking “Well since Chloe Marshall is heavy, I’m going to work towards that.” What I see more of is that the girls who will gladly accept a heavier role model are already struggling with their weight. And I’m not about to begrudge them the assurance that it’s okay to feel good about themselves while they work through it.
I’m not saying that there aren’t a shit load more heavy kids walking around today than there were twenty years ago, but I’m pretty damn sure it’s not because they saw someone fat on TV and decided that was the life they wanted to lead. I’m sure it had a lot more to do with the X-Box their guilt-ridden and divorced parents got suckered into buying, and the fact that their moms and dads work a job and a half each to keep the mortgage paid, and consequently haven’t fed their kid a home-cooked dinner since sometime in the early 90s. I’m really, really sure that Chloe Marshall, whose name I would probably never have known had Ms. Grenfell not written her dumbass article, had nothing to do with it. So are the six overweight women represented in our media making our girls fat—not fucking likely.
The idea that Grenfell and Roth feel they need to publicly open up a can of whupass on two teenaged girls in order to protect other teenaged girls from being pressured into becoming overweight is as ridiculous as it is disheartening.
Success – “We Hate It When Fatties Make Good!”
If Jordin Sparks hadn’t beaten out beat-boxing-Blake for the American Idol title, would Meme Roth have given a shit about the young lady’s weight? I think not. Would Ms. Grenfell be falling all over herself calling Chloe Marshall fat, lazy and deceitful (about her diet and exercise) if the teen hadn’t won the Miss Surrey crown and made it to the finals of the Miss England contest? I’m going to assume a big “no” on that score too. It’s only when a fat chick makes good that people like Roth and Grenfell get all hot under the collar. It’s like somehow, with all the discrimination overweight people face, it’s still not okay for us to have a victory here and there.
I get that Roth has a cause she’s fighting for but I don’t know when she got it in her head that attacking someone slightly overweight who has experienced 35 seconds of success makes her cause look good. Amusingly, the Fox News interview where she made the original comments about
As for Grenfell, it’s bizarre to me that a woman who’s entire success is predicated upon heavy folks buying her books, can’t manage to be nice in the face of a heavier woman’s success. I guess it’s only okay to be successful once you’ve lost the weight.
Gender – “What, Reuben Studdard, Fat?!”
So I’m late to this band wagon, but back when Meme Roth came out swinging at Jordin Sparks, every fat blogger in the world asked in shock, why she hadn’t burst a blood vessel when an even bigger role model, Reuben Studdard, took the American Idol crown back in season two. It does seem a wonder that she went out of her way to make an example of slightly overweight (another size 12-14 girl) Jordin, while undeniably quite overweight Studdard got a pass. I guess big boys don’t register on her radar.
But this is an old story and one that is not exclusive to Roth and Grenfell. The covers of US Weekly, People, Star et al rarely feature the weight issues of men in
It saddens me, given how much women are still objectified in the media and in their every day lives (some 100 years after universal suffrage), that two women make it their mission to objectify us all a touch further. Sometimes you just shut up for the sake of the team.
Fear – It’s Us or Them
Maybe I’m imagining it, but doesn’t there always seem to be, in an attack like this, an element of fear? Fear that if one does not clearly delineate who the enemy is, one might accidentally be associated with said enemy. It makes me wonder if Grenfell worries about putting on weight some day or if Roth was a chubby kid. I just think it takes a special something to launch an unprovoked attack. And I think that special something is usually fear.
I was on the train last night and a fella boarded who was built like a tank; he was frightening looking and kind of dirty, so I went back to my magazine and avoided eye contact. Well then he turned on this beaut, black, fledgling queen and started calling him a faggot. And not in a nice way. Said fledgling queen responded with questions about scary fella’s self-esteem (how cute is that) clearly putting his health and his kick-ass wardrobe in danger. That’s when said scary guy started screaming “you fucking nigger” over and over again. I can’t tell you how un-Canadian that is. Everyone just stopped dead in their tracks. While the queen did his bit standing up for himself I think we were all afraid it was going to get physical and very, very bad. Luckily it didn’t; big scary fella turned out to be way more interested in making his way home and probably avoiding getting picked up by the cops than he was in fighting the queen. Ultimately he was all incredibly offensive bark and no bite. I had a mind to do a drive by insult on my way out but his stop preceded mine.
The point of that aside though, is that it’s pretty clear that somewhere in big, scary guy’s heart is some sort of enormous fear of a young, black queen. Maybe it’s the enormous cock that he fears. I don’t know and I don’t really care, but it’s the fear that makes him act that way. It’s the fear that makes him think he’s being rational to boot. And I believe it’s the fear that makes Roth and Grenfell act the way they do and think they’re being reasonable while they do it.
To add grave insult to much, much injury, they do their crazy in the name of helping the heavy-weighted.
At one point in a back peddling interview, Roth spoke about how great it would be if we could “get [Jordin] more healthy,” as if she was offering help. Well if someone wanted to offer me help with my weight, the easiest way to do this would be to have a direct conversation with me. Going to Fox News and saying I shouldn’t have won American Idol based on my weight would be amongst the least likely ways to get me on board. This seems rudimentary. But Roth would have us believe that she is concerned about Jordin personally. Bullshit. She was never concerned about Jordin Sparks personally—and that is part of the problem.
Monica Grenfell must think that all the food Chloe Marshall allegedly eats insulates her from the insults of others (ah the irony). If Grenfell was really just disturbed about the inclusion plus-sized women in the beauty contest she could have privately spoken to the judging officials. It was absolutely unnecessary to launch an attack on
The idea that Grenfell or Roth are really concerned about the thousands of overweight people that they claim to want to help is laughable, juxtaposed with the way they treat individual overweight people, people who would ostensibly fall within their cause. Instead, what Roth and Grenfell seem most interested in is shame—that tried and true method for shedding pounds. Apparently no one has informed either of them that the “shaming method” of weight loss usually comes with an emotional price tag that’s unfeasible for the long term. Instead of setting up an environment where Marshall or
It is possible, Meme Roth, to talk about obesity without denigrating anyone. It is possible, Monica Grenfell, to encourage people to lose weight, without attacking a teenager who doesn’t want to do so. I have to be kind of grateful for them though—if their behavior wasn’t so terrible, I might have nothing to write about.
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