tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post275300963941581030..comments2023-04-11T05:25:34.235-07:00Comments on I AM OFFENDED BECAUSE...: I Appeared in a Play on Saturday NightAllyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06728172539093346724noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-16566710788651905442011-02-09T03:51:49.801-08:002011-02-09T03:51:49.801-08:00I liked Jonny's performance, I thought it was ...I liked Jonny's performance, I thought it was poignient and I liked the character and wanted him to get better - that's th effect it had on me.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05394695217332820717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-39055693411404852122011-01-26T15:40:53.426-08:002011-01-26T15:40:53.426-08:00I realise I made a big mistake in the post! Galen ...I realise I made a big mistake in the post! Galen is not like Karras in The Exorcist, he is like Regan. Malcolm is Karras. That is, the food pyramid scheme has already possessed Galen and is using him to get to Malcolm. - Jonny.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-64866424273600342912011-01-23T21:35:40.981-08:002011-01-23T21:35:40.981-08:00If it were "surely" a reference to Pytho...If it were "surely" a reference to Python one assumes it would have been an actual <i>reference</i> - i.e. "A wafer-thin mint" instead of talking about a ubiquitous Kiwi brand of biscuits.<br /><br />Yes, there are problematic aspects of the Mr Creosote skit, but I don't think any of the Pythons ever waxes lyrical about how they were trying to challenge stereotypes or break through barriers or "food being the enemy". They wanted to make a skit about a very fat, very rich man (and I think it's very important that we look at Creosote's fatness as a reflection of *wealth*-and-greed, not just "too many biscuits") who vomits all over the place and explodes. It's infantile and shallow but at least it's not pretending otherwise.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-73345612722586204932011-01-23T21:01:46.783-08:002011-01-23T21:01:46.783-08:00Oh okay then, Anonymous, you're right. Stereot...Oh okay then, Anonymous, you're right. Stereotypical portrayals aren't damaging AT ALL. We should all just calm down, shouldn't we? And how awful it would be to show support for people who are requesting that fat people be depicted as human beings.Allyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06728172539093346724noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-75624402794826441082011-01-23T20:57:52.213-08:002011-01-23T20:57:52.213-08:00This is not meant to detract from any of the argum...This is not meant to detract from any of the arguments, or to show support on either side, but I can't help but point out that the 'chocolate thin' comment was surely a reference to that scene in Monty Python's 'Meaning of Life'- the 'wafer thin mint'. i.e. a reference to a totally overblown caricature, not intended to be taken literally. Meanwhile that particular scene can also be submitted to all of the critiques above.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-84277232842174726312011-01-23T20:48:34.340-08:002011-01-23T20:48:34.340-08:00Nice comment, Anonymous. On the "morbidly ob...Nice comment, Anonymous. On the "morbidly obese" side of things, Jonny, I think you might benefit from the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/77367764@N00/sets/72157602199008819/" rel="nofollow">BMI Project</a> put together by the wonderful Shapely Prose bloggers a while back. It says a lot about the shifting, vague definitions we use when describing weight and "overweightness".<br /><br />Also, <a href="http://living400lbs.wordpress.com/about-living-400lbs/" rel="nofollow">here's a woman</a> who <i>definitely</i> counts as morbidly obese, and you and your fellow actors would probably learn a lot just from the fact that yes, those <i>are</i> pictures of her doing yoga.<br /><br />(Her blog is called Living ~400 Lbs; that's 181kg.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-64877643786286653332011-01-23T20:24:47.801-08:002011-01-23T20:24:47.801-08:00>>>CONT.
Jonny says ‘Galen is not standin...>>>CONT.<br />Jonny says ‘Galen is not standing in for every fat person’. <br />Really? Because all in all Galen was the depiction of every disgusting stereotype of a fat person I have ever seen. This play is littered with a cast of what I can probably safely call microcosms of bigger issues. And microcosms are easy to use for satire because there is some emotional distance from specific character, situation, background etc. Why then do you think Galen is an exception to this? You can call this a satire but I wasn’t laughing, Jonny and neither were my fat friends. Who is this a satire for? As an actor, how do you feel invoking feelings of humiliation in your audience members? Calling this a satire further alienates the issue from the effect it has on individuals, and it not being a ‘morality play’ doesn’t make its damage less real.It would be ignorant to suggest that people go to the theatre and not take anything from it but a few jokes. You are commenting on society; society is going to reflect and compare. <br /><br />Finally Jonny says ‘[the play]among other things, is [to] draw attention to prejudice and fear around the way people view bodies.’ - Yeah it does draw attention to prejudice and fear, AND IT CONTINUES IT. The play does absolutely nothing to give these issues the weight they deserve, pun intended. It does nothing to acknowledge the mental illness and self-hatred that result from these problems, and it provides no resolution. I sat through nearly two hours of body hating crap. After having said all that, the set design was good. That is all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-1822995057159602562011-01-23T20:23:06.030-08:002011-01-23T20:23:06.030-08:00I saw the play with some friends after reading All...I saw the play with some friends after reading Ally’s post. I hated the play. I read Jonny’s post, and now I hate it even more. <br /><br />First off let’s start with …‘[Galen is] a man who is one chocolate thin away from death.’ Jonny, are you kidding me? You have the audacity to write this piece, and try and justify Galen’s character and then throw this in the mix? Urgh. I know commentators have already brought this up but I want to bring it up again and say how NOT OK I am with this sort of fatphobic assumption coming from someone given the privilege of posting on I Am Offended Because. Chocolate Thins, in themselves, do not kill people. <br /><br />Done, OK so Jonny goes on to say ‘And the problem is not that [Galen] is merely fat, it is that he is supremely unhealthy.’ - Why the fat suit then? I still see no justification. Over eating does not always result in a fat person, there are plenty of people in this world that do not eat well and starve their bodies of nutrients. Even these people come in all shapes and sizes. Galen in a fat suit epitomised the old and stale idea that over-eaters and unhealthy eaters are always overweight, and overweight people are always unhealthy. I am aware that this is highly likely to have been a script/directing decision but I’ll direct this at Jonny, seeing as he is trying to justify it like a fatphobia apologist. <br /><br />Jonny said ‘I said I would be keen to play Galen (I read the part at the play's first airing in 2008), and pointed out that there is really nobody big enough to play him. Even if we had used a very fat actor, the actor would not have been fat enough.’ There is not a fucking chance Lawrence would have been able to cast someone who would have fitted the morbidly obese quota. No one with an ounce of self respect who comes under that definition on the BMI scale would take the prejudice they experience every day of their lives and epitomise it on the stage. Jonny continues to say that ‘If he was fat enough, he probably would not have had the ability to play the part. Galen is not merely fat, he is so fat he is on the verge on death. If a fat actor should have been employed, which one?’ How are you to know? Are you an expert on the function of every single body that can come under the definition of ‘morbidly obese’? Maybe you should have actually bothered talked to fat actors about this role in the first place to see how they would feel playing Galen, and how they would feel representing their body shape in that way. I can only presume that the decision to not cast a fat person in this role is a cowardly way of avoiding the elephant in the room; and that is, that this play is fatphobic. <br /><br />Jonny then responds to Ally’s summaries of the depictions of the fat body in NTF!. He has acknowledged that the instance of Galen in the foetal position in food wrappers failed. The next depiction she brings up is '[Galen] carries with him a bag of sweets, a bag that eventually explodes because it is so jam packed with candy'. Jonny responded by saying ‘ The bag does not explode because it is overstuffed with candy, the candy jumps out as part of its evil plan to knock Galen off.’ It actually didn’t. Again, if this is not what happened on stage it cannot be justified with what was meant to happen. All I saw was a fat man with lollies falling out of his bag. CONT>>>>>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-19202811394161985152011-01-23T17:40:50.563-08:002011-01-23T17:40:50.563-08:00So he's not 'fat' he's 'really...So he's not 'fat' he's 'really, really, really fat and he's going to die because he's so fat' and that makes it all OK?<br /><br />Is he one apple away from death? Or is it just the bad chocolate that's responsible for putting him in an early grave?<br /><br />It always seems like people who defend fat-phobic and hateful material that is damaging and hurtful are saying 'not your kind of fat! I mean other types of fat - like more fat than you'.<br /><br />I know people who are 'fat-suit' large. They're not invisible and they're also not one item of food away from dying either. It's ridiculous to suggest that or claim that there's some imaginary line that is crossed and someone goes from being fat to dying fat. It doesn't exist. <br /><br />Still, I think it is great that there is such a lot of discussion about this. Though I credit that to Ally's awesomeness and not necessarily the play itself.Boganettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07253374355820020132noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-32009729928610378632011-01-23T02:03:41.489-08:002011-01-23T02:03:41.489-08:00Just because you can explain something doesn't...Just because you can explain something doesn't mean it isn't offensive or damaging.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-50038820878714597432011-01-22T19:05:09.570-08:002011-01-22T19:05:09.570-08:00Aw, thanks, Ally!
