Plus-Size
©2021 Mekdela

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

print ISBN: 978-1-09839-836-1
ebook ISBN: 978-1-09839-837-8

This book is dedicated to the plus-size community and anyone who has ever felt like they didn’t fit in.

Contents

Plus-Size

Shallow Hal

Drop Dead Diva

Online Dating (On Both Sides of the Atlantic Ocean)

The Mindy Project

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

“Obesity,” the Medical Industry, and the “Health” Conversation

The South

The Good Place

What Decolonization Means to Me

Third Culture People in Film:
My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Bend it Like Beckham

The Spice Girls

Charmed

Muriel’s Wedding

Pandemic Reflections: One Year Later

Young Adult Books that Build Character

Mekdela, Cultural Producer & Social Influencer
(Or What I Want My Legacy to Be)

Plus-Size

Sometimes I think the most American thing about me is that I am considered 20–30 pounds overweight (according to the racist one-size-fits-all measurement, BMI or Body Mass Index. Seriously, whose bodies do you think it is based on?) I am sometimes shocked to hear that the average American woman is now my size—a size 14 in clothing (more recently, the average American woman’s size has gone up to a 16–18, according to Forbes). But then I feel a sense of belonging and community even though my body type appears to be in the minority in the California cities I have been to or lived in. Growing up, my immigrant parents tried to nag me into losing weight, for social reasons I suspect, but under the guise of health. They would encourage me to eat less, a single apple for dinner, or not to eat at all. I think that this is the only time that I have ever felt ashamed of my body and a pressing urge to lose weight and obtain a “normal” BMI (again, BMI is not an exact science and what is “normal” varies for different bodies). But for the most part, I have embraced my curvy, busty body and who I am because being like the majority has never been high on my list of priorities. If I was going to be unique in this way, then by gosh, I was going to own it.

For me, being plus-size means de-prioritizing society’s beauty ideals and celebrating people in different and often targeted bodies like mine. It means celebrating our inner beauty and strength in addition to reclaiming our outer appearances. It means taking insults from complete strangers and finding the fortitude and composure to keep moving through a world not made to accommodate us. It means building a community with other people that have been othered in this way and supporting them as well as receiving support from them. When I was in high school, I auditioned for a 2010 beauty pageant, and my introduction was “I want to become the Rose Queen so that I can be a role model for other plus-size women of color and change the world.”

I love following plus-size fashion magazines, pages, and models on social media and finding the latest trendy styles and outfits that fit my body. I feel a sense of belonging and community with other plus-size women because I understand how our sizes are stigmatized and how that hinders us in several aspects of our lives. Not that long ago, it was very difficult to find clothes in plus sizes, and plus-size clothing did not have the same quality, tailoring or style as straight-size clothing (straight-size clothing encompasses women’s sizes 0-12 and plus-size clothing is size 14 and up). According to Plunkett Research, 70% of American women are a size 14 or larger, but only 18% of the clothing sold in 2016 was considered plus-size. Even today, clothing stores (including plus-size retailers) do not sell plus-size clothes that are as fashionable and well-tailored as straight-size clothes. This is due to sizeism or discrimination against larger bodies and a bias in favor of smaller bodies that embody Western beauty ideals. I have felt this discrimination most acutely in the dating arena and I’ve noticed how it has affected other plus-size women.

I have seen how White women, who are the standard of beauty in American society, are highly desirable and coveted, provided they have thin bodies. I’ve noticed how White women that are plus-size do not receive this same status of ultra-desirability by virtue of their larger bodies. My solidarity with plus-size White women is due to sizeism, fatphobia (revulsion or hatred directed toward fat people), and how they shape the ways we navigate the world. This is coming from a plus-size Black woman from an immigrant African background, who is marginalized in several other aspects. But sizeism is the common ground that makes me feel at home in the plus-size community. However, I soon discovered that sizeism and fatphobia do not affect everyone equally. 

In 2015, there was a cultural shift. Lane Bryant launched its “I’m No Angel” social media campaign featuring six plus-size models all around the average American woman’s size at the time, or size 14–16. The campaign featured plus-size models Marquita Pring, Ashley Graham, Candice Huffine, Victoria Lee, Justine Legault, and Elly Mayday. As per usual, I was delighted to see my body type represented and very supportive of this campaign and the ideas it espoused, such as ‘beauty comes in all sizes.’ After this campaign, there was an explosion of plus-size representation in the mainstream media, and not just from the familiar outlets I followed. However, it largely came in the form of Ashley Graham’s career as a plus-size model taking off. Before this, the plus-size magazines and outlets I followed showcased diverse representations of plus-size women from size 14 to 28 and beyond. I was seeing Black, Brown, and White plus-size models in my social media feeds. But in the mainstream media, there was and continues to be only one representation of plus-size women—relatively smaller White women with hourglass figures, namely Ashley Graham. Ashley Graham represents the most privileged kind of plus-size woman—White and smaller at a size 14–16. I can acknowledge my privilege as someone with a size 14 hourglass figure—I am able to shop in straight-size stores like Forever 21 and Target, and I fit into the size large; although I have the distinct impression that size large clothing was not made for my body. I can also shop at plus-size stores like Torrid and fit into the smallest sizes. The mainstream media’s focus on Ashley Graham worries me because it has created a new beauty ideal that is pretty similar to the preceding (and ongoing) one—plus-size but only the smallest sizes, 14–16, and White women. This results in the erasure and the loss of the representation of plus-size models who are women of color, bigger than a size 14–16, and who don’t have hourglass body shapes.

The body positive movement was created by plus-size women, many of whom are Black like me, with the goal of creating a more inclusive society. However, the body positive movement quickly became co-opted by corporations and marketed toward plus-size women with a very specific look (see above). Even the way we talk about fat is geared towards women—it is slowly becoming more socially acceptable to be a curvy woman and to have body fat. While it’s true that women, and especially women of color, tend to have curvier bodies and are more strictly held to beauty standards than men, the body positive movement should be more inclusive of people of all genders, including gender nonconforming people. I want to acknowledge whom the body positive movement is completely neglecting—plus-size people that are not women. I see representation of plus-size men and male models here and there, but they are otherwise largely invisible. I think this goes back to gender roles in which women are allowed to have emotions, feelings, and insecurities about their bodies (and therefore are stereotyped as weak) and men are expected to be stoic, strong, and providers. Men should be allowed to have, process, and show their emotions just as freely and this includes body image issues. Plus-size gender nonconforming people and men deserve more space and platforms to discuss how our society’s body ideals affect them and for them to change these ideals.

Sizeism and fatphobia in the U.S. do not end at a lack of representation in the media or discrimination in the dating arena, although these issues are just as important. Sizeism is being unable to fit into the clothes at most stores because they only sell straight-size clothes that reflect society’s body ideals. Sizeism is having no choice but to shop at plus-size retailers like Torrid and Lane Bryant and buying clothes that are way overpriced; it’s being charged significantly more money because your body is seen as less desirable. Sizeism is job discrimination or being less likely to be hired for a job. Sizeism is being refused treatment by a doctor or being misdiagnosed because your weight is assumed to be the (only) problem. When looking at the big picture, it becomes clear how sizeism and fatphobia impact our everyday lives.

I would also like to acknowledge that the U.S. clothing industry is couched in neocolonialism and neoliberal racism. Most of the clothing sold in the U.S. is created in sweatshops here and abroad that abuse, exploit, and severely underpay people of color, mostly women of color, in the Global South. This is a huge issue that reflects the inequitable flow of money in the U.S. clothing industry, the larger American society, and the world. While I wish to see our society tackle fatphobia wholeheartedly, we can simultaneously advocate for just payment of cloth-makers, safe and healthy working conditions, and against the exploitative tactics of fast fashion and capitalism.

Shallow Hal

I have memories of watching Shallow Hal on cable TV as a kid, when it received a heavy rotation on television. Back then, I was too young to fully understand the cultural context and therefore the meaning of the jokes and the setup, much like everything I watched around that age. However, it came on television in 2016 and I rewatched it: this time, as a plus-size woman who had experienced the U.S. dating scene, I understood the underlying messages. My gut instinct was to be offended by the movie and its premise. However, after rewatching it again, I have a newfound appreciation for the film. 

The basic premise of Shallow Hal is that Hal (played by a young Jack Black) is a slightly overweight, short, average-looking White male striking out with White women. His problem? Hal (and his short, chubby, balding older friend) only pursues women that look like American supermodels (read: young, tall, White, and thin). The women Hal and his friend pursue are often much taller than them. Because of this dating preference, Hal doesn’t have too much luck with women. On the other hand, his friend Mauricio is dating a woman that fits this description, but he has to break up with her because he noticed that “her second toe is like half an inch longer than her big toe.” Cue the laughs—here the audience knows that the butt of the joke is the insidious shallowness and judgmental and sexist attitudes cisgender, heterosexual men harbor toward women. 

Then comes the plot twist: Hal gets stuck in an elevator with a self-help guru and dishes his problems after yet another unsuccessful courtship of a woman. The self-help guru understands the situation and hypnotizes Hal into seeing women’s inner beauty instead of their outer beauty. In other words, Hal sees women with hearts of gold as very physically attractive and women with hearts of ice as physically unappealing. Hijinks ensue in which Hal pursues societally undesirable/unattractive women because he sees them as supermodels, while his good pal Mauricio becomes increasingly perplexed. “You didn’t become irresistible to women! You started desiring the undesirable!” Mauricio said to Hal after the jig is revealed. Significantly, ugly women are portrayed here as plus-size women and thin women with bushy eyebrows and big noses (read: non-Western European facial features). Even after this more sympathetic re-viewing, my heart hurts for the actresses who had to embody ugliness and undesirability in this film and the real-life women who see themselves that way. 

The film culminates in Hal falling in love with Rosemary, who is played by actress Gwyneth Paltrow. This is what offended me about the film when I initially rewatched it. Paltrow, a tall, thin, blonde, White woman (replete with Western European facial features and described by the movie’s producers as a “classic American beauty”), is the physical manifestation of Rosemary’s heart of gold. After a slew of surreptitious clues about Rosemary’s true appearance, she is revealed to be Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit. This is highly insulting and unfair to plus-size women. In a movie/film industry that generally does not hire plus-size women and people, a conventionally attractive woman wears a fat suit to play a plus-size woman. To me, this is reminiscent of when White actors would wear blackface to play Black people and other people of color in old Hollywood movies. A thin woman playing a fat character by wearing a fat suit in a film industry that otherwise refuses to hire fat people, is the epitome of fatphobia. It is dehumanizing and encourages viewers to see fat people as less than or even sub-human. In 2021, thin, White actress Sarah Paulson came under fire for wearing a fat suit for her role in a season of American Crime Story: Impeachment.

That being said, I admit I enjoyed Paltrow’s performance because she played the role of a societally undesirable woman well—she makes it believable that she is Rosemary and not just Gwyneth in a fat suit. However, her presence in the film and its representation of women overall is misogynistic and upholds rigid beauty standards instead of deconstructing them. But then, what else could I expect from a Hollywood film engineered by White, cisgender, heterosexual men? Unfortunately, this cultural critique from 2001 still applies to American film and society in 2021. Shallow Hal included fat people (albeit in miniscule roles, negatively represented, and with Paltrow in a fat suit) and more positive representations of disabled people: an actor with spina bifida had a prominent role. The film also showed children in a hospital’s Burn Victims Unit (although like the Paltrow situation, the girl with burn-scarred skin had on special effects makeup). The idea was to make the audience question their attitudes toward and treatment of people considered undesirable in American society, not limited to fat people, but including disabled people and people with other physical differences. However, the vast majority of the films Hollywood released after Shallow Hal continue to star conventionally attractive people (read: White, thin, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, and young) while effectively normalizing this casting. 

My re-viewing of Shallow Hal also made me reevaluate how American society is shallow in its view of attractiveness and desirability in men. In terms of attractive men, the first thing that comes to my mind and what I usually see women desiring/dating are tall, thin men with chiseled jawlines and visually aesthetic faces. Have I ever had a crush on someone who looks like Hal? No. But I have desired and dated overweight men and/or shorter men of color. Would I ever consider dating someone in their forties who looks like Mauricio? It makes me realize that shallow physical attraction is a two-way street—although men have the upper hand because society does not place as much of an emphasis on their looks as it does for women. Men can more easily get away with not being beautiful, while a lot of women’s gender role is about being socialized to be pretty and physically appealing to men. The beauty standards and judgment meteorically rise for gender nonconforming and/or transgender people, who are constantly scrutinized and whose bodies and appearances are questioned because they do not have recognized roles in American or other societies as cisgender men and women do. 

Being a plus-size Black woman, I enjoy my fair share of fat jokes—as long as they are done right and are subversive deconstructions of systems of power instead of upholding them. This is done in The Mindy Project. The Mindy Project was a coup d’état because it was the first primetime television show to star a South Asian person and it starred a dark-skinned, Indian-American, curvy woman. Kaling mastered the fat joke in that show and demonstrated how it could be done without being inherently offensive. She also had to jump through a staggering number of obstacles to even get the show created, and it went on to be canceled after three seasons on Fox before getting picked up by Hulu. What does it say about American society, film, and television that twenty years after Shallow Hal was released, there is still a dearth of people of color, fat people, disabled people, and queer people acting in TV shows and movies?

Drop Dead Diva

As I am writing about the intersections of fatphobia, popular culture, and media, I decided to write about Drop Dead Diva. I was initially hesitant to write about Drop Dead Diva as a form of media starring a plus-size woman because of how niche and not mainstream it is. Not niche in a hipster, exclusive, extra-refined taste way: niche as in produced for The Lifetime Network. I find it insulting that television and media marketed to women are given less respect and seen as less than and inferior to male-centric television shows and channels. There is a patronizing aura and stigma surrounding television and films marketed solely to women: that they are trashy, low quality, cheesy, etc. (see: romantic comedies, Lifetime movies, reality TV shows). However, shows and movies that are male-driven and marketed to men are seen as eclectic, praise-worthy, critically acclaimed, good for all audiences, etc. If women are fans of shows and movies that have large male fanbases, then they are seen as the “Cool Girl” à la the one described in Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl. “Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot…”—Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl.

However, if men like movies and TV shows (and other things) that are marketed to women, it is seen as embarrassing. This goes back to the idea that being a woman is inherently shameful. This is what I think of when pondering Drop Dead Diva: this dynamic is present in the way that the show was marketed to women. It aired on Lifetime, has a main character that is an almost satirical version of a girly girl, and of course the title, Drop Dead Diva. It screams, this is not television that should be taken seriously and should only be watched by women who love pink à la Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, and carry tiny dogs in their designer purses à la Paris Hilton. This marketing is unfortunate because Drop Dead Diva (title aside) did have substance, as a legal drama with plotlines revolving around court cases. Make no mistake, I have nothing against Elle Woods, pink (which is my favorite color), or even the word diva (okay, maybe a little). I take issue with the way that media is gendered and how media that is marketed toward women is devalued and taken less seriously. In fact, Legally Blonde was a shrewd cultural commentary on this exact issue and main character Elle Woods showed that girly girls should be taken seriously too.

I enjoyed Drop Dead Diva, its legal scenes, and most importantly, the reason why I am writing about it today—its premise. Deb, a twenty-something, blonde, White, thin model, dies in a car accident and goes to Heaven. However, when she reaches Heaven, she is in such a state of panic over what has happened and her need to get back to her life, that she presses the return button on an angel’s computer (yes, angels in Heaven register the deceased on computers in this show). Pressing the return button sends Deb’s soul hurtling back to Earth, where it inhabits the body of another recently departed soul. Deb’s soul ends up in the body of a White, thirty-something, plus-size brunette lawyer named Jane. Deb gets a second chance at life, but this time she must learn to live as Jane, the plus-size brunette lawyer whose body she accidentally obtained. As luck would have it, Jane happens to work in the same law firm as the love of Deb’s life, her fiancé Grayson, a tall, White, conventionally attractive man. To complicate matters, Deb’s guardian angel (the angel that was registering her in Heaven) comes down to Earth and tells her that she can’t tell anyone the truth about who she really is—Deb in Jane’s body. However, she ends up telling her best friend Stacey (also a twenty-something, blonde, White, thin model) because it is hard to keep a secret from the one who knows you best. 

I find the essentialism of Jane and Deb in the beginning of the show to be irksome. Jane, before she died, is presented as a dowdy woman who does not take pride in her appearance or like her life very much. We only get to see her body in form-fitting clothes, makeup, and carried confidently after it is inhabited by Deb’s soul. This reaffirms thin privilege in an eerie way: a plus-size woman’s body only gets pampered when it is possessed by the soul of a thin woman. However, as many plus-size fashionistas and women reclaiming their bodies and lives as there are, this plotline is true to form. Some plus-size people internalize fatphobia, don’t like their bodies, and live their lives accordingly. For that matter, not every plus-size woman is a fashionista, into fashion trends or makeup, and that is totally fine. Plus-size media cultivates the image of plus-size women as girly girls, but this is not always the case.

I appreciate the questions Drop Dead Diva poses about which people and what types of bodies our society deems desirable. Watching Deb adjust to life as Jane highlights the challenges and obstacles plus-size people face because of their norm-defying bodies. The hardest obstacle Deb/Jane must grapple with is the heartbreaking reality of working in the same law firm as her former fiancé Grayson and not being able to tell him who she really is. The main conflict, tension, and plot of the show is Deb/Jane’s challenge in making Grayson fall in love with her, but this time as Jane and not Deb. The understanding is that this task is much harder to do in her new plus-size body as opposed to the first time around, when she was in a size 2 body. I love this main plotline along with how Jane’s intelligence is showcased through her career as a brilliant lawyer and the celebration of female friendships via Deb’s best friendship with Stacey. I will remember this show as being one of the first times I saw my body type represented on the small screen. It is also one of the few times a plus-size woman has had a starring role as opposed to a thin woman wearing a fat suit à la Gwyneth Paltrow in Shallow Hal. 

Online Dating
(On Both Sides of the Atlantic Ocean)

I normally avoid discussing or sharing anything about my dating life on social media (namely through my social media accounts, Facebook and Instagram) because people I do not know personally have access to them. But I do share things about other parts of my life like my friends, educational and professional achievements, personal and political opinions, etc. To some degree, I can attribute this to the fact that I am more of a private person that protects certain aspects of my personal life, like my family for instance. However, it is also largely due to the fact that I hail from at least two groups considered undesirable in American society: curvy/plus-size women and Black women (and I am beautiful to boot!). Because I know that these groups (and I) are considered unlovable because of socially constructed notions of (un)desirability, I feel hesitant to share anything about my love life for fear that I will be made fun of, judged, or not liked by people. Because Black and curvy/plus-size women are portrayed as undesirable in the media, this can limit the dating pools of people that fall under these categories.

I have read accounts on the blogosphere and the internet of Black and/or plus-size women who use online dating to find love because it provides a greater opportunity. While this is true, online dating is a double-edged sword: like everywhere else on the internet, it can be easily used by trolls to abuse users, especially women of color. In fact, a study by Amnesty International showed that Black women are the most abused group on Twitter. I am taking the plunge and adding my perspective to the library of women’s stories about the ups and downs of online dating. 

In the 2010s, online dating was still somewhat of a taboo. There is a stigma around online dating that goes back to the question: Why couldn’t you find someone in real life? Why did you have to look online? I have heard of (and been part of) couples who meet online but tell their family and friends they met in another, more traditional setting out in the “real world.” But as our lives move increasingly toward the digital age (especially for millennials like myself that came of age with social media), online dating will become increasingly normalized. Being someone with marginalized identities that are treated as undesirable in real life can make being part of online dating even more difficult, compounding the stigma/taboo. This is why I hesitate to be open publicly about my dating life, online dating, and love. However, individuals in every group in American society use online dating. I shouldn’t have to hide because my ethnic group and body type have been declared unattractive and whatever else. In fact, studies conducted by the online dating sites OkCupid and Are You Interested? show that Black women are seen as the least desirable group online, having collectively received the fewest messages initiating conversation or in response to their messages.

From what I gather, this data has only been collected on the online courting rituals of cisgender, heterosexual people of different ethnic groups. I would be interested to see how the data breaks down for the LGBTQIA+ community amongst others. Unfortunately, these studies have mirrored my experiences with online dating, in Los Angeles and more recently in Britain, where I did my master’s degree. A part of me expected (and hoped) that Britain would be an improvement on the U.S. in this aspect; I wasn’t completely wrong. Other Black Americans that I talked to in Leeds (where I lived) agree that Britain’s race relations/racism are not nearly as charged and unpleasant as they are in the U.S. However, just below the surface there are striking parallels.

I first started online dating during my year off after college in LA. I took a year off after college to move back home, relax, use my creative outlets, and prepare for graduate school. Most of my friends from home were still in college, so I figured I would be exploring Los Angeles as an adult on my own. Plus, I was single, so why not try online dating? I could explore Los Angeles with some cute men and who knows, maybe even get to call one of them mine someday? The first dating site I tried was OkCupid (OKC). Snapshot impression: the endless swiping and matching was overwhelming. The site allows users to answer questions that lead to a compatibility percentage with your matches (for instance, 94 percent compatibility because you answered enough questions similarly). OkCupid was slow for me at first, even though I was swiping and matching away. That is because the men I was talking to were either not asking me out or not responding in the first place. This holds true for every dating site I’ve been on. I didn’t have any racial preference and just swiped right on men based on their personality and perceived attractiveness. As much as a man’s heart is the most important factor, I believe physical attraction must exist for there to be chemistry. Nevertheless, I stuck with it and eventually went on dates with a number of men, only one of which led to a relationship.

A downside of OkCupid and dating sites in general: in order to get to the good stuff, I had to sift through a lot of trash. And by trash, I mean jerks who would verbally and emotionally abuse me or sexually harass me (I have been sent a dick pic once, which is one time too many). Plenty of Fish (POF) is the most similar dating site to OkCupid that I have tried: the endless swiping and matching, men not asking me out or responding, men just looking for hook-ups, and men wasting their time trolling me and others through verbal abuse and harassment. While I was in LA, I also tried the app Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB). This app had the opposite problem of OKC and POF in that you only got one “bagel” or potential match per day. I had a few good dates from it, but the process was so slow that I eventually deleted the app. After that, I tried Soulswipe, which is a dating app created for Black people to meet each other; however, there are non-Black people on the app as well. Interestingly enough, my experience as a Black woman on Soulswipe was just like my experience on other dating sites: the majority of Black men did not ask me out or ignored me altogether. I went on a few good dates that ultimately didn’t lead anywhere. Update: I recently tried CMB again and it has come a long way. Instead of one bagel (potential match) per day, the app now offers 9–15. I sometimes feel like I am drowning in matches, but this layout is much better for my mental health because it prevents me from swiping endlessly throughout the day, which makes me anxious and triggers anxiety.

When I first moved to Leeds, England, I used the dating app Happn for about two weeks. I deleted it because I was overwhelmed with the large amount of matches I received that were mostly unresponsive and leading nowhere. The app is premised on a cool idea: your dating pool is based on people living in your area that you have “crossed paths” with, or who have been in the same location as you. This almost makes it like you met someone in your day-to-day life. On the other hand, this feature seems like it could be dangerous in the hands of a potential stalker: proceed with caution. After Happn, I was on the dating app Bumble for five months before taking a break. The idea of Bumble excited me because the app requires women to send the first message and if the man doesn’t respond, the match disappears within twenty-four hours (again this description is heteronormative and I would be interested to hear the Bumble accounts of queer people). This feature was created to place the power in women’s hands and weed out the trolls or men whose sole purpose in online dating (and possibly life?) is to waste women’s time. I believe that this worked in my favor because I did not receive the number of trolls I did on other sites (namely OKC and POF); however, I was verbally/emotionally abused twice, and Bumble is where I received the d-pic sadly. Unfortunately, using Bumble in Leeds, I experienced the same thing I did on the dating sites I used while living in Los Angeles: I was getting a fair amount of matches, but they were not asking me out on dates or responding at all for the most part. However, I did change one thing on Bumble in Leeds: this time around I had somewhat of a racial preference, giving priority to men of color over White men. This worked against me because Leeds is not nearly as diverse or as large as Los Angeles; on Bumble, it appeared that 95 percent of the men were White. In the five months I was on Bumble, I went on one bad date with a British man of color who was interested in me, but I did not feel a spark or chemistry. If I reactivate Bumble, I will once again cease to have a racial preference and base my decisions on the personality and perceived attractiveness of individuals.

When I first started online dating and up until now, I see it as entertaining, exciting, and an adventure: who knows what will happen? However, when it comes to romance, I think nothing can beat the magic, mystery, and sheer cuteness of meeting someone in real life. Still, I firmly believe that all’s well that ends well or that as long as the end product is the same, a couple that is in love, it doesn’t matter how you met each other. Whether I will find love online or in real life is yet to be determined, but I can’t wait to find out. 

The Mindy Project

“I always get asked, where do you get your confidence? I think people are well meaning, but it’s pretty insulting. Because what it means to me is, ‘You, Mindy Kaling, have all the trappings of a very marginalized person. You’re not skinny, you’re not white, you’re a woman. Why on earth would you feel like you’re worth anything?”

—Mindy Kaling

In honor of the season finale of The Mindy Project (TMP), I took a look back at the show, its star, what it meant to me, and why I finally had to stop watching.

