Last Wednesday, for the entire duration of author, columnist and activist Dan Savage’s speech on the “It Gets Better” project, four hecklers did what hecklers do best: they displayed the most obnoxious qualities of human hive-mind mentality.
When the question-and-answer section hit, that’s when the sparks flew. One of the hecklers accused Savage of being “fat-phobic” and “size-ist,” reference to his comments on banning fat marriage and not feeding obese kids donuts.
The problem here is he was being satirical, using humor to lighten the mood and prove a point. When Savage brought up the fact he used to be fat, one of the hecklers retorted, saying he now had “thin-privilege.” I guess that’s a thing now.
Full disclosure time: I’m a person of size. I have been for the good majority of my life. Yes, some years were rough — really rough — but, at least in my case, it got better.
This was not the result of a YouTube video from a Savage passion project, but my own developing of a sense of humor.
“You have to have a sense of humor, about everything. I have a sense of humor about being gay. I wrote many ridiculous, humorous, humiliating, stupid things about the gay community, about gay identity, about gay sex,” said Savage.
He related humor’s role in the body-image experience to the gay experience, saying they are not mutually exclusive.
Fat people of the world: laughter, that venom that bullies have terrorized you with for years, is also your greatest weapon.
Francisco Torres, a justice studies sophomore, attendee of last Wednesday’s event and fellow “husky bro,” summarizes it best.
“Ultimately, humor is definitely a coping mechanism, because, people will laugh at [you], no matter what, if you’re a bigger person. Humor is used not only to defuse it, but make people laugh with you, instead of at you, and that feels much better,” he said.
Self-acceptance, whether it is in terms of sexuality or body image or any of the countless other things we find insecurity in — and their respective combinations — is impossible without learning to take yourself less seriously.
Often, if you make that joke about your insecurities first, it will be like pulling a Band-Aid fast. People won’t see the joke, or your insecurity, but the confidence you exhibit by being wittier and quicker.
Just don’t become a joke unto yourself.
“The message it sends to other fat people … is that your weight is a joke, and you will become a joke if you choose to use it in that direction,” said Gary Brewer, co-chair for Community Relations for the LGBT Coalition and fellow big person, referring to the routine of stand-up comic Gabrielle Iglesias, which is based on his large stature.
As for Dan Savage and the thin privilege, well, the man summarizes it far better than I ever could, but he does get paid a lot more for that kind of thing.
“I know what it’s like to be big because I was big, and they can’t know that I wasn’t at one time, so this idea that I can’t know what it’s like to be heavy is [nonsense] because I was heavy,” he said.
The last thing the fat community needs to do is start attacking its former members, because the fat kid experience is something that doesn’t leave easily, if ever.
At the end of the day, just remember, coming from a fellow member of the heavy set, life gets a whole lot easier when you learn to laugh at yourself. Also, wear black and wear layers.
Reach David at dsydiong@asu.edu
