By David Futrelle
A couple of months ago, Gillette infuriated Men’s Rights Activists and other terrible people with an ad challenging toxic masculinity and suggesting that maybe it wasn’t such a good thing for men and boys to go around bullying and harassing people.
Now Gillette has a new ad out that seems designed to enrage, well, pretty much the same exact mob that came after them then. The ad, promoting Gillette Venus razors for women, features Internet-famous model Anna O’Brian — a.k.a Glitter and Lasers — posing triumphantly on a beach in a two-piece swimsuit, arms raised to the sky.
This isn’t the first time a Gillette ad has featured a woman in a swimsuit. But this particular woman happens to be fat, and so a vast horde of angry men (mostly) have gone online to attack Gillette for “glorifying obesity” and surrendering to the cuck soyboy hairy feminist woke SJW overlords. These health-conscious gentlemen and ladies have also mocked the model herself, calling her a predictable assortment of names, suggesting that she smells, and predicting that she’ll die soon.
On Twitter, quite a few decided to play the role of a “concerned” doctor:
Never mind that fat does not automatically mean unhealthy. Never mind that thin people can be unhealthy. Never mind that diets can be so unhealthy as to be dangerous. And never mind that fat shaming is not only not an effective way to inspire people to lose weight — and often causes its targets to gain weight — it’s also a threat to their health, both mental and physical.
Of course, quite a few of the commenters didn’t even bother to pretend that their complaints had anything to do with health. Most were not terribly original with their insults.
Other commenters pulled out all their favorite right-wing buzzwords for the occasion:
Some thought that this new ad, like Gillette’s “toxic masculity” ad in January, was really just a sneaky way to attack … men.
Over on the always despicable Breitbart, which noted that in addition to Anna, Gillette has also used trans activist Jazz Jennings in recent ads, the commenters were a bit blunter.
Well, I guess Gillette has started another “conversation,” as they like to say whenever they do something they know will provoke an angry mob. So sad that all it takes is a picture of a fat woman unapologetically wearing a bikini to unleash a wave of hate.
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I watched the Lularoe video and … wow. I’d actually never heard of the company before. Even if the clothing had been fantastic, the overly difficult process for buying it would’ve been an immediate turn off. I’m someone who won’t even buy anything in an Apple store because it pisses me off that you can’t just walk in, take something to a register and pay for it. I went in there one time several years to get something small. I think an ipod charger. No employee there paid the slightest bit of attention to me. I didn’t think I should have to work to get the attention of someone in order to complete a simple transaction. I walked out and literally have not bought a single Apple product since. I can’t even imagine going through all that trouble to buy Lularoe leggings either.
Is the company even still in business?
Seriously though. Am I the only who just does not get the big deal about Apple products? I’ve asked friends who use iphones about why they are loyal to it. Why should I pay considerably more money than an Android for it? No one ever has a real answer beyond just aesthetics.
Thank you to Malitia, Crys, Kupo, Knitting Cat Lady, and any others for your summaries of the current state of weight research! In case anyone wants some more citations, here is an excellent academic review paper that busts a lot of myths about the inherent dangers of obesity, and the supposed ease and accessibility of permanent weight loss. It’s not full of jargon and is extensively well cited for further reading:
Paul Campos et al, The epidemiology of overweight and obesity: public health crisis or moral panic?. International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 35, Issue 1, February 2006, Pages 55–60
The full article is available free online. I’m avoiding links because as a new poster I’m not sure about the etiquette there.
I know this is an incredibly emotionally fraught topic — I’m still doing the work of extracting myself from a dieting mentality, and I know how hard it can be to push yourself against “common knowledge” about obesity. Doing the research has helped me, and I hope it helps others too.
WWTH, LuLaRoe is still in business, but they’re struggling. The whole thing started to crack up last fall. I hope there’ll be jail time for some of the senior executives before the whole thing’s done, because they’re definitely running a pyramid scam.
Tulikat, thank you for the paper!
@Tulikat
Welcome! Thanks for the reference. In MLA format, even! I’ll take a look later. Linking isn’t a problem here, though if it’s to something potentially triggering, just add a content warning first.
@wwth
I got an iPhone at one point because at that time it had the most storage and I wanted a phone that doubled as a music player. But that’s no longer the case and I very much prefer not having my hardware and OS so tightly coupled. Also I watched that one iPhone slowly die from updates overloading the memory until it couldn’t run even simple apps anymore, so I prefer Android now.
For work I use a macbook and it has one advantage: it’s Unix-based, as are most servers. That’s it. It’s not even difficult to work around that when running a windows development environment, which I’ve also done.
I’ll just say that while obesity is indeed unhealthy, telling overweight people that they “just” need to diet and exercise isn’t helping anyone.
While not overweight myself, having struggled with depression and unemployment I can safely say that I hate people who tell me I just need to pull myself together and start studying and finishing my bachelor’s degree and do volunteer work and make phone calls to every potential workplace and just ask random people for a job. Like, that isn’t how it works when you are depressed. I’m currently doing some light work training for a few hours a day, and even that leaves me exhausted.
You can’t just randomly decide to be healthy and happy and then go on being just that, and being told that it’s all because you’re unmotivated will only convince you that the person saying that have no empathy or idea what they’re talking about.
And personally, despite having indulged in a fair share of comfort eating and a sedentary lifestyle, I’ve still wound up losing weight lately due to my depression, it all just shows human bodies aren’t rational machines following a universal set of laws, and despite still being at a healthy weight, my weight loss haven’t done anything to make me happier.
@misophistry Guess what? It’s not ever necessary for you to jump in a discussion that’s not specifically about weight loss with your take on weight loss.
And your long-suffering tone re how the horribly you’ve treated here is pure disingenuousness. You know good and damn well we’re not pissed off by the “I lost weight by eating less,” it’s the “so that means most [or many] other fat people can – and SHOULD – too” that inevitably gets tacked on. Like Otrame, you’re not a victim here, so climb down off that cross.
Also, if someone said weight loss is “impossible,” I must have missed it. I and several others have pointed out how small the minority is of people who manage to lose weight and keep it off for more than a few years, but that’s not anything like saying it’s “impossible.” So why do you feel the need to pretend that’s been a dominant message?
Crys T,
Knitting Cat Lady did say it here https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2019/04/05/gillette-ad-features-an-unapologetic-fat-woman-in-a-swimsuit-heads-explode/comment-page-1/#comment-2561507
However, that was only one comment. It was followed by many other comments with the more nuanced (and factually correct) take that in the long term, weight loss rates are below 5% and that weight loss success stories tend to reflect only short term losses.
I’m also going to need a link from Misophistry showing that we chased them out of here simply for saying they lost weight by eating less. Something tells me there’s a whole lotta context missing.
PS @Scanisaurus Prove that when factors such as socioeconomic level, medical negligence (doctors give fat people substandard care)*, stress levels from having to deal with bigotry every damn day, etc, that “obesity is unhealthy.”
Because I’ve read more than one researcher who specialises in the topic saying that once those factors are accounted for, differences between fat & normal weight people virtually disappear.
If you have access to information all those experts don’t, you ought to contact them post haste.
*And btw, I’ve never seen a single study that controls for this in data analysis. So the difference between fat & non-fat groups is likely even smaller.
ETA @WWTH Thanks. I knew it couldn’t have appeared more than once or twice.
Just as self-righteous fat shamers who come onto a thread to agree with MRAs that a woman being fat is bad are getting a lot of pushback. Funny how that works.
Don’t let the door hit you, etc. And please stick the flounce.
@Crys T
I’m sorry that I don’t have any studies on this matter, but I still think that if somebody is obese to the point that their size and weight hinders their movement it’s unhealthy, just the same way any joint disease or other ailments that hinders normal physical activities are unhealthy, but that doesn’t mean I’ve intended to shame anyone for it or that I consider a plus size person who aren’t hindered by their size unhealthy and I apologize if it came across that way.
