{"id":73235,"date":"2023-07-06T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-06T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=73235"},"modified":"2023-07-03T08:46:58","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T13:46:58","slug":"tv-doesnt-have-space-for-fatness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2023\/07\/06\/tv-doesnt-have-space-for-fatness\/","title":{"rendered":"TV Doesn\u2019t Have Space For Fatness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Television distorts, mocks and marginalizes fat people. Fat characters are reduced to caricatures whose stories and identities aren\u2019t developed and don\u2019t matter. In one study by Tzoutzou et al.<\/a>, all 36 compliments about appearance given to women were for thin women. Not one positive message was included for a woman of an average or overweight body type. For men, the same pattern was found: only one overweight character received a positive message.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Collage by Victoria Lieberman<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

These TV shows tell the audience that external beauty only resides in thinness and excludes anyone who deviates from this definition of beauty. Viewers can internalize this thin ideal, which in turn can make it difficult for the audience to feel good about themselves, especially if their body doesn\u2019t fit this body standard.\u00a0Seeing the treatment of fat people on TV can affect how viewers think about their own bodies, especially if their body type doesn\u2019t fit the thin ideal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bigger Bodies, Smaller Roles<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Not only is the representation of fat people overwhelmingly negative, but fat bodies are underrepresented on TV shows<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Comparison of female body types: television vs reality 1999-2000 (left)
Comparison of male body types: television vs reality 1999-2000 (right)
(Brownell et al. 2003<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

This pattern of dehumanizing fat people continues when they don\u2019t get the chance to develop their characters. They are often represented as a comedy sidekick or as villains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In comedy<\/a>, we often don\u2019t laugh with fat women, but at them. Overweight women are about twice as likely to be the reason for a joke than thinner women. They also have smaller roles, less romantic relationships, and are in \u201cfewer positive interactions than thin characters\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Media often represents fat characters as villains as well. One study by Himes and Thompson<\/a> \u201cfound that obesity was equated with negative traits (evil, unattractive, unfriendly, cruel) in 64% of the most popular children\u2019s videos\u201d. Examples of this can be seen in famous children\u2019s movies with characters such as Ursula from\u00a0The Little Mermaid\u00a0<\/em>or The Queen of Heartsfrom\u00a0Alice In Wonderland<\/em>. These villains help to draw the connecting line between fat and negative qualities Fat characters become less human than other characters who have full stories built around them.\u00a0Makers of TV don\u2019t just ignore fatness, they demonize it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Effects on the Audience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The negative portrayal of fat people in TV shows can lead audiences to internalize negative portrayals of being overweight. This internalization can happen quickly: a study by Fouts and Burggraf<\/a> found that only 30 minutes of watching TV can affect how a young woman views her body which can result in various external struggles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the study by Tzoutzou et al., girls agreed that the media influenced their desire to be thin and fit the beauty standard. This can cause frequent dieting because many eating problems are due to unrealistic body standards, an image that mass media often transmits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only can these misrepresentations of fat people lead to low self-esteem, but it can lead viewers to believe that they will be treated in the sexist ways<\/a> that they see on TV if they don\u2019t fit the body norm to avoid this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of these aspects have the potential to make a female viewer feel worse about themselves through their appearance and perceived reactions from other people rooted in fictional and distorted depictions on TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV Should be Fun for Everyone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

TV is a space that is meant to be enjoyed. But viewers can\u2019t sit back and relax with TV if they feel like their body is being judged by the shows that they put on. All bodies should feel like they have a space within TV shows. All bodies deserve to be seen by a wide audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tori Lieberman is a rising Sophomore at Hamilton college planning on studying Creative Writing and Sociology. You can find examples of her journalism here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Television distorts, mocks and marginalizes fat people. Fat characters are reduced to caricatures whose stories and identities aren\u2019t developed and don\u2019t matter. In one study by Tzoutzou et al., all 36 compliments about appearance given to women were for thin women. Not one positive message was included for a woman of an average or overweight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1893,"featured_media":73237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[100647,244,15,343],"class_list":["post-73235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-socstudentspotlight","tag-fat","tag-culture","tag-tvmovies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2023\/07\/chart1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73235"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73241,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73235\/revisions\/73241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}