Three things

1. I’ve been a big fan of Claire Robertson and Loobylu for years now, so I was tickled to be able to snag one of the prints of “Lily in the Garden” when she sold them on her Etsy last week. Since we’re moving in August it won’t get framed/hung until we’re in The Midwest, but I did take it out for a few pictures and squees:

2. Via Alison Bechdel’s blog: for fans of lolcats, loltheorists or lolfeminism: The Lol-Word. Warning: the end of the blog features macros of the puke-tastic series Work Out. But there are some gems on the blog:

3. Spoiler alert: I am going to talk about Season Eight of Buffy (the comic continuation), specifically episodes 11-12… after the cut!
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Fat comics anybody?

I asked you all a few days ago what movies featured great fat women characters, and there was a flood of people suggesting movies I’d a) never thought of as fat-pos or b) never heard of, period. In light of how successful that was, I thought I’d toss this out and see what comes back.

I’m a big comic reader (more web than print), and I’m curious what strong, fat female characters exist in comics (whether they self-define as fat or just appear fat in relation to their peers). I’ve read a few great comics where there were “curvy” or “voluptuous” women - Amy Chilton in Scary Go Round has been described as curvy, as has Faye Whitaker in Questionable Content, but neither of them are the kind of curvy that has easily discernible chub, and I don’t recall anyone ever referring to either of them as fat (other than perhaps jokingly).

Enter Jamie McJack, one of the main characters at Girls With Slingshots. Although the comic has been around for several years now, I only just discovered it a couple of weeks ago, but already I’m in love. Besides being authored by a woman (there are woefully few female comic artists/authors), the art is beautiful, the writing is funny, and - oh yeah - it has a fat character who has a successful career (and is brilliant at what she does), is funny and outgoing, and (gaps!) has an active sex life (although she self-identifies as a virgin… that’s a whole other post).

So why am I posting about it now? Well, although it won’t benefit me much, she’s currently selling a drawing of Jamie on eBay. The bidding is a bit out of my price range at the moment, but if any of you out there are fans of the series, or just want to support someone creating positive representations of fat women, this is a great opportunity to have an original drawing of the character.

And, while we’re on the subject… I’m guessing I’m not the only comic reader here. Are there any other fat women in comics that I’m missing out on?

Shame on you, Amanda Marcotte

I had been a regular reader of both BFP and Pandagon, and unlike a few of the other Pandagon readers who’ve posted, I can’t say I much like or respect Amanda Marcotte after this.

For those who aren’t aware, you can read the story here and here and here and here: long story short, Amanda Marcotte recently published an article referencing a ton of stuff that BFP has been covering for a long time… without, you know, referencing her. Whether she copied and pasted with word changes or just appropriated the extensive writing BFP has done isn’t the issue; it’s that she didn’t reference at all. When I grade a paper, my students will get in trouble for not citing whether they copied an entire Wikipedia article or paraphrased a whole bunch of articles. I’m genuinely disappointed in Amanda, and I join many other bloggers who are, not merely disappointed, but angry. I’m angry that this is the kind of feminism Amanda seems to be okay with peddling, and I’m angry that, even if it was a complete oversight and Amanda genuinely didn’t think she was appropriating, she was apparently too lazy to do the legwork to find who might have come before. Amp makes some good points, but in the end this is what really speaks to me: that whether she “intended” to or not, Amanda appropriated BFP’s work, didn’t credit her, benefited off her work and then effectively silenced her. This is not the kind of feminism that I want to be a part of, and for someone who is supposed to be a role model for so many young women, this is not the kind of feminism Marcotte should be promoting.

ETA: A gentle reminder that calling anyone a “douchebag” is spam-alicious, and will get you the SPAMHAMMAR around Seeworthy.

Also, I didn’t read the comments at Feministe, so thanks to Mercurial Georgia for pointing out this gem of Marcotte’s: “The larger picture is something I can only care about if the people who want to draw attention to it don’t put their need to tear up someone’s career to get some frustration first. Sorry.” Boy, it’s good she can ignore “the larger picture” because she thinks/feels the people who said it were being mean. That… that makes a lot of sense.

Technical Issues

…Meaning I hope there aren’t any here at Seeworthy. I’m upgrading the Wordpress installation today, so please be patient if things look wonky here at the site. We should be all done soon!

Did I mention it’s near Canada?

I’ve been fairly mum about my most recent round of grad school applications, in the off chance that someone from an admissions committee somewhere decided they wanted to Google me; it’s not a giant leap from inputting my full name in Google to here, so better safe than sorry, right?

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I accepted an offer to enter the PhD program in American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University.

In Bowling Green.

Ohio.

(The Midwest)

Surprisingly, though, I’m not really too concerned about the region; this probably has to do in large part with the false sense of security I’ve been lulled into by living in Northampton (Lesboville, USA) and then San Diego (which, while very conservative, has at least FIVE OTHER GAY PEOPLE. I’m serious, I’ve met some of them!). C and I are looking forward to moving closer to her family, being in a much smaller town, and finally being able to experience seasons again, and it’s a combination of these things that has made Bowling Green seem almost surreal in its perfectness.

Oh, and, uh, the program isn’t too bad either. By which I mean, of course, that when I got the email about it I nearly fell off of my chair, hiccuped, transcended several planes of existence and then a choir of angels sang to me from the heavens. Anyhow, I’m excited to be heading there.

So, what’s in store for me in this “Midwest” place? Well, first, there’s a building there called “Shatzel Hall“, which is just close enough to “Shatner Hall” or just “The Shat” to be awesome. “Main Street” there looks eerily similar to the Main Streets in my beloved Northampton, Amherst and Easthampton, so that’s a plus. The department’s robes (hood?) are pretty styling, which as Jenn can tell you had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS MONUMENTAL DECISION. Why on earth would I consider something as trivial as my duds? No, I certainly did not.

And, if none of the rest of that was true - if it wasn’t an awesome program in a town that’s comparably progressive for the state it’s in, even if the robes weren’t totally suave - it’s close to Canada, my beloved, beloved Canada. I tried to get a google map to link to, but apparently you can’t just map “Bowling Green, Oh to Canada,” nor can you map “Bowling Green, OH to Canada, Sweet, Mountie-ful Canada.” or even just “Canada, Canada,” so you’ll just have to take my word for it. It’s close to Canada.

Fat women in the movies?

A friend of mine recently asked me if I could recommend some movies with positive fat women, and I realized I could only come up with 4-5 that I could reasonably recommend. The obvious ones are Hairspray, Real Women Have Curves, and Phat Girlz.

Here’s the thing: there are plenty of movies with fat women (or “fat” women, or fat “women” - see Norbit, Shallow Hal, etc.), but not many that have fat women leads, or fat women being portrayed in a positive way. Am I missing something entirely? Has there been a crop of great films made lately that don’t totally dehumanize fat women, or are there really only a handful?

What are some movies with fat women you’ve seen lately?

Jeanne Toombs passes

Marilyn passed on the sad news on the Fat Studies list yesterday, and I know it’s already been posted at BFB, Shapely Prose and the NAAFA blog, but NAAFA board member, longtime fat activist and all-around wonderful woman Jeanne Toombs passed away yesterday. I can’t say I ever had the honor of meeting her - we tried to bring her out to Smith while I was still in Size Matters, but our plans fell through - but in recent correspondences she has blown me away with her passion, her kindness, and her commitment to change (both within the movement and within the broader society). She sought out my experiences with fat activism and institutional issues, and was affirming and honest when she responded to my experiences.

She was a great person, and an important part of the movement, and I can’t express enough my sadness that she’s gone.

SF Preview

We just got back from the PCA conference in San Francisco on Saturday, and I finally got all of the photos uploaded. I’ll talk more about the superfabulous panels I attended (and glorious, glorious San Francisco!) soon, but for now I think this pretty much sums up the trip: