Two people who shaped my fat consciousness died this week and I want to reflect on this for a moment or two.
Cyril Smith was probably the only superfat person I ever encountered on TV when I was a kid. The fattest of the fat are still pretty much absent from mainstream media, unless they are portrayed as abject and abstracted headless fatties, or tragic 'Befores' in prurient reality shows.
What was it like seeing this guy on the telly? Along with Hattie Jacques he was one of my first fat icons. I remember him as embodying many stereotypes about fat people: he was always jolly, often on well-publicised diets, often physically positioned in relation to his fatness, for example I remember a clip of him squeezing through a too-small turnstile. There was an additional narrative going on in that he was a working class northerner, this was patronised by TV producers who were inevitably middle class southerners.
I also read him as a successful man, intelligent, dynamic, complicated. I think it must have occurred to me that fat people could be these things, I remember enjoying his presence on TV, liking the fat talk. I’m not his political ally, his support for the death penalty was troubling, and allegations about his private life were worrying. But there he is. Was.
Corinne Day has also died. I liked her photographs very much, especially her book Diary, which includes photographs of Tara Wales, pictures which are loaded with compassion for female friendship.
Day is credited in helping to launch Kate Moss' career, and popularising Heroin Chic. It’s funny looking back at those images, nowadays commercial photography is in another league thanks to the power of retouching, Day’s photographs look almost quaint in comparison. But it was all the rage amongst feminists to decry this fashion phenomenon when my first book was published, and I was often called upon to denounce it. I never could because I like that look, I consume fashion magazines happily with no apparent ill-effects, I have nothing against skinny people who look like junkies appearing as fashion, and I wish Kate Moss all the luck in the world.
The feminist tut-tutting that accompanied day’s photographs of that period infuriated me because it was offered by people who didn’t know fashion, had little understanding of how media is produced, had no appreciation of the genre (see Larry Clark's Tulsa for the foundational work of this type), had no connection to the people Day was photographing – young, fucked-up freaks – yet felt entirely entitled to judge.
This kind of hand-wringing, often accompanied by the urge to censor or burn the offending image or idea in order to protect some imagined victim, continues to bother me when I encounter it among people who are supposedly on my side, fatwise. So let me state this clearly: I live for complex, challenging imagery, in fashion and anywhere else it appears. Thanks for the pictures Corinne, I’m sorry you died so young.
2 comments:
I consume fashion magazines happily with no apparent ill-effects, I have nothing against skinny people who look like junkies appearing as fashion, and I wish Kate Moss all the luck in the world.
As someone who used to work in American fashion magazines (aimed at teens) I can assure you that plenty of young women in the 1990s were influenced by Kate Moss imagery in a way that was very destructive to their self-esteem. They aren't "imagined victims." If we lived in a world where all body types were represented and appreciated, then perhaps it wouldn't be an issue, but in many ways, heroin chic was just another way to glamorize a skinny ideal. It may have been appropriated from other artists who were doing worthwhile work, but once it's used to sell fashion magazines and Calvin Klein underwear, it takes on a much different meaning and purpose.
Thanks for your comment. I hear you, I think, but what you are describing is not my experience.
Post a Comment