This article is really interesting.
You know, someone should do private-eye surveillance on all of the people who’ve been in the “After” section of the weightloss articles/ ads in women’s magazines from the past 20 years.
For reals. There would be some anecdotal evidence for ya…
Any pack-rats out there with back issues of Redbook or Ladies Home Journal from 1998?
So I’ve been shooting this episode for MTV True Life: “I’m Happy to be Fat”, and recently there have been a bunch of casting calls in the fatosphere looking for another Happy Fat… I suppose there’s a chance they might just be looking for other people, but I also have the feeling they’re kind of POed at me and looking for a replacement…
From what I understood about the episode, the original idea was to follow 3 people: an aspiring plus model with PCOS, a fat guy in a feeder relationship, and then me.
About a month into it, I got an email from another guy- also a gainer, but not the same one, who had just been approached and heard I was involved… I never got the chance to talk with him about it, but I got the feeling that MTV wasn’t having such an easy time with this episode.
Things were fine and dandy with my storyline for weeks and weeks: MTV followed me to New York where I shot that 2nd Fat Rant… they came to Chicago for a live performance of it… We went to the beach, to the gym, to 3 of my jobs… we shot probably 10 days of stuff about my life here in LA, and then, they asked to come to my hometown with me to film me interacting with my parents.
And that’s where things got messy. Evvvverybody has parent issues. EVERYbody. Mine have a lot to do with my parents’ religion- disappointing them by doing things like having sex with my boyfriend and with my friendships with terrible people like pot-smokers and the gays.
Anyway– I’m 27 years old, I pay all my own bills, I don’t rely on them for support- emotional, financial, or otherwise, and I’m over it. I see my parents once every 2 or 3 months. We’re not close at all- largely because I don’t want to break their hearts with tales of this hedonistic lifestyle I’m leading.
But I said “sure, whatever… My relationship with my parents– none of our conflict has ever really had anything to do with me being fat… they’ve never ever told me there was anything I couldn’t do because of my size.. They’ve never told me I was anything but beautiful. But sure, whatever you want MTV. Come on out.”
And P.S.: I cry all the time. About anything. Greeting cards, sunny days, purple socks.. whatever. and I laugh just as often. It’s ridiculously easy to set me off either way… Embarassingly easy. FYI: MTV is mostly interested in the crying.
So when the producer started asking all these leading questions about feeling like a disappointment to my parents… I told the truth. I told my mom that when it came down to it, I believed that she would disown me before she’d accept certain things about my life. I told her for the first time, that I was sleeping with my boyfriend and that I didn’t think all gays were going to hell, and wonder of wonders: my mother’s head didn’t explode!
My mom listened to me, she said that she was afraid to let up because she was afraid of losing me, but that preserving our relationship was most important to her. I said that she needed to realize she’d done a great job raising me, but that job was finished, and that she’d get MORE of me if she’d just let me BE, and everybody cried and hugged a little, and in truth, I do feel closer to my parents than I used to.
And then, 2 days later, I started to feel sick. The show is called “I’m Happy to be Fat.” Not, “My Parent’s Evangelical Absolutism is Crushing Our Relationship.” There is NO way that whole encounter is going to come off as anything other than 6 minutes of boo-hooing about how my mom used to hide cookies from me sometimes. It was seriously violating to think of all that complicated emotion being hacked up and boiled down to something so totally trivial and untrue.
Then MTV switched producers on my segment and I was suddenly inundated with emails from some new guy with a bunch of amazing ideas. “How about you put together a program for high-school students in 2 weeks and present it with your mom?” “How about you write 40 more minutes of solo material and have it memorized and ready to perform for industry professionals in 7 days? ” “How about you throw a gigantic party for everyone you know, rent a film projector and get some kegs, all on your own dime??”
I work 60-70 hours a week at a variety of different things, both professional and passionate. In no way do I have the time or the resources to take on something additional - and as important to me or as expensive as any of those would have been to do them well.
I said “Sorry, no, I have too much on my plate as it is.” and started forwarding his emails to my manager. She was on top of it in an instant: “Do you need me to tell MTV to chill out?” I said “Yes, please.” and then told her about how disgusting I was feeling about the whole crying with mom business. Susan was like “Oh, hellll no.”, and was really POed that they’d snuck that whole thing through without her knowledge in the first place and initiated a bunch of conference calls where MTV discovered they had never gotten me to sign a release.
Susan asked them to discard everything that included my parents- they said, “No! She signed a release!” Susan said, “Oh really? Show me it.” They said, “Joy! Quick, sign this release!” I said, “Only if you cut my parents out.” They said, “oh.. um…”
And I haven’t heard from them since.
A few days later I saw all the MTV casting call postings all over the internets and it’s pretty clear that they’re movin on.
Other reasons MTV is mad at me:
1) I didn’t tell them when I had a big fancy audition (because I wanted to actually GET THE PART - and not freak out beforehand because I had to do 45 tearful “On The Fly” interviews immediately preceding)
2) When I GOT the part- acting in a scene opposite Michael Madsen- I didn’t let them come along to the film shoot (because I wanted to actually FOCUS and DO MY JOB and not have the entire movie hijacked by an MTV crew.)
3) When I got to see my boyfriend in Chicago for the first time in 3 months, I didn’t let them come along because we had seriously 4 days together and, thankfully, my boyfriend believes that our bidness is our bidness.
Basically, it’s been 2 months of me trying not to look like a jackass and them crossing their fingers- hoping and praying and pushing and poking -in the hopes that I’ll act like a jackass.
And they’re always so bewildered when someone isn’t interested in being on camera. “But this will be seen by MILLIONS of people!!” Yes, that’s EXACTLY WHY I’m not going to say whatever stupid thing it is you want me to say.
I kept asking myself why I was doing the thing at all: I love to watch “Reality” TV, but I always thought it’d be a total nightmare to be on… (it is) And what I kept thinking was: how excited I would have been at 14 or 15 or whatever… to see a happy fat person on TV. Living her life- doing exciting things, wearing bright colors, hanging out with cool people, laughing all the time… just living it up. Living a life I could really actually have someday. That would have been really cool.
Don’t forget!!
Love Your Body Day!
Sunday, October 21, 2007
12:00 - 4:00 p.m.
ADMISSION: FREE
Plummer Park - Fiesta Hall
1200 N. Vista Street
West Hollywood, CA
http://www.loveyourbodyday.com/
Mia Tyler is hosting and I’m Fat Ranting!
So, almost a year ago, I saw a craigslist posting - some guy was looking for a drag queen with a Joan Crawford impression to voice a murdering puppet he’d made a feature film about.. and cause I’m that kind of girl, I forwarded it to my friend Michael:
(far left).
Michael, trusting lamb that he is, went and met with Scott Coblio…
Scott is slightly less creepy than this.
Scott told him this story about this woman in the 30s, named Winnie Ruth Judd. She killed her 2 best friends one night in Phoenix, AZ, chopped them up, packed them in suitcases, and took them on the train with her to Los Angeles! But her bags started leaking… so she got caught… and a bunch of even creepier “1930’s search for true-justice-style” things happened before she reached a not-so-happy end.
Anyway, Scott Coblio had staged the ENTIRE feature-length film about Winnie… using MARIONETTES.
And a little bit of Barbie furniture.
Michael read for a few of the parts and then said “hey! I know an actress who could sound like an old-timey murderess!”
and volunteered me right back.
So, 5 hours later, the thing was in the can..
And NOW! It’s in festivals!
http://www.kookooboy.com/murderess
And TONIGHT! It’s playing in Phoenix!
October 16th at 10pm.
The Trunk Space
1506 NW Grand Ave
right next to Bikini Lounge!
for more info check out:
www.thetrunkspace.com
It’s the anniversary of the night of the murders! oOoOoooo…
The Arizona Republic interviewed me about it and I said like…the smartest thing ever
2 sticks of gum if you guess what it is.
FINALLY!!
What do you think?
www.fatrant.com
thank you thank you thank you to Abby Gayle Powell, Michael Mullen, Jake Akervik, and the rest of the crew…
Kate is still at it. Like that’s a surprise to you:
It’s like conversations with evangelists, for real. When someone asks if you have a personal relationship with Jesus, the only correct answer is “Yes” — they believe any other answer invites them to tell you why you’re wrong and need their help. You didn’t ask for the confrontation, and it’s clearly none of their fucking business. But you get forced into an adversarial conversation with a stranger, because that stranger is absolutely certain you NEED TO BE INFORMED. Because in their world, only the ignorant could possibly reject their religion.
We’ve all been so brainwashed to believe that fat = death, there are a whole ton of people who believe the only reason someone could be fat is if he or she somehow hasn’t seen the light. We must not realize we’re fat, or we must not realize fat is UNHEALTHY!!!, or — this one cracks me up more than any other — we must not realize that fat disgusts people. ‘Cause if we knew all that, we’d be trying to lose weight. Accepting your own fat is like saying you accept Satan as your personal savior. It is NOT OKAY with these people.
I have to admit.. I’m still working on saying things like “It’s not really any of your business” when the health emergency police get all up in my grill. My first instinct is to start yelling “EFF YOU!! Look what I can do!!” and then parade around the contents of my refrigerator and climb trees and pick up big rocks like any of that has any impact whatsoever on whether or not I deserve to be taken seriously.
The miraculous Velvet D’Amour said this a little while ago in answer to the old saw:
“While I have often answered this question, I am admittedly perturbed by it. By virtue of being plus size I am thusly expected to tout my health, yet my smaller counterparts, be it in contemporary dance, or film, or in fashion, are never asked the state of their health.
I do not drink alcohol and I never have, I do not take drugs and I never have, I do not smoke and I never have, yet many of these same counterparts do one, or a combination of all of the above, and yet merely by virtue of weighing less then I, are completely excluded from this patronizing question.”
Basically, if someone asks if I’m “healthy”, they’re asking me to out myself as either a “good” fat person or one of those “other” fat people. That’s a distinction I don’t think exists. We’re all friggin grownups. My mother can’t tell me what to do– what makes you think you can?
ps: also amazing:
