Wednesday:
I just saw a little video of a woman waiting at a bus-stop, grooving along to her iPod without caring that people might be watching. It has been given a soundtrack of "Dancing Queen" which didn't seem to quite match her moves and someone commented that they thought she was actually listening to "Single Ladies (Put a ring on it)". Anyway, it's a really cute video.
I flicked through some of the comments. All the ones I saw were very supportive and said it brightened their day etc. But some gave a very backhanded compliment; in essence that it didn't matter that she was fat, she should do it anyway. That she was perky and entertaining EVEN THOUGH she was overweight. My reaction to that was, why even mention her weight? It just shows how pervasive the "fat is unattractive" culture is that they thought they were being nice allowing her to dance in public just like a "normal" person. Kind of soured the whole thing for me.
I don't agree with the fat acceptance movement in that I don't think that fat is healthy and I don't think it should be embraced. But I do agree with the part of it that says that overweight people shouldn't be discriminated against. And in this case her weight had absolutely nothing to do with her entertainment value.
Or maybe it did, for some people. I don't know.
Maybe I am perpetuating this by talking about it at all. But I didn't think about her weight until it was brought up by other people. To me, she was just a person dancing surreptitiously in public.
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