(This is the first, of many, posts where I will discuss issues relating to weight and don't directly deal with my own weight loss. Let's see how it goes.)
A couple of months ago controversy sprung up about Sony's newest PS3 game, Fat Princess. In this game, there are two opposing teams, each guarding a princess. In order to win, each team must rescue the other team's princess, and the only way to prevent this is to feed her so she gets bigger and bigger, which means it's harder for the other team to carry her back to their castle. Hence the name.
Shakesville was the where the controversy started, with Melissa McEwan writing:
Anyway, congrats on your awesome new game, Sony. I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes. It's not often I have the opportunity to congratulate a cutting-edge tech company on such splendiferous retrofuck jackholery. Way to go! The Fat Princess of Shakes Manor salutes you.
This of course got the internet gaming community talking, as it was reported in Kotaku, Joystiq and other gaming sites. Response was mixed, with some taking McEwan's side, other's claiming she was overreacting and yet many others simply insulting the writer's physique, instead of dealing with the actual issue. McEwan also misses a point, which is that the game actually is doing the opposite of what she accuses of it. The teams are trying to rescue their princess without care for her current weight. They are looking past her physical appearance.
McEwan, in her condemation of Fat Princess does strike close to a much larger issue. Should society grant the political correct treatment it has granted other groups? After all, when Norbit came out, many reviewers where quick to point out how it villified and mocked the overweight. Furthermore, looking at entertainment options, many of the overweight portrayals tend to fall in a couple of categories. The fat funny guy, or the lazy, overweight loser. Is this right? Will there be a time in the future when we will look at these portrayals much in the same way as we look back at old Bug Bunny WWII cartoons?
There are those that are quick to point out (some less tactfully than we would wish) that being overweight, unlike being a race or gender, is a choice. Something can be done about it. Furthermore, this is an unhealthy choice as some would argue. Already there was controversy when Chloe Marshall, a 16 size beauty queen reached the finals in the Miss England contest. Was she encouraging a lifestyle that was not healthy by setting herself as a standard of beauty? Should such behavior be encouraged?
All these are tough questions. Ideally, we would live in a society that both respects its individuals while at the same time promoting a healthy lifestyle. And perhaps both sides do not have to contradict one another.
McEwan, in her condemation of Fat Princess does strike close to a much larger issue. Should society grant the political correct treatment it has granted other groups? After all, when Norbit came out, many reviewers where quick to point out how it villified and mocked the overweight. Furthermore, looking at entertainment options, many of the overweight portrayals tend to fall in a couple of categories. The fat funny guy, or the lazy, overweight loser. Is this right? Will there be a time in the future when we will look at these portrayals much in the same way as we look back at old Bug Bunny WWII cartoons?
There are those that are quick to point out (some less tactfully than we would wish) that being overweight, unlike being a race or gender, is a choice. Something can be done about it. Furthermore, this is an unhealthy choice as some would argue. Already there was controversy when Chloe Marshall, a 16 size beauty queen reached the finals in the Miss England contest. Was she encouraging a lifestyle that was not healthy by setting herself as a standard of beauty? Should such behavior be encouraged?
All these are tough questions. Ideally, we would live in a society that both respects its individuals while at the same time promoting a healthy lifestyle. And perhaps both sides do not have to contradict one another.
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