UNLESSSSSSS.....YOU are the fat person and the joke is about you. the potential to be hysterical can increase dramatically. when it's YOU telling the fat joke ABOUT yourself, hilarity ensues. You just gave everyone the green light to laugh at something most of us know is a cruel thing to do.
that word FAT.......my son, whom I've always encouraged honesty with, one day after 1st grade came home and said, "hey mama, I learned that a nicer way of saying fat is heavyset! So, mama, you're heavyset!" with a big 'aren't you proud of me!' smile on his face.
When I was a day care teacher a little girl used to use the F word in class. "Fat Fat NINA!" she'd scream at Nina, who wasn't sharing. "Fat FAT Andrew!" who took her dolly away before she was done with it. " Oh, FAAAAAAAT." when she'd made a mistake in her coloring book. We had to ban the actual word from the classroom, and kind of re-program all the kids that this 3 letter F word is not a curse word or a bad word. there are other things in the world that are fat and perfectly fine. Fat trees, markers, lines on the road, cats, the list goes on and on.
I'm pretty sure there's no collective support group that starts out with, "Hi, I'm Suzy, and I'm fat. " and then applause and "Hello Suzy" in unison. It's a sensitive word, a very sensitive topic, especially to those of us who have been called fat at ANY time in our lives, and I'm gonna say that's quite a few of us. We were fat as babies, and then the baby fat wore off, got fat after high school and everyone noticed at the reunion, got fat before, during and after having kids, broke my leg and was laid up all summer, got fat.
And yet....with all this self imposed fat stigma we have, fat people are funny! In an ironic sort of way, it's funny that Chris Farley is shakin what his momma gave him next to Swayze in SNL. Fat Bastard in the Austin Powers movies eats because he's fat and he's fat because he eats, it's all a vicious circle (totally butchered that quote). There's a new show on CBS called Mike and Molly about 2 heavyset people who find love and here's the funny in this, on NPR the program hosts explains them as 2 slightly overweight people, and I'm thinking from the trailers I saw about this show, it's not slight, they're overweight (the lead character is at an overeater's anonymous meeting!). FAT, just SAY IT NPR LADY! she must not be fat......but the show is predicted to be a hit.
Roseanne, John Goodman, John Candy, Monique, Kirstie Alley (ok, that's a matter of opinion), the guy who played Newman on Seinfeld before he lost all the weight.... Fat, funny, confident, wonderful people. don't go changin'. Keep telling jokes, making us laugh, take the pressure off of me, because I'm beyond the point of being embarrassed that I'm 100 pounds overweight. I can't even imagine what I'll look like in a couple years when it's all gone. But I do know that I have a wonderful steel enforced brick wall that no one can take down, you can't hurt me on my way to 100 pounds less... I don't think I'm the only one who uses humor to deflect any negativity that may arise from my weight. and I will continue to do so.
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