Fat White People

Lately, society has turned its focus to how different races, genders, and cultures are portrayed in media. Most of today’s people would argue the group they belong to has been sighted in some way regarding their portrayal in media. The Oscars’ lack of African American award nominees is the most recent example of this, as it quickly became the theme of the show. While breaking down stereotypes and striving for total equality among human beings is a fantastic and worthy goal that all should work toward, we need to stop being so oversensitive, or we’ll go too far in the other direction. My submission to the textual poaching assignment pokes a bit of fun at this idea.

I belong to the group of people who have the absolute least to complain about. That’s why my piece is a complaint. It is an argument for the demographic of the white, lazy, fat male, to which I belong. We have been misrepresented in media. White men in movies are almost always strong, confident, and with striking good looks. If an actor does not have these qualities, they will most likely be in a comedy. They will be the fat guys in little coats who flop their way to accidental victory. My drawings ask, why must this be? Why can’t our super heroes and romantic heart throbs be lethargic and unattractive? I bet a clumsy, overweight man would be much more likely to fall into a toxic waste spill than Ben Affleck anyway.

The answer to these questions, of course, is because that would be ridiculous. Overweight people should exercise, and white males have had no atrocity happen to them that any other person on Earth hasn’t had to deal with at 500 times the intensity. The point is, society is much better off than we have ever been, yet we complain more than ever. This was the long-winded way to explain the thought process behind my corpulent subjects. It is true that most white men in action or romantic films are beautiful people, so I went to the opposite extreme by taking famous characters: Captain America, Patrick Swayze from Ghost, and Neo from The Matrix, and making them obese. I highlight a stereotype of the white male group to which I belong.

Just like the examples in “How Texts Become Real,” I represent famous movie and comic book characters in a cartoonish, and extreme way because I believe seeing them as fat people would be funny. The people in the passage also rewrote episodes to Star Trek in the way they wanted because they liked it. The fact that I identify more with the drawings rather than the actual characters I portray makes it more personal, but I am not offended by their original forms. The “rewriters” of Star Trek were not doing so because of an issue, and most of the work I make is with the same mentality. These drawings stray from that norm and attempt to recommend the same mentality, at least for some artistic works.

We have made huge strides toward equality, and we continue to make them everyday. Of course there are still some wrinkles to iron out, but overall, life is much better in 2016 than it ever has been. I believe as long as we treat everyone else we meet as equals, we will be fighting inequality in the best way possible.