Young, Fat, and Gifted

NOTE FROM THE FLYTRAP FOUNDERS: If you’re a paid subscriber and you’re having trouble viewing today’s piece, check your spam filter! We’ve heard from a number of folks who are seeing our emails go to the junkbox, so be sure to add us to your safe-senders list. If you’re still unable to view our content after checking that out, please holler at us at [email protected] and we’ll get you sorted out.

In the first episode of Survival of the Thickest, a half-hour Netflix comedy series adapted from Michelle Buteau’s 2020 eponymous memoir, there’s a hilariously tragic scene that encapsulates the show’s keen ability to be both relatable and over-the-top. After Mavis (played perfectly by Buteau) walks in on Jacque (Taylor Sele), her boyfriend of five years, entangled with the model she styled for a photoshoot hours before, she (rightfully) acts a fool, calls their relationship quits, and moves out of their luxurious Manhattan pad into a cramped Brooklyn apartment with an awkwardly awkward roommate. 

Mavis tries to hold it together in Jacque’s presence, scooping up the last bits of her dignity in the face of his infidelity. But, as she packs up her closet and reminisces about her “Christmas fairy-tale” trip to Mozambique, she spills out her innermost thoughts to one of her close friends, Khalil (Tone Bell). “A skinny model version of me? How fucking hurtful and basic,” Mavis says, disbelief dripping from her voice. “And you know what people say. If someone cheats on Halle Berry, they’re like ‘Oh my God. How did that man cheat on Halle Berry?’ But if someone cheats on someone like me? A thick girl… with problem areas? They’re like, ‘Oh yeah, I get it.’” Oof. 

If you’ve been fat as long as I’ve been fat — two decades and counting — then you know our bodies have long been treated as a societal conundrum, a complex puzzle in need of being solved. We’re not regarded as humans with varying bodies because we exist in a world where all humans have varying bodies. Instead, we’re approached as science projects seeking the elusive formula to our society’s greatest, most aspirational goal: being thin. Even when we reject those constraints and embrace the fatness of our bodies, it can still be immensely difficult to unlearn the ingrained idea that we must lose weight to be worthy of anything.

Become a Paid Subscriber to Read This Post