I was a super fan of TMP before it even aired—as soon as I saw the promo for the show making the rounds, I was pumped. I could not be more excited for a television show about a dark-skinned, Indian-American, curvy woman navigating life as a doctor while juggling her dating life: this was pop culture gold. I, like Mindy Kaling, love pop culture, rom-coms, and fashion. But more than that, I was just so excited to see a woman of color who is not thin on the small screen: it made me feel seen. As a plus-size Black woman and the daughter of immigrants, I saw a part of myself in Mindy. 

I loved TMP’s joke per minute ratio and its subversive send-up of sexism, racism, and sizeism. Some might find the fat jokes crass, but I loved them, and I loved the woman shining while performing them. In Mindy’s first book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns, she is the older sister I’ve always wanted. As she recounted in the book, no television producers, directors, casting agents, etc., would ever cast a woman of her color or size as the star of a TV show. However, her dreams were to be more than “the nagging friend of the beautiful White protagonist . . . I’m neither going to have as much fun or as much money doing that.” So, Mindy solved this problem by writing, producing, and starring in her own TV show. It’s the kind of story of triumph against insurmountable odds that I eat up, because I am up against my own set of insurmountable odds. It’s important to note that Mindy Kaling is not plus-size: she wears straight-size clothing. Her difficulty getting onto the small screen was due in part to the fact that she is not thin. In other words, one doesn’t have to be plus-size to experience the harsh ramifications of fatphobia.

The parts of Mindy’s book that stick with me the most are when she describes her struggles with Hollywood and the world’s sizeism. Mindy was doing a photo shoot for a major magazine after becoming famous for her role on The Office. None of the dresses fit her except for this dreary navy-blue number that is typically reserved for plus-size women. When she tried on her favorite pink dress and it didn’t fit, she went to the bathroom and cried in the stall. However, she made up her mind that this was her dress, forced the set designer to take it out for her, and took the photos without the back of the dress because of the last-minute alterations. This story is symbolic of Mindy’s success in Hollywood as a leading lady. It is also relatable for anyone that has ever struggled to fit into clothes or accomplish any other mundane tasks because the world does not accommodate people that are not a sample size.

Another part of Mindy’s book that stays with me is her discussion of why losing weight isn’t a big priority for her. She says something along the lines of, she doesn’t worry about her weight, because if she wanted to stay skinny, it would take all of her time and energy. She would have to spend all of her days thinking about what she can eat, what she can’t eat, and her exercise regimen. This isn’t worth it because Mindy has more to offer the world and more worth as a human being than the number on a scale and her ability to possess a thin body. Just living and enjoying her life as she is, is worth it. These are my sentiments around my weight exactly and it’s a healthy viewpoint that I think many could benefit from. 

And now, for the downfall—the part where Mindy breaks my heart. There are jokes in her show and even her first book that are problematic. I let it slide in the name of comedy and surely her positive attributes outweigh this? There were also the critiques that Mindy’s leading men are always White. I recognized this, but at the same time I am sympathetic, because I too have grown up as an undesirable woman of color in a White community. I understand how women of color in this situation often adapt by dating White men. “Brown girl, these White men won’t save you”—unknown. And then, it happened: a show that is supposed to be progressive for women of color, curvy women, and children of immigrants displayed anti-Blackness in a BIG way.

The character Tamra was introduced and for some time this character was a walking, talking stereotype of Black women. She would sing all of her lines in the manner of a demeaning, racist caricature. How could someone who fought to create a multidimensional, well-rounded, realistic character for herself—a dark-skinned, curvy Indian-American woman—then proceed to create a flat, one-dimensional racist trope of a character for a Black woman? I was stung but continued watching to see what would happen next. Tamra’s character became better after that. However, the last straw occurred while I was watching the final season. I was maybe three episodes in when there was a “joke” about a White male character using the N-word in a karaoke song that doesn’t have the N-word in it. When said character’s White wife objects to this, Mindy’s character defends him. I had to stop watching the show after that. Anti-Black jokes and blasé attitudes about disliking/disrespecting Black people are never funny. In fact, these attitudes help to create a country in which innocent Black people are murdered with impunity. I cannot and will not be privy to this. 

With that, I am brought back to one of my biggest struggles—anti-Blackness in non-Black people and communities. In a lot of ways, the end of my fandom of Mindy Kaling due to her anti-Blackness in TMP resembles my loss of non-Black people of color that I have loved due to their anti-Blackness. What do we do when confronted with the pervasive anti-Blackness of non-Black people of color? How do we balance our desire to refrain from shaming them for this tendency while still holding them accountable? These are all questions that I grapple with in my day-to-day life. While I can’t deign to love Mindy anymore, I will always remember her contributions on the small screen for women of color, curvy women, and immigrant communities. 

Hunger: A Memoir
of (My) Body

By: Roxane Gay

“This body is resilient. It can endure all kinds of things. My body offers me the power of presence. My body is powerful.”

– a quote from Roxane Gay’s memoir, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body.

Indeed, in American society there are at least two forms of discrimination that are so accepted, many do not blink an eye at them. These are fatphobia or sizeism and anti-Blackness: I would argue that they are two forms of discrimination that many seem to proudly exhibit. In this essay, I will reflect on the work of feminist and academic Roxane Gay, who is at the intersection of both forms of discrimination. Both brilliant and charming, Haitian-American writer and professor Roxane Gay rose to cultural prominence by writing articles for websites and journals including the New Yorker. She captured my heart through her memoirs, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body and Bad Feminist: Essays. Hunger is a haunting and striking recount of Roxane’s life as told through her experiences with her body. 

Trigger warning: sexual assault. Roxane details the traumatic, life-altering experience that set off her lifelong weight journey. At twelve years old, she was gang-raped by a boy who posed as her boyfriend and his friends. Shattered, she kept it to herself for fear of disappointing her parents and learned to cope by eating. She wrote that she ate to make her body a fortress that would be impermeable and make her feel safe from male desire. Roxane is a fierce critic of rape culture and she demonstrated how the mental health issues stemming from that event catalyzed her weight gain. This is such an important point for the fight against fatphobia: you never know why or how someone became fat. A lot of the time, what is considered excess fat is a result of physical or mental disabilities. This reminds me of a mantra Oprah (who has promoted dangerous weight loss products and is not immune to criticism) used to say on her talk show: what are you hungry for? Some fat people gain weight by eating to fill an emotional void, just as some people use drugs or alcohol. However, people only seem to care about health when it comes to fat and nothing else (which is curious, no?).

A common misconception is that weight loss is easily achieved by everyone. This is a form of ableism or discrimination against disabled people and bias in favor of able-bodied people. Some people are genetically predisposed to fat gain and become more susceptible through environmental factors and other life circumstances. In other words, it is considerably harder for some people to be thin and/or lose weight than it is for others. This misconception leads to the moral blaming and shaming of fat individuals for being lazy, not working hard enough to lose weight, or not having the willpower to eat less and healthier. This erases the natural advantage of people born with smaller body types, faster metabolisms, and the ability to eat more and exercise less while maintaining a “fit” or thin body. Which brings me to my next point: a slim body is not synonymous with good health and a fat body is not synonymous with bad health. Slim people can have various diseases, while fat people can be in perfect health. In fact, one scientific theory states that fat people can live long and healthy lives as long as they exercise regularly, even if they don’t lose weight. The ‘Health at Every Size’ medical approach is proven more effective in improving certain physical and mental health outcomes (Chastain, 2020).

A size 42 at her heaviest, Roxane describes the hypocrisies of the body positive movement. While she admires the plus-size women reclaiming their bodies as desirable and valuable, Roxane does not feel that she can do the same. For starters, she states that she is about 100 pounds heavier than the women typically fronting the movement, who can shop at Lane Bryant. Roxane and other women her size are effectively sized out of Lane Bryant. They must use alternative routes to find clothing because mainstream plus-size retailers typically do not carry all plus sizes. I discussed the body positive movement’s recent commercialization and bias in favor of size 14–16 or smaller plus-size women in my essay Plus-Size. A size 14 woman or even a size 38 woman cannot claim to know or understand Roxane’s experience: her size exposes her to a completely different world of fatphobia.

The abuse Roxane experiences in public for being fat includes having strangers complain about sitting next to her on airplanes (so she resorted to buying two seats for herself) and strangers scolding her and taking food items out of her cart when she is grocery shopping. Roxane calls venues ahead of speaking engagements to ensure that their furniture can accommodate her. One of the most heartbreaking stories in Hunger described a speaking engagement where the venue was not accessible to Roxane. The speaking engagement was in an auditorium with a stage that had chairs for the speakers and an audience. There were no stairs leading up to the stage, so Roxane struggled to jump onto the five-foot platform for an excruciating five minutes before another speaker helped her onto the stage. Then, to add insult to injury, she sat in one of the chairs only to realize that it could not accommodate her. After the chair broke, she popped an excruciatingly painful and humiliating squat on the stage for the entire event. Afterward, she went home feeling like crying. This story is a prime example of how the world does not accommodate fat people sufficiently and how it can learn to do so. Issues like these can be avoided if architects design rooms and spaces to accommodate bigger people. Smaller people should be mindful of whether their venues and spaces are accessible and if not, create the needed adjustments. If Roxane Gay’s life struggles mean that she does not want to be a body positive, fat advocate, then she is more than entitled to her story and her viewpoint.

Roxane recalls a personal struggle that many fat people will relate to—desiring the acceptance of her family. She clearly loves her family, as illustrated by her glowing descriptions of them and their Haitian culture. Roxane’s parents immigrated from Haiti, speak French and English, and are whip smart. They are also loyal and loving, continuing to support Roxane as her mental health decline led her to drop out of the Ivy League, move across the country to disappear from her family and friends, and work as a phone sex operator while living with a much older man that she met online. Roxane’s parents still did not know about the incident that harmed her mental health and catalyzed her weight gain: she did not want to tell them. Her father eventually hired a private investigator who found her, and when she was ready, she came back to live with her family and started rebuilding her life. Roxane recounts the hurtful behavior from her family that rings a bell for me: a constant nagging and reproach to lose the weight. Although it may come from a place of goodwill, after a while, it can break a person down. I began to feel the way Roxane did: it’s been long enough, you are my family, so why can’t you just love me for me? This is a sentiment that may be familiar to fat people with unaccepting thin families. We can love them, but sometimes we just gotta do us. Families don’t get to decide who their children become, but they get to love who they are.

Hunger shed light on the aspects of fatphobia that I had not been fully aware of, such as the medical industrial complex and reality TV’s exploitation of fatness. I grew up watching the weight loss infomercials advertising what looked to be black market weight loss pills or gastric bypass/weight loss surgery. I did not know that weight loss pills can cause schizophrenia and result in death, or that gastric bypass surgery is a life-threatening procedure that can require the rearrangement of one’s internal organs. This news reminds me of the fatality of being fat, which includes institutional discrimination from doctors who refuse to treat fat patients or accurately diagnose their illnesses in favor of “lose weight” stances. Roxane criticizes Oprah for peddling unhealthy weight loss products to fat people. She also details reality TV’s unethical profit off of fatness: the advent of the weight loss show, e.g., The Biggest Loser, where overweight contestants undergo inhumane and demeaning rituals to lose weight and win money. It was later revealed that this show employs abusive tactics of a hazing nature that are extremely taxing on contestants’ health, forcing them to lose large amounts of weight in short periods of time. It was also discovered that the contestants go on to gain back the weight that they lost on the show. This speaks to capitalist industries’ immoral use of the vulnerabilities of fat people to make money at the expense of their health and well-being.

While Roxane skewers America’s fatphobia, she is also highly critical of rape culture and misogyny. Accordingly, she reminisces on how her mental illness stemmed from that traumatic incident which then led to her weight gain. In Hunger, Roxane illuminates mental illness, which is stigmatized in American society. Additionally, her love of pop culture and humor shines through in different essays, giving the reader a full view of the author. Roxane has left her mark on cultural discussions of rape and sexual assault, fat theory, and mental illness.

More Fat Reads

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad

Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West

“Obesity,” the Medical Industry, and the “Health” Conversation

I recently read a tweet by a doctor (that happened to be both White and male) about how he can no longer remain quiet when people equate “obesity” with good health. The tweet contained pictures of the hearts of what are presumably two deceased patients. There is no explanation of their causes of death or the circumstances surrounding their deaths. “I don’t condone body shaming. Beauty is skin deep, but fat deposits go straight to your inner organs,” doc says. Wow, my mind immediately thinks medical malpractice: who are these unknown deceased people, can one even consent to having their inner organs publicly shamed by medical practitioners in death, and uh-oh, I hope this doctor didn’t kill these people—in any case, I would never make an appointment with him. 

This tweet inspired me to break down the hypocrisies of the medical industrial complex, which I will reiterate here. But mostly, the tweet and its sentiment make me tired, because its ideology permeates the medical industry and our everyday lives. I am tired of living in a country that is working people to death for below a living wage, allowing unregulated corporations to poison food, water, homes, and buildings with toxic chemicals, and privatizing healthcare and life-saving medications so that people can’t access them, all while framing the “health” conversation around “obesity.” I am tired of trying to elicit compassion for people that look different from you, that live differently than you, that have different cultures, speak different languages, listen to different music, and eat different food. I am so tired of having to explain why my and other people’s lives matter. America has a very complicated and weird relationship with “obesity,” which I believe is courtesy of the medical industry. It is considered a medical condition, yet it is discussed and regarded as the complete responsibility of individuals. However, “obesity” is an issue of class, an issue of race, and an issue of disability. Disabled people are on the frontlines of every social justice movement, including this one. 

“Obesity” is an issue of class because people with less money are more likely to become overweight. Every body is different and a combination of genetics, environment, and life circumstances produce different results for everyone. However, it has been proven that eating cheaper, less healthy fast food can result in weight gain and/or cardiovascular diseases. It is well-documented that low-income neighborhoods are designed to be “food deserts” or only contain fast food restaurants and no grocery stores that sell more expensive healthy food like fruits and vegetables. On top of this, many working class people in America do not make a living wage and are forced to work two or three jobs in order to survive. This leaves virtually no free time for anything let alone healthy meal preparation and exercise. The result? If you are working class, you are more likely to become overweight AND less likely to be able to afford the so-called cures for “obesity”: healthy food and exercise. On top of that, being part of the working class and having to work multiple jobs to survive also means that you will be priced out of healthcare and life-saving medications in America. While the healthcare system is designed to only allow access to people that can afford it, pharmaceuticals are exponentially increasing the prices on life-saving medications for profit. This is causing the preventable deaths of people that cannot afford these medications or healthcare services. So, there is a group of people that is priced out of healthy food, healthcare, and medication, and who do not have leisure time for exercise. This doesn’t even account for how being part of the working class and working multiple jobs to survive can cause high levels of stress, which is known to erode mental and physical health. 

“Obesity” is an issue of race because its main unit of measurement or BMI (Body Mass Index) is an inconsistent marker that does not account for different body types, especially those of women of color that naturally have more body fat in certain areas. The idea that body fat is a marker of genetic inferiority goes all the way back to the origins of Western science or scientific racism. According to a class on the history of science that I took in college, Science and the Body (2014), Western scientists initially set out on a mission to prove how White people are genetically superior to people of color. How did they do it? By identifying the presence of body fat. Scientists falsely established that White people were genetically superior because they lacked body fat and certain people of color had body fat. Which people of color you ask? Black people, specifically Black women with curvy body types served as their “proof.” For an example of this, visit the absolutely horrendous chapter in Western history titled the “Hottentot Venus.” May this poor woman’s soul rest in peace. This history supports the theory that fatphobia is rooted in anti-Blackness (Strings, 2019). This was around the time that White scientists created the first racial categories: “Caucasoid” for White people, “Negroid” for Black people, “Mongoloid” for Asian people, and “Australoid” for Australian and Papa New Guinea Aboriginal people. These scientists also “proved” that White people were smarter than people of color because of brain shape and size (K. Barad, personal communication, 2014). Why is this a problem? Because this legacy continues today: Black and Indigenous people are still being discriminated against and killed by every U.S. institution, including medicine, due to white supremacist beliefs.

“Obesity” is an issue of disability because disabled people are disproportionately impacted by excess body fat. What the individual-blaming narrative fails to account for is that many people gain excess weight due to their genetics, mental health disorders, and/or as a symptom of real diseases or their medications. Equating individuals’ worth with their “good health” (read: thin bodies) and ability to exercise is ableist or discriminatory towards disabled people. Some people are not able to physically move or exercise due to physical disabilities. The narrative around “health” and “obesity” in the U.S. is really an exercise in American capitalism. It pathologizes body fat through the term “obesity,” describes it as a “disorder” or “condition,” and blames this newfound “disorder” on individuals while failing to account for the factors of capitalism that have increased it. This narrative promotes the idea that people with diseases or disabilities and anyone who becomes ill is to be blamed for their sickness, conveniently vindicating our failing healthcare system and the role played by corporations. If one were to effectively address the “obesity epidemic,” workers would make a living wage and be able to afford healthy food, healthcare, medicine, and have the leisure time for exercise and rest. Healthcare would be universal and accessible for everyone regardless of income/class. Pharmaceuticals would not be allowed to increase the prices of life-saving medications for profit. And corporations would be regulated and prevented from placing poisonous chemicals into Americans’ food and water (see: Flint, Michigan water crisis), and from continuing to build homes and buildings with asbestos and lead, materials proven to cause cancer and other diseases.

I am as tired of discussing “health” in terms of “obesity” as you probably are of hearing about it, but here we are again. The U.S. medical industry and American society continue to push an idea of “good health” that revolves around body fat and obscures the roles that capitalism, America’s healthcare infrastructure, and unregulated corporations play in keeping Americans sick. This narrative conveniently fits the capitalist ‘bootstraps’ theory that has been used to shame and blame working class people since the advent of capitalism. The capitalist ‘bootstraps’ theory is the belief that anyone can become rich if they just work hard enough and, therefore, working class people that do not move up the economic ladder are lazy, have weak moral values, and are at fault for their position in society. Working class people are then told that they just need to “pick themselves up by their bootstraps.” Similarly, the “obesity” narrative posits that anyone can become thin (not healthy, not even weigh less, just thin) if they work hard enough by only consuming healthy food and exercising. Those that do not exist in thin bodies are then labeled as lazy and having weak moral values, etc. However, as illustrated in this essay, that is just not the reality. I mentioned that the healthcare industry and doctors discriminate against people of color. In a similar fashion, doctors and the healthcare industry discriminate against fat people, who face high rates of being misdiagnosed or just outright not treated as documented in the article, “Everything You Know about Obesity is Wrong.” It is well-documented that people from other minority groups, including disabled people, working class people, and more, face similar discrimination from doctors. America’s relationship with “obesity” is a complex and multifaceted issue and should not be treated as lightly as it is. A good rule of thumb to remember is that the notion of what is “healthy” or “unhealthy” is subjective and will vary based on cultural views. However, human beings are not “healthy” or “unhealthy.” People live in poverty due to capitalism and in high-stress environments due to racism and white supremacy. People live with conditions, diseases, and disabilities, and they are equal to able-bodied people and should be treated as such. 

The South

In America’s imagination, version of history, and popular culture, the South is both the boogeyman and a scapegoat for its worst sins. Because of the (completely honest and unbiased) U.S. history lessons I received, I grew up terrified of the South, a place where danger was imminent for a Black woman like myself. Famous for the Klan, the Confederacy (with proudly displayed Confederate flags), and explicit racism, I vowed never to set foot in the South out of fear for my life.

Despite this, I did eventually end up visiting the South—I have family living in Texas. I have heard second-hand stories about what living with explicit racism is like—some of these stories sound like they are straight out of the Civil Rights era. They are shockingly different from the culture I am accustomed to living in on the West Coast, in California no less. When I traveled abroad recently, I met Americans from all of the other regions of the U.S. When some heard that I am from California, they commented on how much better it must be because of the liberal culture. That is true in some ways, because there is no comparison to living in a red state with explicit racism as a person of color. California also has a stronger infrastructure and social safety net than other parts of the country that is due to left-leaning policies. However, other people of color and I have noticed that living in blue California with implicit racism is just as harmful, albeit in sneakier and more camouflaged ways. 

This state of affairs creates a dichotomy—the good, blue liberal California/West Coast and the bad, red, bigoted, and conservative South. The good, blue liberal label can also apply to the similar cultures of the East Coast. Like all sweeping generalizations, these snapshot labels hide the complexity and nuance of the South (especially Black culture in the South) and the concealed racism and bigotry of blue liberal states like California and New York. This dichotomy is reinforced through U.S. history textbooks, news media outlets, and popular culture depictions in film and television. The blue, liberal coasts (East and West) also have a reputation for being more affluent and therefore powerful, which is why U.S. media around the world is dominated by people with a generic American accent (like the California accent that I have). In the U.S., when Southern people or people with Southern accents are portrayed in the media, they are often characterized as uneducated, racist/bigoted, and working class. 

The few times I have seen films and television set in the South, I have enjoyed the accents, the culture, and just seeing a different side of America than the California Hollywood tends to focus on. When I visited my family in Texas, we took a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana, a place so rich in culture, with such an incredible nightlife and delicious food, it is no wonder to me that it is being gentrified by people from the Coasts. I distinctly remember it having a metropolitan air that might come from being a tourist trap, I don’t think I can really know just from visiting. But I do remember loving it there. I am currently rewatching True Blood, a TV show set in the fictional Louisiana town Bon Temps, which reminds me of this. While the show is about mythological creatures living amongst humans in an alternate universe of the South, it simultaneously grapples with the current and historical issues the South is famous for. In an Atlantic article titled, “The Most Important Character on ‘True Blood’: The South,” the author discusses how vampires and the political gambit surrounding them in the show serve as a metaphor for the struggle for LGBTQIA+ rights in the ultra-conservative Bible Belt South. However, like many stories created by White people, True Blood’s fictional universe glazes over the issues of racism, trivializes slavery, and deploys stereotypes (Tara being the ‘Angry Black Woman’).

The election of Trump brought the South and other red states to the front of America’s political consciousness. In line with the coastal generalization of the South, the mainstream media claimed that Trump was elected by uneducated, working class, bigoted White people living in the South and parts of the Midwest. People that were left behind and hit hard by closing factories and mines and industrialization, and those who believed the conservative hype that immigrants were to blame for “stealing their jobs.” This may be partly true: working class White people in red states did help elect Trump. However, wealthy White people in these states (and even blue states) also voted to elect Trump, according to the Atlantic article, “Donald Trump is the First White President.” What worries me about the scapegoating of the working class South for racism, homophobia, and other social ills, is that this actually allows these social ills to remain unconfronted while reinforcing classism. I previously wondered why there are more overweight people in the Midwest and the South, before identifying one of the causes as having less access to money and resources that wealthier regions of California typically have. My friend suggested that it is because the South has way tastier (and therefore fatty) food than California does on average. Regardless, I don’t know what it is like to live in the South or any red state as a Black woman, and I can’t begin to imagine. But I do want to revisit someday, and I know that my location limits my knowledge of the region. 

The Good Place

“In America, everyone does whatever they want [and] society did break down. It’s terrible, and it’s great. You only look out for number one [and] scream at whoever disagrees with you. There are no bees because they all died, and if you need surgery, you just beg for money on the internet. It’s a perfect system.”

- Eleanor Shellstrop, The Good Place

One of my favorite television shows is NBC’s The Good Place. It’s a hilarious satire of life in the U.S. and an imagining of the afterlife as illustrated through philosophical principles. Like the subject of philosophy itself, the show grapples with questions of morality and how one truly becomes a good person. The basic premise of the show is that the four main characters, Eleanor, Tahani, Jason, and Chidi, are humans that died on Earth and went to “The Good Place.” However, they eventually discover that they are being psychologically tortured in an alternate version of the Bad Place as they learn about the afterlife universe, including demons and the actual Bad Place. Philosophical theories (created by dead White men) serve as plot vehicles in the show, including the famous trolley problem. I recognize some of them from my undergraduate Introduction to Ethics class, which I found super interesting too. Philosophy professors and experts even served as consultants on the show.

I enjoy that the main character, Eleanor Shellstrop, is a White-American woman that is unabashedly terrible or as she words it, an “Arizona dirtbag.” She is the anti-heroine of the four humans sent to the alternate Bad Place and the one that most embodies the concept of a bad person. This is a stark contrast to the archetypal characterization of White women as pure, virginal, innocent victims at risk of being harmed, one that still serves to criminalize people of color today. Eleanor’s antics both on Earth (as we are shown in flashbacks) and in the afterlife are a source of hilarity on the show. It is through said flashbacks that we discover why and how Eleanor, Tahani, and Jason became the people that they are. They were shaped by their parents and life circumstances. Eleanor became a notoriously horrible person because her parents were horrible people that abused and neglected her, and this taught her not to care about other people and to only look out for herself. I loved this plotline because of the truth it holds: we are all shaped by our life circumstances and we become who we are based on them and other factors. So how can anyone be judged as inherently good or bad? The humans discover that the afterlife’s algorithm for sending humans to the Good Place or the Bad Place is broken, and no human has gone to the Good Place in over five hundred years. So, it becomes the humans’ goal to evolve into better people, earn their places in the Good Place, and create a new system for placing humans that acknowledges their capacity for change.