Frances, that's a really go...Aw, thanks, Ally!<br /><br />Frances, that's a really good point. And any "news" story on the TV about "obesity", with its inevitable montage of headless fatties, completely bears it out. (I believe it's the doco <i>Fat Head</i> (albeit problematic in some respects) in which they do a headless-fattie montage and the presenter says "look, it took us FOUR HOURS in TWO LOCATIONS to get these shots!")Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-15878859362796129952011-01-22T01:26:53.639-08:002011-01-22T01:26:53.639-08:00Ally said many things I was thinking but I will ad...Ally said many things I was thinking but I will add...<br /><br />"Galen is not standing in for every fat person. He is so unhealthy he is nearly dead."<br /><br />The problem with that is that there are many, many people out there that who truly think that ALL fat people are so unhealthy they are nearly dead. As such, the representation of this character will not "draw attention to prejudice and fear" but rather endorse it.Franceshttp://corpulent.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-76579607238071444292011-01-21T18:42:09.489-08:002011-01-21T18:42:09.489-08:00Ideologically impure, I think I have an internet c...Ideologically impure, I think I have an internet crush on you.Allyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06728172539093346724noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-75856162605324526272011-01-21T18:08:14.198-08:002011-01-21T18:08:14.198-08:00it is an extreme form of 'fatness': a man ...<i>it is an extreme form of 'fatness': a man who is one chocolate thin away from death</i><br /><br />This quote just leapt out at me with a big red sign on its head that proclaimed "Not Getting The Point", along with:<br /><br /><i>food has pushed Galen's body to the brink of expiration.</i><br /><br />The problem for me is that despite protestations that Galen isn't "just" fat, he's "unhealthy", his lack-of-health is conflated with his eating. Does the play show any other ways in which Galen is "unhealthy"? Because it seems that He Eats KFC While Crying and He Has Many Sweets are the two things which Ally found the most visible markers of Galen's "health".<br /><br />Where this becomes problematic is when we're talking about a character who, given only my reading of the two posts here, can only be one of two things.<br /><br />A. an incredibly shallow stereotype about fatties, who just eat and eat and eat because they're stupid and lazy and that's how we <i>know</i> they're unhealthy<br /><br />B. an slightly-less shallow stereotype of someone with serious, self-harming behaviours which *happen* to centre on food.<br /><br />If the former, I think Ally's initial response really hit the nail on the head. If the latter, I'm a little repulsed at someone (even a fictional character) being casually commented on as "one chocolate thin away from death" - a statement which pretty much buys into fatphobia and fat-hating culture and cultural myths about fatties hook, line and sinker - and simultaneously reinforces former option, which echoes the classic "why don't you fatties just put down the baby-flavoured donuts" stereotype.<br /><br />If Galen is unhealthy, if Galen is actually meant to be sick and bingeing or focussing on food because he is mentally or physically ill, it's not about putting down the Chocolate Thins, and it's not about <i>food</i> being the culprit. There's nothing new or revolutionary in that kind of attitude.<br /><br />How any of that is meant to "draw" the audience's attention to "fear and prejudice around bodies" is a little beyond me, I admit.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-21679152600344779642011-01-21T14:32:04.103-08:002011-01-21T14:32:04.103-08:00- You’re right, that Petrus is a nasty character a...- You’re right, that Petrus is a nasty character and that does make a difference. Thank you for bringing that up. Does it make a difference though, that the audience that I was part of were laughing along with Petrus. I wish he had been vilified a bit more for his fat shaming. I love reading about the connection you feel with Galen and I think it is really important to know there was more heart and soul under some of those moments I criticised. I just wish that heart and soul had translated a little more to the audience, and perhaps this would have happened more in a less full/jumbled show? Perhaps the audience didn’t get to dwell on this for long enough?<br /><br />- I still think that jumping to a fat suit first, before trying to audition fat actors, is problematic. Maybe you can’t think of any really fat actors because they have never had an opportunity to be cast? Also, Galen is described as ‘morbidly obese’ and while this is being interpreted as SUPER INCREDIBLY HUGELY fat, like, on the BMI scale I am morbidly obese. Morbidly obese might not be as fat as you thinking?<br /><br />- I really want to emphasise that fatness is not Galen’s problem, it is his inability to stop eating and his relationship with food. You have written ‘Galen is not standing in for every fat person. He is so unhealthy he is nearly dead’ and ‘Even if we had used a very fat actor, the actor would not have been fat enough. If he was fat enough, he probably would not have had the ability to play the part. Galen is not merely fat, he is so fat he is on the verge on death’. And I think it is really important to keep thinking about ‘fat’ and ‘unhealthy’ being different things. I really, really, really wish another fat actor had been cast in the play, as Ms. Chocolate or as someone else, to make it clear that while Galen’s fatness causes him problems, fatness does not have to be that way. This is just my wish for the play. I really, really think that having just one more fat actor on stage would have significantly balanced the show for me.<br /><br />- BATS is most definitely yours and David’s and Pauls. And I know it is still mine. I think I’ll be there for the opening night of Broken China, in fact, and I can’t wait to see Diamond Dogs and Mothershock in Fringe. I think what I wrote about BATS was about the shock of thinking you are safe, and then having that rug pulled out from under your feet. Because as a fat person, there are a lot of spaces that I don’t feel safe. I feel nervous when I walk past groups of teenagers in case they call me a fat bitch. I feel nervous preparing my lunch in the kitchen at work, in case it is deemed to be ‘unhealthy’. So I guess being with that laughing audience, it felt horrible. It felt like I shouldn’t have let my guard down.<br /><br />Anyway, Jonny, you are great and you are great for writing your piece. I really appreciate the good faith it has taken for you to respond with such care and thoughtfulness. I wish you audiences that laugh in the right bits and that cry with you over the KFC and I hope there is enough of them that you make a little money out of Paul Rothwell. I think I will probably have to buy you a bakery treat for this one. xxx<br /><br />(Oh my gad, I can't believe I wrote a comment that was so huge and long it has to go in a separate box. Shame.)Allyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06728172539093346724noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2248771638146280147.post-32764532258114401022011-01-21T14:30:52.393-08:002011-01-21T14:30:52.393-08:00Hi Jonny! Thanks for writing some things on my blo...Hi Jonny! Thanks for writing some things on my blog, and taking the time and consideration to do so. It’s pretty awesome. I also love seeing all of the processes that have been going on inside your actor brain for Galen. It is cool. I want to respond to some bits and because it is Saturday morning and I’m really tired I’m going to do this in bullet points.<br /><br />- Yes, art does not always have to ‘do good’. But what if, on the whole, depictions of fat people are actually ‘doing bad’? Because, like I said in my post, I think en masse depictions of fat people as having no self control and being socially inept and as a target for ridicule are actually damaging. But then again, I am also in the ‘theatre for social change’ camp along with a whole lot of other soy milk drinking hippies.<br /><br />- I think that perhaps your take on the ‘ever body is a good body’ mantra possibly might be a little skewed? You ask if Darryl’s mathematically fed and exercised body is healthy, and I would really like to emphasise that though ‘fat is NOT the same as unhealthy’ is a big part of the fat acceptance movement, being ‘healthy’ is not a qualifier for your body being good. Health is a privilege, and one that the sick and the disabled do not have. ‘Every body is a good body’ is more about every single body that exists deserving respect and nurture no matter what it looks like/how healthy it is.<br /><br />- My yawn relating to the role of ‘dead child’ was more about ‘fridging’ (the killing off of female characters to advance the storyline of the male protagonist) and I would say that Baby Emma has definitely been fridged. This mightn’t seem like a problem on an individual basis, but this is also systemic throughout all mediums of storytelling. This article at Jezebel has some pretty good discussion of fridging in Christopher Nolan films.<br /><br />http://jezebel.com/5609493/inception-director-loves-killing-off-women<br /><br />- Likewise, with the lesbian characters my problem was definitely not in relation to the ‘lesbians as sexual titillation’ trope (which you are right, this was absent from NTF) it was about the tropes of ‘unkempt lesbian’ and ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know lesbian’. Both Jean and Rose did a really good job of fleshing these characters out, but I would argue that as written, the characters fall into different ‘stereotypes of lesbians’ categories.<br /><br />- You are definitely right that Rothwell was working with types and stereotypes throughout the whole of the play. That was kinda it’s shtick. My piece was a fat acceptance critique of the show, but I also think that this could sit alongside a vegan critique, and a defence of the mentally ill critique, and a portrayal of eating disorders critique, and probably a comprehensive feminist critique and a whole lot of other things. Even though Galen was supposed to be a trope of fatness, when there are barely any representations of fatness on the stage ever, I think it is really important to critique that trope when it comes up.<br /><br />- You have described Rothwell as an equal opportunity annoyer and you are totes right. Like I just said, so many different critiques could be made of this play. But sometimes, equal opportunity annoyers really annoy me. Ha. There is something that really annoys me about putting a whole lot of irritating tropes out there, saying you want to get people talking, and then sitting back to watch. It reminds me of that Garland Grey quote "Privilege means you can walk away from the conversation whenever you like because the issues being raised aren’t important to you, and you can always imagine that the marginalized people you are walking away from don’t matter."<br /><br />- That is interesting about the bag of sweets! Perhaps I was being a bit dim, but I didn’t realise it was intended as the food attacking him. I read this moment as LOOK AT THIS BAD FAT MAN, OF COURSE HE IS THIS FAT BECAUSE HE EATS ALL THESE SWEETS.<br /><br /><br />[...]Allyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06728172539093346724noreply@blogger.com