@Scanisaurus Fair enough.
A) Are you a doctor? If not, idgaf what you think.
B) I am under no obligation to perform health in the way you or anyone else deems acceptable. It’s my body and my choice what I do with it so long as no one else is affected.
Do you jump onto every discussion about rock climbing or pregnancy and warn people of the increased health risks? No? Maybe sit down for a moment and think about what’s different about this situation that mskes you feel like it’s okay to comment on the supposed health risks of fatness.
The language you just used is shaming. Calling people’s bodies unhealthy for existing in a configuration not to your liking is shaming them.
@ Everyone who feels the need to come in here and offer all their advice/tips/opinions on how obesity is bad, weight loss is simply achievable, etc
Do you honestly believe that you are saying literally anything that fat people haven’t been told hundreds of times before?
What do you think you’re contributing to the conversation? Are you under the impression that there’s anyone here who is completely ignorant of our culture’s obsession with thinness?
@kupo
I never said that you owe it to anybody to be healthy, but being unable to move normally or being physically prevented from doing everyday activities is the standard definition of an ailment or disability. I’m not saying that being unhealthy or disabled is a moral failing or that people should feel pressured to conform to society’s bodily ideal.
And I’m not trying to single out obese people either, I commented on a subject which was already being discussed, and I did also talk about depression in my previous comment.
Context. Why bring it up, then? Why come into a thread about a woman being targeted by misogynists for abuse for the crime oc wearing a bathing suit while fat and inform everyone of your opinion about whether fat is healthy? What’s your goal, here? Multiple people have told anyone reading that this discourse is actively harmful to them and yet you continue. Why?
@kupo
What’s up with rock climbing? Not trying to start anything, was just curious if there’s connection with it and hindering movement?
Okay, losing weight permanently is NEXT to impossible. Happy now?
We don’t actually know the percentage of people who gain all the weight back, or more.
We do now that it’s >95% at 5-10 years.
Why? Because we don’t have enough studies that look at a longer time frame.
There are a handful of people, let’s call them unicorns, who manage to lose weight and stay at the lower weight.
But those people are extremely rare.
The vast majority of people needs to maintain an energy deficit to stay at lower fat body mass percentage. And that is unhealthy as fuck long term.
I’ll keep saying: ‘Losing weight long term is impossible.’
Why? Because for the vast majority of people IT IS.
Focusing on the few unicorns out there isn’t helpful for the majority.
Our energy is better spent reducing weight based stigma in medicine and society.
@Knitting Cat Lady Re the unicorns: people want to focus on them because they really want to maintain the belief that fat is a moral failing. No matter how much they profess to “just care about health,” they despise fat people.
Re the weight loss failure rate: what I’ve read from a couple of researchers is that the few who do manage to keep the weight off long-term are mostly those who had only a little weight to lose in the first place. Don’t quote me on this, but I think it was 10% or less than their total weight.
So, even though some unicorns do exist, we can’t compare them to the fat people the fatphobics are more “concerned” about.
@kupo
In my first comment I made one short mention of obesity being unhealthy before dedicating the entire rest of the comment to arguing why I think shaming won’t help anyone get healthier or feel better.
I just don’t see how saying that something is unhealthy is shaming them, because I don’t think people should feel ashamed of poor health and I didn’t consider my comment to be any more shaming than saying that depression, anorexia or arthritis is unhealthy would shame those having it, and I don’t see why a condition that hinders your movement wouldn’t count as an ailment or disability.
Please understand that I’m not telling anyone what to do with their bodies, I’m not trying to shame anyone, and if it came across that way I’m sorry.
@Scanisaurus
I cannot speak for kupo, but in the US there is a stigma against being unhealthy. Here is a link discussing the same phenomenon growing in the UK. Note that the article is referring to extremely obvious illness such as flu: imagine it multiplied 1000x for something widely considered a moral failing such as obesity.
I believe, but cannot at this hour of the morning cite the reference, that this view of unhealthiness is a cultural holdover from Protestantism (possibly specifically Calvinism). I can have a go at it later after coffee, if you are interested.
In any case, while I believe that you meant no offense in using the descriptor “unhealthy”, it is in fact, in some cultures, a shaming term. If people were only stronger/better/not evil and deserving of punishment, they would be healthy, like normal God-fearing people.
Too obese to move properly and obese according to the BMI are two very different things though. It should also be remembered that sometimes a condition that hinders movement causes the obesity, not the other way around. And comparing someone’s body type to a disease? Also not helpful.
Please, tell all of us fatties all about how losing weight works.
We’re dying to know. We definitely haven’t read hundreds of articles over decades about diets and exercise, or been subjected to thousands of ads for products about it. We definitely haven’t had it shoved in our faces every time we watch TV, pick up a magazine or read the newspaper. We certainly haven’t seen it on social media or other websites. Well-meaning friends and family definitely haven’t offered up their tips and tricks. Our doctors certainly have never told us to lose weight and most definitely have never implied that our colds, back pain, menstrual pain, hereditary high blood pressure or bad knees would miraculously vanish if we just lost weight.
We have certainly never actually tried eating less and exercising, cutting out meals, fasting, eating small meals, skipping entire food groups, skipping carbs, skipping fat, skipping sugar, cutting calories, weighing food or portion control.
Please tell us more. No one has ever thought of this before, ever.
You are the very first.
You are so helpful.
So.
Helpful.
I’m technically obese. I’ve been fat shamed my entire life.
But someone who is only an inch taller than me but weighs 60 pounds more is lecturing on how to “stop shoving pie into my face.”
yeah. no.
@Valkyrine
It’s just one of many, many examples of something that puts a person at higher risk for heath issues, such as broken bones or other bodily trauma from falling, pulmonary edema from changing altitude too quickly, etc. My examples weren’t meant to be about mobility specifically, just examples of higher risk of health issues.
It’s pretty telling, though, that people continually bring up things like “extra weight is hard on joints” but never “jogging is hard on joints” if we want to talk parallels, though. Health is a construct that decides some people are morally good (joggers) and others are morally wrong (fatties) based not on what’s in their control (one can stop jogging very easily, while only unicorns can lose weight), but rather what furthers the capitalist agenda.
And Lurker LXVII is 100% correct that poor health is considered a moral failing in the US at least, and most of the diet industry BS comes out of that, and this is why cries of “but it’s unhealthy!” are shaming tactics. If we were to show tall models in bathing suits and celibrate how great they look, would anyone be here talking about the health consequences of being tall?
I just wanted to underscore this comment from Crys T:
Because I felt this dynamic myself for years. I was overweight for a lotta years (still am actually). While I didn’t get bullied for my weight, the sheer amount of concern-trolling combined with the near complete media shutout of any body types that differed from the accepted “healthy norm” kept me from full accepting my own body for many years. And even when I got there, my doctors had a nasty habit of re-opening those mental wounds with their concern trolling.
It’s a cultural cliche at this point that much like a black person wearing baggy pants, weight is just “that thing you are obligated to concern-troll”. Because they think acceptance is what keeps people that weight rather than any number of other factors. “If you hated the way you looked, you’d change it, right? Clearly, you must be comfortable with it and it’s my job to keep you uncomfortable. For your own good.”
And it’s telling that it’s any media representation that sets these concern-trolls off. Most of us shave at least one body part, no matter how much we weigh. Like, if this was an ad for a hair care product or deodorant, something everyone uses but is completely unrelated to weight, if it were a bigger person in the ad, they’d find a way to make it about the weight of the model.
Heaven forbid there’s a condom ad with a larger person in it, their poor heads might explode at the thought of us bigger folk being just as sexual as everyone else.