Among Eleanor’s comrades are Chidi Anagonye, a Nigerian philosophy professor who grew up in Senegal; Jason Mendoza, a lovable doofus and hottie from Florida (I may or may not have a crush on Manny Jacinto); and Tahani Al-Jamil, a British Pakistani socialite and heiress that is obsessed with status (I may or may not have a girl crush on actress Jameela Jamil for being an amazing activist). The appearance of Jacinto and Jamil in The Good Place has been lauded as much-needed representation of Asian actors in Hollywood. Jacinto’s character Jason is considered a send-up of the model minority myth because he is a hot jock/airhead as opposed to a highly intelligent and nerdy character. However, some critics have pointed out that creating either a very intelligent stereotypical character or a very unintelligent character (like Jason) is still objectifying. Jameela Jamil brings her acting chops to the show along with body diversity: she is a tall, brown-skinned woman with a relatively curvy body. Body diversity is important because representation matters: it influences how people view and treat each other in real life.

However, nothing compares to Jameela Jamil in real life (I recommend following her social media accounts, including her I Weigh Instagram and Twitter pages). She is an outspoken activist for body neutrality, or being neutral towards the appearance of bodies and focusing on their functions, and regularly impresses with her ability to learn, grow, and her willingness to center people more marginalized than her, including fat, Black, disabled women, among others.

Jameela Jamil, like her character Tahani, is South Asian (Pakistani and Indian) and hails from Britain, where she developed anorexia as a teenager because of society and the media’s emphasis on thin women. After recovering from anorexia, she later fell ill and took a medication that caused her to gain weight. At the time, Jameela was a TV and radio presenter in England, and her weight gain led to her public crucification by the British media. What I appreciate most about Jameela is that although she was able to return to her original, straight-size, she hasn’t forgotten what it was like to be plus-size and how she was treated. She fights for other people to this day and that is truly admirable. However, it came to my attention that Jameela allegedly plagiarized the sentiments of plus-size Black British blogger Stephanie Yeboah in building her body neutrality activism and I Weigh platform (a Twitter and Instagram page, podcast and YouTube channel that encourage women to value their positive attributes outside of their weight and looks). The two have since made amends and Yeboah appeared on an episode of Jameela’s I Weigh podcast. In 2020, Jameela took a high-profile position as a judge on voguing competition show Legendary, and received backlash for this decision. It is a job that should have gone to a member of the Black and Latinx transgender voguing community. These are mistakes that she should apologize for and rectify on her journey of growth.

Other representations in The Good Place include Maya Rudolph, a biracial Black actress as a God-like character and Nicole Byers, a plus-size Black comedienne as an employee of the actual Good Place. What I noticed about the episode in which we partially see the actual Good Place is that many of the employees and residents are plus-size. I like the idea that this imagery fosters: that plus-size people are not only equal human beings but celestial and integral to the operation of the Good Place in the afterlife. Other than this, it appears that the afterlife is largely operated and controlled by White folk. This is only worrisome because we are living in a world that was largely colonized by this group and that is also largely being destroyed by wealthy corporations run by members of this group. The Good Place’s quandary has been summarized as the impossibility of ethical consumption under capitalism. A viewer pointed out that only Indigenous people defy the evils of capitalism. But as Janet (the neutral robot-like being operating the fake Good Place and then aiding the four humans) states in the last episode of season 3: “If there were an answer I could give you to how the universe works, it wouldn’t be special . . . it would just be a big, dumb food processor.” Only time will tell.

What Decolonization
Means to Me

Decolonization means centering Black and Indigenous people.

Decolonization means acknowledging that anti-Indigenous and anti-African sentiment are synonymous and exist.

Decolonization means acknowledging that African and Indigenous people exist and are still subjected to colonialism, including in the U.S.

Decolonization means recognizing and working to stem the national crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirits, and Trans people (MMIWG2ST) in conjunction with Indigenous struggles around the world.

Decolonization means recognizing that the MMIWG2ST crisis is fueled by colonialism and the devaluation of Indigenous people that feeds misogyny, misogynoir, and violence against women, non-binary, transgender, and queer people.

Decolonization means remembering that African and Indigenous women are revered and central figures in many African and Indigenous cultures.

Decolonization means recognizing all of the ways that settler states are formed and continue to profit at the expense of Black and Indigenous people, including the medical industrial complex.

Decolonization means preserving and bringing back African and Indigenous practices and knowledge for the physical and spiritual well-being, care, and celebration of Black and Indigenous people and cultures around the world.

Decolonization means dismantling the pervasive hatred of Black and Indigenous women, facial features, skin tones, bodies and fat in relation to White beauty standards that devalue us, and lead to higher rates of domestic violence.

Decolonization means using this knowledge to heal ourselves and cultivate Black and Indigenous joy, love, community, and healthy relationships.

Third Culture People in Film:
My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Bend it Like Beckham

Two films I loved growing up are My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) and Bend it Like Beckham (2002). The two films have a lot of similarities. Released in 2002, they are both indie films with small budgets that were unexpected huge box office hits. Most notably, the two films were about the triumphs and struggles of immigrant children trying to navigate culture clash while staying true to themselves. While the films star the Greek-American daughter of a Greek family in Chicago, Illinois, and the British Indian daughter of Indian immigrants in England, respectively, any third culture person (a person that was raised with two or more cultures) will find their stories familiar. 

My Big Fat Greek Wedding opens with Toula, a full-figured, thirty-year-old, Greek-American woman who works at her immigrant family’s restaurant in Chicago, Illinois, as a seating hostess. Toula’s extended family is concerned for her because as a Greek woman, she is “way past her expiration date” for marriage. Toula, like so many full-figured women on film before her, is depicted as a frumpy woman who does not like her life and wears baggy clothes, glasses, and has dull, listless brown hair. After her father, aunt, and uncle discuss sending her to Greece to find a husband, Toula suddenly has a change of heart. She wants to make a change in her life and starts by asking for her father’s permission to start a computer course, which he vehemently refuses because it is not a woman’s place to pursue higher education, only to get married. Her mother argues with her father and convinces him to let Toula take a computer course at their local community college.

The patriarchal role and attitude of Toula’s Greek father is a source of tension throughout the film. This patriarchal role is evident from her father complaining that Toula is “looking old” and needs to get married to his upholding of strict gender roles in which his thirty-year-old waitress daughter cannot get an education and must depend on men all of her life (if not him, then a Greek husband). This last requirement is the main point of contention in the film. When Toula starts school, she also starts doing her makeup, curling her hair, and dressing in cute clothes. Soon after this, she meets her boyfriend turned fiancé Ian, a tall, White-American man with long brown hair. As Toula becomes happier and happier with her life, her father becomes more and more distraught, eventually wearing on Toula’s happiness. Toula’s father is so unhappy because he wants her to marry a Greek man, and having his thirty-plus-old daughter live at home unhappy while her relatives worry is a preferable alternative to allowing her happiness with a foreign man. However, Toula’s father comes around, as strict parents are wont to do, and the film culminates in a Big Fat Greek wedding. But before this, it is nice to see Toula’s extended Greek family accept Ian as their own because he loves Toula.

Bend it Like Beckham has similar plot devices. British Indian teenager Jess is a huge football (soccer) fan. She avidly watches matches and is a big fan of David Beckham, Britain’s premier footballer at the time. She is also a tomboy, hangs out with the guys, and plays football with them in the park. All of this is distressing to her traditional Indian parents who are concerned with gender roles and prefer for Jess to “act like a lady.” While Jess’s parents encourage her to get all A’s in her A-levels and go to university, they request that she stop playing football because it is for boys and that she engage in more feminine activities, like learning how to cook aloo gobi. However, Jess gets tapped to play for her local girls’ football team and she excels at it while trying to hide her new activity from her family. Despite getting into deeper and deeper trouble after getting busted by her parents, Jess perseveres for her love of the game. One of the best moments in the movie is Jess’s dad’s speech after he witnesses her natural talent and has a change of heart, giving her his blessing. “I want her to fight, and I want her to win.” 

Jess, like Toula, has a “perfect” older sister who better fulfills their gender role and marries a man of their ethnicity, to their wider community’s joy. Jess, like Toula, butts heads with patriarchal notions but is eventually accepted by her father. Jess, like Toula, feels like the black sheep in her family and finds happiness with a White man to her family’s initial consternation. This is my first critique of these two films and so many others like them—the white savior trope. These films and other forms of media fortify the idea that if you are the black sheep in your family, a woman of color, a daughter of immigrants, or otherwise a damsel in distress, you will be “saved” by a White man. This is not to say that Jess and Toula were not strong female protagonists who fought rigid gender roles and cultural norms in their families and won; they are, and they did. However, the continued appearance of the white savior trope suggests that strong female protagonists that are women of color and/or part of immigrant communities cannot find love with men of their ethnicity because they are just too much for them. Furthermore, while Bend it Like Beckham upended gender norms and biases against women in sports in both Desi and British culture, it simultaneously upheld homophobia in both cultures in the form of a running joke. Jess’s best mate (friend) and football teammate Juliet is also a tomboy and Juliet’s mother panics because she thinks that they are lesbians. Jess’s family confuses Juliet for a boy because of her short hair, another off-kilter joke the film tries to play off. Empowering one community just to disempower another is never funny nor appropriate.

Despite these shortcomings, I have fond memories of these films because of the ways in which they portray the difficulties and fruits of navigating two cultures—the culture of immigrants from a homeland and the culture found in a new land. At points, each film beautifully blends the two cultures (Greek and American, Indian and British) to perfectly illustrate the realities of the films’ third culture stars. Both films end with beautiful cultural weddings and are peppered throughout with pop culture references from the new lands. In My Big Fat Greek Wedding, NSYNC member Joey Fatone plays Toula’s cousin while in Bend it Like Beckham, David Beckham and the Spice Girls are referenced throughout the film and David and Victoria Beckham have a “cameo” at the end. The films leave me feeling positive and hopeful that despite all of their differences, third culture people can overcome their hardships, achieve their dreams, and immigrant and non-immigrant communities can live in harmony at the end of the day. 

The Spice Girls

I was Scary Spice aka Mel B for Halloween for three years running, with dirty blonde curls, a choker, and a leopard-print catsuit. In honor of my favorite Scary Spice costume and lifelong love of the Spice Girls, this essay is about the mid-to-late 90s pop culture phenomenon.

The Spice Girls, a 90s British all-woman band, is still considered the most successful girl group of all time (at least in the West). According to Wikipedia, they are credited with the second British invasion of the U.S., the first one being The Beatles (huge deal!). I remember growing up with the Spice Girls in the U.S. and going to camp where I would talk to other little girls about which Spice Girl was our favorite. That was part of their universal appeal: the women had such different personas, outfits, and personalities that there was virtually someone for everyone. I distinctly remember Baby Spice being the most popular in my circles at the time. Of course, my favorite was and still is Scary Spice, whom I so wanted to be as a little girl. My older brother even got me a red Spice Girls raincoat for Christmas one year that I have regrettably lost track of. But the most magical thing about the Spice Girls is that they were so different from one another, yet they complemented each other perfectly and became friends in real life, coming to embody their group slogan of #GirlPower. Critics have rightly pointed out that the Spice Girls marked the beginning of the commodification of feminism, or the use of feminist slogans, ideals, and imagery to make profits. The Spice Girls have also been criticized for simultaneously promoting beauty ideals to girls and women. While there is truth to these statements, the Spice Girls also had a positive impact, preached women’s empowerment, and came to defy the corporate formula that started it all.

The Spice Girls were initially the brainchild of predominantly White, male corporate executives attempting to create the next big thing on the music scene. However, the name Spice Girls, their different personas, and memorable outfits were all the creation of the women. That is a cool thing about the girl group—each member got to dress and act like themselves. This led British gossip magazines to nickname them Scary, Sporty, Baby, Posh, and Ginger, which they graciously accepted. Mel C was nicknamed Sporty Spice because she was a tomboy that preferred to wear tracksuits and trainers (sneakers) during performances, music videos, and public outings. Victoria Beckham (honestly, I can’t even remember her maiden name) was nicknamed Posh Spice because she liked high fashion and heels and was the only group member from a middle-class background. Mel B earned the moniker Scary Spice because she was the loud, punk rock, rebellious one with a boisterous attitude, voluminous afro-curly hair, and a tongue piercing. In fact, she might be the first Black punk to break out on the scene in recent history. Her outfits often incorporated leopard print and chokers, including her iconic leopard print catsuit. Emma Bunton earned the nickname Baby Spice because she was the youngest, had a baby face, and a preference for wearing baby doll dresses. Geri Halliwell, the oldest and ringleader (when it wasn’t Mel B), was nicknamed Ginger Spice for her fiery red hair. She has described her style in clothing as a combination of the other women, and in my opinion, specifically Posh and Baby Spice. Both Ginger and Baby Spice often wore high-top platform boots as part of their ensembles; Ginger wore said boots with her iconic Union Jack dress.

This background is integral to why the Spice Girls were so relatable, inspiring, and loved by women and girls of all ages. They were so vastly different, perceived as having humble beginnings, and yet created a perfect sound together. The Spice Girls’ music involved the five of them harmonizing to catchy pop tunes that had an R&B vibe and sound to them. Cue global mega superstardom and success culminating in the cult hit movie, Spice World. The following reasons are why I believe the Spice Girls were such a global hit and good role models: 1. They each got to express their individuality, were loud and outspoken, and wore envelope-pushing outfits for the time, leaving a lasting legacy on both fashion and pop music. 2. They truly embodied their slogan #GirlPower by highlighting female friendships on a global stage (though they had their share of disputes) and putting themes of friendship and female empowerment in their music. 3. The Spice Girls were unintentionally representative of the British public—all of the girls were working class, except for Posh Spice, Baby Spice had a fuller, curvier figure at a time when thin was just becoming the beauty standard, and Scary Spice, the only mixed-race and Black group member, is bisexual (Sporty Spice, rumored to be a lesbian at the time, is actually heterosexual). I wish equal representation were presented without fanfare and beyond tokenism. Can you imagine a world where race, class, sexuality, and body size/shape are accommodated to the point of no longer being social issues? That is the kind of world I aspire to build and live in.

Charmed

In wake of the news that 2018 would bring a reboot of the late 90s/early 2000s television show Charmed, I decided to afford myself a walk down memory lane. While the reboot will be more diverse than the usual TV fare (it will feature Latinas as the three sister witches, one of whom will be lesbian), the casting of three White and/or light-skinned Latinas is not a far cry from the original’s casting of three White Anglo-Saxon (or Anglo-Saxon-passing) women. Hopefully, as Mitu article, “The CW Just Confirmed That All Three Witches in the ‘Charmed’ Reboot Will Be Latina,” suggests, the show will take the opportunity to explore racism and colorism within the Latinx community. Nevertheless, my 90s kid nostalgia fills me with doubt when contemplating a remake. I would prefer an entirely new show, with a new title, and new plotlines, allowing audiences/critics to make their own comparisons. The original formula is hard to recreate because it is situated in its time of the late 90s and early 2000s. Here is a list of the best and worst things about the original show, in my humble opinion:

Three twenty-something sisters live in a house that they own in San Francisco, CA

Wow. I went to school in the San Francisco Bay Area and can I just say living there is so expensive that I shudder at the thought of having to pay rent there, and I am from Los Angeles. However, costs aside, living in the Bay Area was a great experience. Add living with your sisters who are around your age and function as built-in friends to the mix, and we have reached dream status. It helps that I am soon to embark on living and working on my own (and I hope to get an apartment with roommates to help me afford rent but also, in best case scenario, to be built-in friends). Although the feat of homeownership in San Francisco sounds like incredibly good fortune, pun intended (and something increasingly afforded only by exceptional wealth and whiteness), the actual story of how the Charmed sisters inherited their home is tragic. Their mother died when they were young, their father left the family before that, and their grandmother who raised them also died, leaving them with only each other.

They own a club called P3, which featured hit bands of the late 90s/early 2000s

Did I mention that this show began in the 90s? The soundtrack featured songs from hit bands of the era who often played live sets on the show in the sisters’ club, P3. Episodes often featured the sisters hanging out at P3, going on dates, dancing in cute outfits, and watching live performances from the hot musical acts of the time. Plus, while the sister witches were often preoccupied with fighting demons, warlocks, and other evils, they did not always have the time to hold down full-time jobs. The income from P3 was able to sustain them. Now, we are veering into full-on fantasy status: three twenty-something sisters living in a house they own in San Francisco and enjoying the hot musical acts of the time while making money via the club that they also own. This plot device was a clever way for the show’s producers to secure its spot as pop culture gold: by incorporating the performances of celebrity musicians. However, as the next number on the list will demonstrate, the Charmed sisters’ lives were far from perfect.

Charmed contains a lot of supernatural mythology and folklore

The three Halliwell sisters are said to be descended from one of the witches burned during the Salem witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts, in colonial America. Prue has the power of telekinesis and can move things with her mind, a flick of her hands, and the power of astral projection. Piper has the power to freeze time and to blow things up with a motion of her hands. Phoebe has the power of premonition or to see things that happened in the past or will happen in the future, as well as the power to levitate. Along with these magical gifts, the sisters inherited a book of spells and potions called the Book of Shadows, which guides them in their mission to protect innocents by vanquishing demons, warlocks, and other evil creatures. The Book of Shadows has the ancient Celtic symbol Triquetra on the cover, which is supposed to symbolize the powers of the three sisters or the Power of Three. Honorable mentions for episodes that feature folklore or mythology: the wendigo, succubus, cupid, the seven deadly sins, banshee, the classic fairy tales, siren, and leprechauns (these are just my favorites). The show demonstrated that the work of the Charmed Ones was never done and they risked their lives each episode to do it. The eldest sister, Prue, even died at the end of season three, only to be replaced by half-sister Paige who had similar powers. Prue’s death and exit from the show is only partially why I think the first three seasons are the best; one review declared that the show lost its 90s vibe after the third season. But there are some enjoyable episodes in seasons four and five. Any season after that, or seasons six to eight, are just insufferable to me and I cannot watch them (except for season six, episode seventeen, ‘Hyde School Reunion.’ It has a 90s vibe because it features Phoebe’s high school reunion and flashbacks. It reminds me of seasons one through three of the show). Actually, a big reason why I could continue watching seasons four and five is in the next list item.

The Relationships

Honestly, what would a show about three conventionally attractive twenty-something sisters be without a steady string of love interests and romantic plotlines? As much as the show is about sisterhood, family, and magic, it also prominently featured the sisters dating and having relationships. However, in my eyes, there are only two relationships that stand out enough to be worth mentioning and they happen to be the longest running relationships featured in the entire series. The first one, which pretty much lasted for the whole series, is the relationship turned marriage of Leo, a whitelighter or guardian angel, and Piper. This relationship had its heartfelt moments and ultimately worked because Leo was a series regular, whereas all the other guys were guest stars on the show. One of the best episodes of the series is the one in which Piper and Leo get married (for real, not the fake-out time) in season three, episode fifteen, ‘Just Harried.’ This relationship modeled what a healthy, supportive relationship can look like, as Leo literally watched over, loved, and protected Piper and her sisters. One of my favorite episodes is season five, episode seventeen, “Cat House,” a flashback episode. “Cat House” is sentimental and reminisces Leo and Piper’s relationship and how it is the backbone of the show. The second relationship (and my favorite) was between Phoebe and Cole, a half-human, half-demon that was introduced as trying to kill the Charmed Ones. He unwittingly fell in love with Phoebe after he was hired as an assassin, a situation that led to some comical scenes. However, Phoebe and Cole’s relationship came to be representative of toxic and abusive relationships, starting with the fact that Cole was initially trying to kill Phoebe and her sisters. Cole’s character development and the graying of the lines between good and evil was great material. The show demonstrated how women fall for bad guys: by loving the good inside of them over the bad. Cole reminds me of the fact that there are no completely bad nor completely good people and that everyone has shades of both. However, Phoebe and Cole didn’t work out because Cole’s bad side eventually won. The moral of the story is that two people can love each other, but that doesn’t mean that they will (or should) end up together. Yet, the electric chemistry between the actors made the relationship a fan favorite, which sparked criticisms of the show for glamorizing abusive relationships.

Although this was a Women-centric show, Women were being mistreated behind the scenes

Although Charmed was created by a woman (Constance M. Burge), featured women in all of the main roles, and sported a fan base of mostly women, it was men that held the most power behind the scenes. Some of the Charmed actresses described sexist behavior and abuse at the hands of male showrunners on sets while filming Charmed episodes. Apparently, the show only ever had one female director who was pushed out due to her mistreatment by the all-male crew. Even Constance M. Burge, the woman who created the show and based the three sisters on herself and her two sisters, allegedly left her position as Executive Producer after the first two seasons because of disagreements with a male producer. It is disappointing that a project created and sustained by women was riddled with sexism and made to benefit men first and foremost.

The lack of People of Color in the cast

People of color and especially women of color were never fully represented on Charmed. They played small roles as witches, demons, or warlocks in single episodes, frequently getting killed off by the end. This serves as a metaphor for the disposability of people of color in White-American communities. Furthermore, the series did not feature one queer, disabled, or plus-size actor or character, leaving room for improvement on these fronts. The one series regular who is a person of color, Darryl, appears sporadically and plays a minor role. The Charmed universe could have definitely benefited from more fully developed characters of color.

The same could be said for another supernatural late 90s to early 2000s show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy, like Charmed, had no main characters of color, and people of color were often killed off in the show. Buffy also contained racism, fatphobia, and white supremacy (e.g., all of the women of color slayers are killed, and Buffy and Faith, who are White women, survive). However, Buffy did have a lesbian main character, Willow Rosenberg, and prominently showed lesbian relationships. Additionally, while Charmed never acknowledges the sordid history of the U.S. or how the Charmed Ones’ ancestors figured into it, Buffy did in the season four Thanksgiving episode ‘Pangs.’ I appreciate that the Buffy writers had the characters grapple with the unsavory history of White settlers committing genocide against Indigenous peoples to create modern-day America. The Buffy characters discussed guilt about this on Thanksgiving and debated whether the descendants of pilgrims should be accountable for those wrongs. Even just an acknowledgment of this history and the possibility of accountability is way more than any white media accomplished in that era or since.

Muriel’s Wedding

When I watched the quirky 1994 Aussie film Muriel’s Wedding for the first time, it was just what the doctor prescribed. I wanted to watch it because I am always looking for positive representations of plus-size women. However, I was initially put off by the lackluster and downright offensive descriptions HBO has given the film. From HBO’s website: “Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense) is the ‘ugly duckling’ of this ‘romping, bittersweet comedy’ (The Hollywood Reporter) about an ugly, overweight and often inappropriate young woman who yearns to walk down the aisle . . . even though she’s never had a date! It all leads to an adventure that is both funny and poignant.” I, as well as many others, take offense to the false notion that fat and ugly are synonymous, which a lot of thin people seem to mistakenly believe. Toni Collette in Muriel’s Wedding is not ugly just because she doesn’t look like the barbie doll clones (see the article, “Barbie Girls Living in a Barbie World” by Alyssa Deguzman) the film and Western societies at large posit as beautiful. HBO On Demand describes Muriel as an “overweight outcast” trying to get out of her hometown. Both of these descriptions undersell the film and do not do it nor the character justice.

I loved Muriel’s Wedding from start to finish: it felt like a romp all the way through. But it also seems very realistic, like it is real life set in 90s Australia. From the very beginning, viewers are made privy to the social circumstances that deem Muriel undesirable and a “loser.” She is overlooked by everyone in her small town, including her so-called friends, who berate her for catching a bouquet at one of their weddings because she’s “never even had a boyfriend.” Later, we are introduced to Muriel’s family, headed by her verbally abusive and bullying father. Not long after the wedding, Muriel is getting drinks with her barbie doll clone friends, when they tell her they don’t want her hanging around them anymore because she dresses weird, doesn’t do her hair right, listens to 70s music in the 90s, and is fat. This really resonated with me, because I have always been friends with people that are smaller than me and have often been mistreated. Naturally, I blamed myself and internalized this hatred when I was younger and more impressionable (from high school to college) and sometimes, on a bad day, I still do. However, reading memoirs and articles by other plus-size women, especially Black women, about how the world has mistreated them too (including their friends and partners), soothes my psyche and reassures me that it isn’t just me. Two such articles are, “Being the Fat Friend” by Simone Mariposa and “The Unbearable Weight of Fatphobia: A Conversation with Samantha Irby” by Sherronda J. Brown. Lindy West’s memoir Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman is superbly written and in a similar vein; in fact, it was made into a television show, Shrill. The show’s first season is as good as the memoir at breaking down how fatphobia permeates our everyday lives. Although Shrill contains positive plus-size representation, critics have observed that it falls short in the depiction of main character Annie’s Nigerian best friend, Fran, and their friendship.

After following her bad friend group on a repurposed honeymoon, Muriel meets the love of her life, and not a guy or a romantic relationship. No, she meets her best friend Rhonda. Rhonda adores Muriel, stands up to her bad friend group, and runs off to Sydney with her to start a new life. Muriel’s friendship with Rhonda is her first good relationship after enduring an abusive family headed by her father, and her barbie doll clone friend group which she was never fully a part of. It is an indictment of the film industry that the positioning of Rhonda and Muriel’s friendship as the most important relationship in the story, is so rare. Muriel’s Wedding drives home the difference between bad friendships and a real friendship: I learned that one good friend can make all the difference in the world. Unlike the bulk of other films, which have taught me and society at large that the one relationship that matters in the end is a romantic relationship. At the end of the day, American society (and others I suspect) puts a premium on romantic relationships and ignores the importance and significance of platonic friendships. However, based on the writings I’ve seen on the subject, there is a consensus that friendship breakups are much harder than romantic relationship breakups. That’s because romantic beaus can come and go, but our friends are supposed to be a constant in our lives. The only other media I’ve seen that centers female friendships in recent years is HBO’s Insecure. The show’s fourth season is about the demise of the main characters’ friendship. It didn’t come to my attention until the fourth season that the only plus-size woman in Insecure’s friend group, Kelli Prenny, is the butt of the jokes, a collection of fat tropes, and solely comedic relief. She does not have a fully developed storyline or character growth like the small women do, as illustrated in the article, “Remember Me Different’: Kelli and an Exploration of Plus-Size Characterizations in HBO’s Insecure.”

Due to the hate Muriel received from her family and bad friend group in her hometown of Porpoise Spit, she longs to get married and show everyone that she is a success and not a so-called loser. It is important to note here that Muriel doesn’t necessarily want a partner or a marriage, just the appearance of one through a wedding to improve her social status. There is a scene in which Muriel watches Princess Diana’s wedding on the TV monitor at her job at a video store. This scene highlights Muriel’s motivation for getting married—nothing says social status gained through marriage like marrying into Britain’s royal family via a Royal Wedding. I blogged about the visual significance of Meghan Markle’s Royal Wedding in a post about living in England for a year. I noted that a woman’s marriage (or any kind of partnership, especially with a man) is not and should not be considered her only value. I also wrote that while this is true, representation still matters. It was uplifting to see a woman from a historically maligned and “undesirable” group (Black women) be celebrated as a bride on such a huge and international scale.

The climax of the film occurs when Muriel has a huge public wedding to an Olympic swimmer, complete with press and news coverage. However, for Muriel, this marriage isn’t about love: it’s a publicity stunt. The South African swimmer paid Muriel $10,000 to marry him so that he can become an Australian citizen and compete in the Olympics after a controversy surrounding apartheid in his own country. The use of apartheid as a plot vehicle was done frivolously and therefore does a disservice to the issue. Australia itself is a settler-colonial nation that has displaced native Aboriginal peoples. This ensures that societal ideals about women’s value will always affect and harm Aboriginal peoples the most, as Australia has harmed them in so many other ways. As part of the deal, Muriel must live with her new husband for four months to ensure that the government doesn’t become suspicious, after which they are both free to go their separate ways. Muriel loves every second of it—the press coverage and fame from being in magazines, becoming the toast of the town and the pride of Porpoise Spit, and of course, the big day itself, which resembled a Royal Wedding. Muriel loves these things because she feels that they assign her value and make her desirable and good in the eyes of people that saw her as a loser: her family and bad friend group. She even allowed the bad friends to be her bridesmaids at her wedding when they came crawling back after her catapult to fame. However, she abandoned a newly paralyzed Rhonda in the process, who was forced to give up their apartment in Sydney and move back in with her mother in Porpoise Spit: her worst nightmare.

It was heinous and selfish of Muriel to abandon her only true friend, Rhonda, for fame and money. She was obsessed with how people saw her and wanted so desperately to “be someone” and valued that she would marry and live with a total stranger for four months (although the $10,000 payoff isn’t half bad: money equals survival). Although it would be easy to write Muriel off as being as shallow and self-obsessed as her bad friend group, the film gives viewers the sense that there is more to it. Muriel was judged very harshly and treated poorly by the people in her life, and at the end of the day, how people perceive us translates directly to how they treat us. Muriel didn’t make this world, but she is living in it and making it possible for her to thrive in it. The imagery of a plus-size woman getting married to a conventionally attractive and coveted male athlete is satisfying to me in a way that reminds me of Meghan Markle’s wedding. Everyone loves an underdog or a Cinderella story, and everyone wants to be seen and adored. The most glorious part of the film is when Muriel leaves her conventionally attractive husband (just as he is developing feelings for her) to switch the roles and rescue Rhonda from the bad friend group and being stuck at home with her mother. The scene where Rhonda and Muriel ride off into the sunset (back to Sydney) to the sound of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” is sweeter to me than the ending of any romantic film. 

Pandemic Reflections:
One Year Later

It has been a year since the COVID-19 pandemic descended on the world, I landed my dream job and wrote the blog post “Post-Grad Part II.” As one could imagine, a lot has happened in that time. I am happy to report that my dream job is still my dream job: I love working there and I know that I am contributing meaningfully to my communities, society, and the world. I really feel that I am putting my education, professional, and lived experience to good use and making a difference, as cliché as that sounds. That is very important to me and plays a big role in how I value myself—through my social contributions. While this world has always been a nightmare, between capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, racism, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, police brutality, etc., the COVID-19 pandemic has been no different. It has (predictably) resulted in the deaths of mainly Black and Brown essential workers and demonstrated what people like me knew all along: that privileged Americans could care less what happens to marginalized people, as aptly demonstrated in the LA Times Op-Ed, “A Chilling Pandemic Message for All of Us from the Twilight Zone.”

It was not lost on me a year ago, having recently been an essential worker, what a bullet I had dodged by landing my dream office job right after the pandemic began. It was already apparent to me that essential workers, most of whom are Black and Brown women like me according to The Roosevelt Institute, would be the biggest casualties of the pandemic. And it was clear to me because I experienced how harrowing being an essential worker already was before the pandemic. It nearly killed me and that is not hyperbole. The meager wages, abusive workplace, and unsafe working conditions took a toll on my mental and physical health and endangered the clients we served (I was a caretaker for adults with intellectual and development disabilities). As the pandemic progressed, I learned that adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities are at a heightened risk of contracting COVID-19 due to structural inequities. The same structural inequities embedded in the care work industry and for disabled individuals overall. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how important care work is to American society, as more people that fell ill became disabled and couldn’t work or take care of themselves completely anymore. It also highlighted what I and others were saying before the pandemic: that American society does not care about poor, fat, disabled, Black, and/or Indigenous people. 

It feels rotten to look at the silver lining and the blessings this pandemic has bestowed upon me while so many others have suffered. I recognize the immense privilege being able to work from home has afforded me in the pandemic. The pandemic brought about the conditions that allowed me to become the healthiest I have ever been, spiritually, mentally, and physically. I love working from home, not only because I am an introvert and excel when limiting interaction with others, but because it is less hassle—no waking up early to put on office clothes and battle traffic to and from work every day. I have more control over my schedule and how I use my time for the day. I can take walks and see my family and dog whenever I feel like it. Eventually, I realized that I enjoy the freedom the pandemic offers me in another way: the freedom of not interacting with others daily while being a plus-size Black woman. I read a blog post by a disabled woman who was reluctant for lockdown to end because she would be met by the myriad disparaging comments from people regarding her disability. I, too, have experienced unfair judgment and discrimination from people based on how I look, and this is an experience that I do not want back anytime soon. It is sad when you really think about it: how biased and unfair this society is toward certain groups.

Something else happened during this pandemic that I am extremely grateful for. I had the space and solitude to work through unresolved issues. I continued therapy, which I started before the pandemic. I was really lucky in that the woman I hired as my therapist through Medi-Cal had great chemistry with me and gelled with me. It helped that she is a plus-size White woman; she didn’t know everything, but our shared body type helped me connect with her. I healed from my tumultuous relationship that ended right before the pandemic began and the abandonment issues it brought up for me. I finally learned to let go of what is not meant for me and remain at peace with my relationship status. My therapist and I also worked through the PTSD-like symptoms I was experiencing due to the trauma of my essential worker job and other stressors prior to the pandemic. I finally learned lessons from past one-sided friendships and relationships. I have felt at peace and mentally well in a way that I have never felt before. I have stayed off of Facebook for over a year now and it feels great. I owe these breakthroughs in part to therapy, the solitude of the pandemic, and even just turning twenty-seven, which I’ve heard is when everything starts to make sense.

One of my favorite pastimes is to read autobiographies. There is something about the way people tell the stories of their lives that appeals to me. I find that these stories often contain gems and important life lessons. When I saw word of actress Rachel True’s autobiography, True Heart Intuitive Tarot, and the accompanying tarot card deck on Twitter, I knew in my gut that this was for me and I needed to read it. I did not regret buying the book and recommended it to others and even bought another copy for a friend. Rachel True and I have similar experiences as “alternative” Black girls, which is why this book and the films and TV shows Rachel has played similar characters in are important forms of representation. One chapter that I found particularly useful in learning from past mistakes was the chapter for “The Devil” tarot card. In the accompanying anecdote Rachel included along with the description of the card and its meaning (as was the style for the whole autobiography), she recounted a frustratingly dysfunctional love affair and the advice her friend who is lucky in love gave her. “It’s incredibly simple, really,” she said. “I only date men who are 100% into me.” But how do you know? By the effort they put into being with you and how they treat you, of course. “At first, I thought he was making me feel small and low, but then I realized it was me: it was my choice to be with him. I vowed never to put myself in that position again and broke up with him easily.” The friend had several successful relationships with men who adored her before settling down.

But what happens when desirability politics and body politics create circumstances in which no one adores you? Then wouldn’t your only option be to be alone? Life is inherently unfair. I’ve had the same thought while listening to the song “Adore You” by Harry Styles, witnessing Muriel and Rhonda’s loving friendship in Muriel’s Wedding, and watching 50 First Dates with yet another short-term beau. What if no one adores me? And it’s due to no fault of my own? Just the reality of existing, let alone dating, while being a plus-size Black woman (and gorgeous! No kidding). It is unfair, but I can at least say that mere days after my latest breakup, I am back to my happy-go-lucky self. This in itself is proof of my growth over the pandemic, the strengthening of my resiliency, and my resolve to just be happy even when things aren’t going my way. Life is too short to stress; what is meant for me will be mine, and I would just do myself a disservice by sweating it. And I am so grateful for that realization. 

Young Adult Books that Build Character

I believe that the children’s and young adult (YA) books I read growing up helped develop my character and personality. Many others have noted the power of young adult books to shape minds and values in children. This is largely why English was always my favorite and best class growing up: because I love reading, being transported into other stories and worlds, and most importantly, gleaning the moral lessons. I still love Greek mythology and other cultures’ folklore thanks to English class. However, I first started reading when my dad gave me the first Harry Potter book at six years old. I haven’t stopped loving to read (or write) since. Here are the books that impacted me as a kid.

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling - first grade

Well, this one practically goes without saying. Harry Potter was the gold standard for children’s literature for generations, loved by kids and adults alike. The book series became a zeitgeist and sold astronomical numbers around the world. The Harry Potter books were made into eight internationally high-grossing films. Not even this descriptor quite captures the global phenomenon Harry Potter became and how many hearts the books captured. Many children like me picked up on the social justice themes in Harry Potter and how they were formative in our own character development. For instance, the way the rich Malfoys treated the humbler Weasleys and other families badly (though importantly, what the Weasleys didn’t have in wealth, they more than made up for in love). Or how pure bloods (again, like the Malfoys) treated “mudbloods” like Hermione (born to two non-magical parents or muggles) and half-bloods (born to a muggle and a wizard or witch) as inferior due to their mixed bloodlines. All of this culminated in the ultimate struggle of the Harry Potter universe: the fight against bigoted pure bloods (whose genealogies contain only wizards and witches), their leader Lord Voldemort, and their effort to capture the magical world under a genocidal, authoritarian rule based on blood purity and related fascist ideas. This brings to mind the very real struggles of our world: against racism and white supremacy, poverty and exorbitant wealth, and against fascism in its many forms—all things we are still fighting and struggling against today. Along with these super important themes of justice and morality, right and wrong, and good vs. evil, the overriding message of Harry Potter was one of love. The message was that love beats bigotry, ignorance, and hatred. Who wouldn’t love that? As we now know, author J. K. Rowling is a flawed human being struggling with her own forms of bigotry. Critics have noted that Rowling’s description of goblins resemble caricatures of Jewish people and that her careless naming of Cho Chang and treatment of other characters of color was lacking. Most damning, Rowling has recently come out as an anti-transgender bigot. While she has unfortunately besmirched her legacy, Harry Potter’s impact remains. 

Marrying Malcolm Murgatroyd by Mame Farrell - third grade 

This is an adorable book about overcoming the social stigma and ostracization of disability. The main character, Hannah, is a girl in middle school who is endlessly embarrassed by her family’s friendship (and therefore her connection) with the parents of her disabled and unpopular classmate Malcolm Murgatroyd. Malcolm has muscular dystrophy and is less than suave, and Hannah cannot stand her association with him, nor being told by her parents that she will marry him someday. But eventually, Hannah grows up and starts to appreciate Malcolm for who he is, flaws and all. This book taught me that character is seeing people for who they are and not judging, being mean to, or ostracizing them because they are different or have perceived flaws. This is a great book for beginning conversations with kids about disability justice. 

The Giver by Lois Lowry- fourth grade 

I read The Giver in my fourth grade class. Later, I saw the movie based on the book when it came out in 2014; it was a good adaptation. The Giver is a dystopian novel that is short, easy to read, but nevertheless good for all ages because of the profundity of the story. Main character Jonah lives in a dystopian society where there is no color, people do not have biological families but state-ordered family units, and the state chooses everyone’s careers for them. One career for women is birth mother, so young girls are bred and then tasked with birthing all of the people in the society without any personal choice in the matter (reminiscent of the novel turned Hulu series The Handmaids Tale). Everyone takes a pill each morning that numbs their ability to feel emotion. However, there is one person in the society whose job is to hold the memories of the way Earth used to be: filled with color, music, love, holidays, joy, etc. But this person must also remember the pain: war, famine, poverty, death, agony. It is revealed that the pain and destruction of the world is why everything, including the ability to love, was taken away. It is revealed that Jonah is in training to fulfill this role for his society, and it is his duty to keep these things a secret in order to maintain order. But the ultimate moral of the story is that love trumps all, even the pain that comes with it, and it is worth fighting for. 

Holes by Louis Sachar - fifth grade 

I read Holes in my fifth grade class and I later enjoyed the Disney movie based on the book. The movie is one of the few that manages to be just as good as the book it is based on and to almost capture it perfectly. Holes recently came to my attention again thanks to a tweet by a millennial claiming that everyone she knew was profoundly changed by reading Holes. Upon rewatching the movie and revisiting the tale, it is not hard for me to see why. Holes is a young adult novel that contains plots about fatphobia, intergenerational poverty or “family curses,” interracial love and racism, white supremacy, reparations, and the prison industrial complex. Author Louis Sachar managed to create meaningful lessons about all of these things through an age-appropriate story that contains history, folklore, magic, and a happy Disney movie ending. Holes is truly a masterpiece, and I am glad that I and millions of American students got to read it and continue to every year. I am even happier that Holes has changed some of us for the better. Main character Stanley Yelnats is a poor, fat kid whose family has struggled with intergenerational poverty ever since his great, great, great-grandfather, who shares his name, brought a curse upon the family. Because Stanley is poor, he and other poor boys are targeted by the criminal justice system and sent to a work camp to dig holes in the desert in order to “build character.” However, it is actually because the warden is trying to find a lost treasure chest full of money and riches that happened to be stolen from Stanley’s great-grandfather. It is a story spanning two centuries, starting when Stanley’s great, great, great-grandfather immigrated to the U.S. from Latvia (Eastern Europe), to his great-grandfather’s misfortune in the American Great Plains, and finally to Stanley’s family living in Texas. It’s important that Holes deals with history starting with Stanley’s ancestor in Latvia, because it shows how the past shapes the present and that we are all implicated for what happened in the past and what our ancestors did, especially when certain people benefit from past injustices. It’s important that many of the poor kids in the unjust work camp are African-American due to intergenerational poverty, racism, and the original sins of the U.S., including slavery. The only thing I would criticize the book for is not having any Indigenous characters in the work camp to symbolize the immense wrongs America has committed against Indigenous peoples through ongoing genocide. It is meaningful that Stanley reversed his family curse by showing kindness to his friend at camp, Hector Zeroni, who is African-American. The eventual justice that Stanley’s family receives is then shared with Hector Zeroni’s family, reversing the curse of intergenerational poverty for both of them. It is a beautiful metaphor for reparations and the righting of wrongs against the people America has committed great injustices against: African-Americans, Indigenous peoples, and people living with intergenerational poverty.

Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman - fifth grade

Catherine, Called Birdy is another book I read that stays with me. Catherine, called Birdy, is a young girl in medieval England whose fate is to be sold to an ugly, old, rich man by her greedy father. However, she refuses to accept her fate and remains steadfast in her conviction, using her wit, trickery, and luck to evade an unhappy marriage. Catherine is inspiring because she refuses to give in even though the odds are against her. As a young girl in a medieval, patriarchal society, Catherine doesn’t have the power to determine the trajectory of her life, but she is strong, rebellious, and witty enough to change her fate anyways. Catherine is a great role model for young girls in that she defies gender norms to fight for herself and create a better life. She is reminiscent of the main character Danielle De Barbarac in the empowering retelling of Cinderella, “Ever After” (film circa 1998). This is a great book for fostering self-esteem, confidence, and countering harmful gender norms in young girls. 

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher - seventh grade

I read Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes in middle school and it was my favorite book for a long time. Main character Eric is a fat kid and his best friend, Sarah, is a girl in his grade who has scars on her face and arms. Both Eric and Sarah are bullied by the other children because of their physical differences. Eric feels especially motivated to protect Sarah because she is living with her abusive father, who killed her mother and gave Sarah her scars by burning her on the stove when she was younger. However, once Eric and Sarah reach high school, Eric joins the swim team and sheds the extra weight. But Eric doesn’t want to be distinguished from Sarah or to be treated better than her, so he stays fat in solidarity. One day, when Sarah stops talking and becomes institutionalized, Eric goes on a mission to save her from her father. This quest is a gripping tale involving family, friends, and even the criminal justice system. This is another great book for kids to learn about disability justice and fatphobia, domestic violence, child abuse, and bullying. This is a great book to help kids learn empathy for other children and adults that do not look like them. 

Before I Die by Jenny Downham - ninth grade

Before I Die was on my required summer reading list for high school. I recently reread it and it holds up as an adult. Before I Die is a young adult novel about a teenage girl who is dying of cancer and wants to really live before so. Set in Britain, the book contains a lot of British slang and terminology. This book could easily fall into the cliché, romantic drama, tearjerker cancer genre. However, I found it impactful and it still makes me cry (as deaths/cancer in stories often do). Protagonist Tessa is a teenager dying of leukemia who makes it her mission to make the most of her life as she goes through the impossible journey of leaving the Earth so young. As is wont to happen, tensions run high with her family and friends, but she is able to find true love before she dies, something she wanted from the beginning. The last chapter containing her ruminations on life as she lies dying while surrounded by her loved ones is truly a work of art and will make you see the world and life through a different lens. This is a good book for kids to learn about disability (cancer is a disability), to appreciate life, and to learn empathy. 

The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler - high school 

I first read The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things in high school of my own volition. I recently reread it and it holds up. Main character Virginia will feel familiar to people who have read YA lit about plus-size teens or who have been a plus-size teen. Virginia is a ball of anxiety and stress, worried about fitting in with her skinny and winsome family, and desperately trying to lose weight. At the same time, she is balancing a new romance, a new outlook on life and her body, and the aftermath of a rape allegation against her popular, jock older brother. This is a good book to educate teens about fatphobia, diet culture, and sexual assault. Virginia is a good role model for preteen and teen girls for building self-esteem and confidence. 

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas – adulthood

I read young adult novel The Hate U Give shortly after it was published in 2017. I first read about it in an LA Times review in which Adriana E. Ramirez observed that dystopian, apocalyptic, and sci-fi novels often have White main characters. However, as Ramirez noted, Black, Indigenous, and Brown people are the most affected by the apocalyptic aftermath of climate change and the dystopian reality of socioeconomic inequality. It is telling that The Hate U Give is only the second young adult novel I have read in which the main character is Black, as are the majority of the characters. I got to meet Angie Thomas, the book’s Black author from Mississippi, at the LA Times Festival of Books, where she signed my copy. The Hate U Give follows main character Starr Carter, who goes through the common dilemma of having to code-switch between her Black family and neighborhood and her White and upper-class private school and friends. Meanwhile, Starr is forced to deal with being the sole witness when a White police officer murders her childhood best friend. The tale that unfolds after this gives any YA dystopian thriller or sci-fi adventure a run for its money as Starr and company navigate the criminal justice system, police brutality and corruption, and protests and gang violence. Except this time, the story is real and one that is happening every day in the U.S. The Hate U Give is the Black Lives Matter book, as it depicts the struggle for racial justice, against police brutality, and the Black Lives Matter protests that have become more and more prominent since the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin (rest in power). In 2018, A movie based on the book came out and it did an excellent job of adapting the book into film (although there were a few details that were not the same as in the book). The Hate U Give is a young adult novel that is essential reading for all ages because of how relevant, truthful, and important its message is. 

Mekdela, Cultural Producer
& Social Influencer (Or What I Want My Legacy to Be)

Cultural Production

The social processes involved in the generation and circulation of cultural forms, practices, values, and shared understandings. (Oxford Reference)

The work of the culture industry. (Oxford Reference)

Social Influence(r)

The change in behavior that one person causes in another, intentionally or unintentionally, as a result of the way the changed person perceives themselves in relation to the influencer, other people, and society in general.
(ChangingMinds.org)

Today’s fashion bloggers and Instagram starlets, as defined by The Committee of Advertising Practise’s guidelines for social influencers. (British Vogue)

I may not have a large social media following or celebrity status. Nevertheless, here is what makes me a cultural producer and social influencer.

I have been a social and racial justice organizer from a young age as a result of my lived experiences. I came of age as the daughter of refugees in an upper middle-class neighborhood that is majority White. Not even newly acquired class privilege could protect me from the social exclusion brought about by these circumstances. Little did I know then that my identities as a plus-size, Black African, second-generation refugee woman would ensure that social exclusion would become a pattern throughout my life. This has helped shape me into an outspoken advocate, organizer, and writer.

I began conceptualizing myself as an oppressed person and organizing around body positivity when I was in high school. When I was younger, in middle school, I hated my body. I understood from the media and everyday social cues that to be desirable was to be thin, and I was therefore devastated that I was considered overweight. One day, against the chorus of popular opinion, I decided that I would accept myself; because if I didn’t believe in myself, no one would, and the same goes for love and respect. I began living my life and acting and dressing as if I was worthy along with a whole host of other plus-size people, and co-opted or not, we created a movement that has changed our cultural landscape. We collectively began the process to redefine what is socially acceptable and valued in our culture. However, as these essays collectively show, we still have a long way to go. 

My lived experiences have shaped me into a social justice advocate. I advocated for policies like affirmative action in high school, for racial justice in college, and I went on to become an immigration organizer and advocate as an adult. I created a platform to advocate for Black immigrants and Indigenous communities. I have dedicated my life to educating anyone and everyone who will listen on structural and institutional racism in the U.S. and around the world. I aspire to use my knowledge and experience to be a leader for my communities, including second-generation immigrants and refugees or third culture kids and adults like me. Since my parents immigrated to the U.S., they did not always have the tools to guide me through the obstacles that were placed in my way. That meant that I had to figure out how to navigate this tricky road by myself at times. I write to help others in similar situations to navigate their own way through hardship. 

My lived experiences led me to earn my bachelor’s degrees in Legal studies and Feminist studies with honors from UC Santa Cruz, which to this day is one of my proudest accomplishments. However, my college degrees do not make me. I took my lived experiences and combined this knowledge with Feminist theory written by Black women and women of color that have lived through similar things. Much to my delight, I was able to learn Critical Race and Feminist theory from Black women, women of color, queer, and radical professors that I am indebted to until this day. However, after leaving this safe cocoon and entering the real world, I became aware that this amazing space that I was so privileged to be a part of in college, is few and far in between in mainstream American society. Indeed, even today, different social justice movements and organizing spaces still center White people (e.g., how mainstream feminism centers White women, etc.). I am proud to be one of the Black women creating social change. I will forever be grateful for the Black, Indigenous, and other people of color that paved the way. 

In some ways, it seems American society has come a long way since when I was a teenager; and yet in other ways, it hasn’t budged a bit. Reflecting on my childhood, young adulthood, and my life today, it still shocks me how pervasive fatphobia is and how harmful it is. I am floored by the fact that something as common and mundane as body fat is still treated like such a big deal. At this point, the majority of people in several Western countries are considered overweight. However, the stigma and discrimination persist because of white supremacy, the medical industrial complex, toxic beauty standards, and media portrayals. Fatphobia has played a detrimental role in every single one of my interpersonal relationships. The essays in this collection demonstrate the many insidious ways that fatphobia shapes every aspect of our lives. The body positive movement and body positivity were started by plus-size Black women like me, but they became gentrified and now center White plus-size women and women at the smaller end of plus sizes. As we work to dismantle fatphobia, we must center fat Black and Indigenous women and non-binary people at the larger end of plus sizes; we must also dismantle capitalism and colonialism, or we will never succeed. 

About the Author:

Mekdela is an Ethiopian-American writer, advocate, and organizer. She is a contributor of the anthology, “Pan African Spaces: Essays on Black Transnationalism.” Her work has been featured in the North England Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Pennycress Zine. She is an avid student of Feminist theory and Critical Race theory. Mekdela earned her MA in Social and Public Policy from the University of Leeds, where she wrote about how the media and public perception shape each other and the public policies that create
our realities.