A couple of days ago, Buzzfeed ran an article looking at several artists who have been using AI art generators to create fat, black, and sometimes queer sci-fi and fantasy characters.
As the article notes, black characters are a relative rarity in science fiction, and fat characters tend to be villains. So why not use today’s technology to envision a fairer and more inclusive future? “Fat, Black people deserve to be main characters capable of anything,” one of the artists told Buzzfeed. “We are just here like everyone else.”
Cue the outrage on the right. Right-wingers tend not to like to see fat people in art or culture and seem doubly upset by fat, black people, seeing any representation of them as “glorifying obesity.” And so it’s not surprising to see a writer on the right-wing blog American Thinker taking on Buzzfeed for celebrating “AI-generated, obese blacks.” Writer Andrea Widburg seems to think that one should only mention fat, black people as examples of how not to live a healthy life. “Given [the] dire health consequences” of obesity, she writes,
all of which are exacerbated by food choices and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, the logical thing for institutions that wish blacks well would be to cajole them into eating healthier foods and being more active. Interestingly, though, that’s not where leftists, the groups that claim to live to improve the quality of black life in America, are going.
No, instead of spending all their time berating fat black people for their fatness–a strategy that actually makes things worse for fat people, by the way–leftists would rather accept fat black people as people.
Now, AI has entered the fray to celebrate, rather than eradicate, black obesity. Leftists are touting black sci-fi and fantasy artists who rely on AI artwork to celebrate fat blacks. … AI is also useful for those who, along with their reverence for obesity, have abandoned sexual reality.
Apparently this is Widburg’s response to learning that some of these artists are queer as well as black. The horror!
So I guess it’s only appropriate to show fat, black people in the media if they are explicitly being “cajoled” into trying to become unfat. Treating fat, black people as if they deserve to be the “main characters” of anything, from science fiction stories to their own lives, is little more than an “obsession with [the] transgressive” that
too perfectly aligns with modern Democrat policies that (coincidentally, I’m sure) are just as devastatingly bad for blacks as old Democrat policies once were.
Most of the artists featured in the Buzzfeed articles are themselves fat and black; how dare they try to represent people like themselves in art!
One commenter on the American Thinker post thinks he’s got it all figured out.
The problem is that not enough black men marry black women. Besides, it’s a status symbol for a black guy to marry a white woman or a very light-skinned black woman. This leave black women no choice but to seek comfort in food. Moreover, being fat makes women–black or white–feel pregnant. Fantasy, of course, but when reality is different …
Wow. Thanks for sharing, dude.
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I’ll bet the woman in that image (who isn’t actually fat) can kick ass and take names, and look good even in the teat shields.
My only concern is that relying on AI art feeds into the whole controversy of it putting flesh-and-blood artists out of work. I understand using it as a tool, but at least in its current state it’s a tool that only works by exploiting other artists. Surely there’s a better way than that to generate new fat black sci-fi characters?
i feel making black people always terribly obese feels racist.
like some kind of fetish.
I’ve only seen this with black people in fiction.
@(prev): Oprah would like a word with you, as would some Black females of my acquaintance.
Yes, the morbidly obese (like “Precious”) are seen too often in fiction, but sci-fi heroines aren’t going around wheezing and unable to walk properly. They’re out there with their strength and their zap guns.
The main character of NK Jemisin’s “Broken Earth” trilogy (the only trilogy where each novel won the Hugo 3 years in a row) is a substantial middle-aged Black woman. NK herself is a big gal, but in an impressive way.
It also has the best opening paragraph: “Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.”
So, what you’re saying is that AI artists are great? 🙂