FATSPO Coloring Book

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Celebrity Special: Nicole Byer

Comedian and actor Nicole Byer has already achieved notoriaty for her work on MTV’s Girl Code and her work with comedy partner and SNL cast member Sasheer Zamata. She is currently at work bringing two new shows to MTV in 2016, hosting a hidden camera prank show “Ladylike” and an untitled scripted show where Byer plays a young woman forced to move in with her sister and four children after burning down her NYC apartment.

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Red3Blog

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Red3blog

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Celebrity Special: Damienne Merlina

LA-based stand-up comic and painter Damienne Merlina has come to many’s attention for her emotional yet tough-nosed reaction to being the subject of a bizarre and mean-spirited rant in a recent Comedy Central special featuring Ari Shaffir. In it, he launches into a cruel and meandering diatribe where he mocks Merlina for her weight and disability and calls her out by name.

Merlina taped a video response discussing the struggles she’s faced in her life and career as well the mean-spirited attacks from someone she had extremely little interaction with. Her response Shaffir’s fat shaming and ableist insults has gotten notice in numerous news articles and garnered over 140,000 views on YouTube. You can check out her #nubpunch photo series right here on Tumblr.

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fatsncats

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Celebrity Special: Dean DeBlois

Quebec native Dean DeBlois has worked in the animation industry since 1990 with stints at Bluth Studios, Disney, and Dreamworks. He co-wrote and co-directed Lilo & Stitch with Chris Saunders. The duo would also collaborate in the same roles for How to Train Your Dragon. For its sequel, DeBlois took on writing and directing duties solo and won a Golden Globe Award for the film and is nominated for an Oscar alongside producer Bonnie Arnold.

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Celebrity Special: Colleen McCullough

It was during her 10 year stint as a teacher and researcher of neuroscience at the Yale Medical School that Australian author Colleen McCullough wrote her first two novels. The second, The Thorn Birds, became an international best seller and in 1983 was adapted into one of the most watched mini-series in television history. As her writing career took off, she retired from her medical research work, eventually settling on Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean where she would continuing writing well into her 70's, releasing her last novel in 2013. She passed away on January 29, 2015 at the age of 77.

All of these accomplishments would take a backseat in her obituary for The Australian, who instead lead with "Plain of feature, and certainly overweight". With that, she joins an increasingly long line of tremendously accomplished women who are eulogized with a priority of "humanizing" them with pandering and belittling comments. It calls to mind The New York Times obituary for Yvonne Brill, whose innovative and brilliant work in rocket science was made secondary to remarks about her cooking.

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Leaders of Size Special: Maggie De Block!

Recently proclaimed the most popular politician in Flanders in a recent poll, Belgian politician Maggie De Block started her career as a physician for 25 years. In 2011, she was tapped to take on oversight of the politically sensitive issue of immigration. Her "tough but fair" approach made the process of seeking asylum considerably more efficient, though in turn this ultimately would reduce the number asylum applications drastically. Due to her popularity, she was often discussed as a possible candidate to become Belgium's first female Prime Minister during the negotiations that lead to the current coalition government. Ultimately, she would take on a new role as Minister of Social Affairs and Health, though not without weathering vitriolic criticism regarding her size from those who insist it should disqualify her from her office.

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Leaders of Size Special! John Adams.

The 2nd President of the United States and 1st Vice President, John Adams was the leading advocate for the Declaration of Independence and one of the most influential political philosophers of his era. After serving abroad as one of the United State's first diplomats during and in the years following the Revolutionary War, he returned home and was quickly elected as the nation's first Vice President, and following Washington's retirement, its second President. Of all his accomplishments, he was perhaps most proud of his steady pursuit of peace with France during the tense period of "Quasi-War" the followed the French Revolution and the avid war-mongering of his Federalist supporters. His tender and enthusiastic correspondence with his wife Abigail offer us an intimate portrait unlike any of America's other founding fathers.

Adams was oft-derided by critics for his large figure, even being mockingly dubbed "His Rotundity". Following his narrow defeat in the 1800 election, Adams returned to his farm where he remained active until his death at 90 on the 50th anniversary of the signing of Declaration of Independence in 1826. His lengthy retirement remained the longest of any US President until Herbert Hoover passed his record in 1958. He remained the longest lived President until he was passed by Ronald Reagan in 2001.

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FATSPO Coloring Book is mentioned in a new Fat Studies collection, Queering Fat Embodiment, edited by Cat Pausé, Jackie Wykes, and Samantha Murray! An essay by Cat Pausé (who was featured in the FATSPO Coloring Book) looks at different forms of fat activism in online spaces, including the FCB. I'm deeply humbled to be even have a small mention in this anthology, and the author has generously invited me to share the following excerpt as part of the book's release "tour".

Many fat activists have been angered by the use of depictions of fatness under the thinspo tag. Fat bodies, often presented as just pieces of fat bodies, are used to produce a visceral response from the viewer. These pictures are meant to disgust and motivate. Some fat activists have found pictures of themselves used as thinspo (Lutes 2012). Pictures they have uploaded to encourage self-love, reject normative body standards, or inspire confidence in the viewer have been hijacked by users of the thinspo tag. Instead of being used as intended, these pictures have been used as cautionary tales by those lost in ‘the fantasy of being thin’ (Harding 2007[1]).

To this end, some fat activists began promoting the use of a fatspo tag. By tagging representations of positive fatness as fatspo, they disrupted the discourse on what bodies are aspirational. They attempt to reclaim the narrative back from those who engage in fat shame. One such blogger, Brian Stuart of Red No 3, actually took this a step further and created the FATSPO Coloring Book (Stuart 2013, see also Lorenz 2011’s Fat ladies in spaaaaace coloring book). This book, available on the FATSPO Coloring Book Tumblr, is a collection of black and white drawings of inspiring fat individuals. Those interested may download or print the drawings and colour them in as they would an image from a children’s colouring book.

Figure 7.2            Brian Stuart (Red No. 3)

Source: FATSPO Coloring Book.

Images in the FATSPO Coloring Book include celebrities such as Cee Lo Green, Divine, Ashley Fink, and Beth Ditto. Famous faces in the Fat-o-sphere appear as well, like Amanda Levitt (Love Your Body Detroit), Kath Read (Fat Heffalump) and the creator, Brian Stuart.

Stuart’s FATSPO Coloring Book positions fat bodies as aspirational, as things of beauty. This is a rare thing to be had, on or offline. The thinspo tag is meant to inspire fear, guilt, and anxiety; it is meant to help those who believe that happiness may only be found through a low BMI. The fatspo tag is meant to inspire acceptance, assurance, and joy; it suggests finding pride in fat ways of being. The FATSPO Coloring Book presents an interactive way to queer fat. It flips the idea of thinspo on its head, and suggests that other bodies (in this case, specifically fat bodies) are worthy of celebration and crayons as well.

[1] Harding (2007) suggests that those wrapped up in the fantasy of being thin are clinging to the idea of who they will be, who they will able to become, only once they achieve the magical state of thinness. The fantasy of being thin is often an obstacle for an individual engaging in body acceptance and positivity. 

Used by permission of the Publishers from ‘Causing a commotion: Queering fat in cyberspace’, in Queering Fat Embodiment eds. Cat Pausé, Jackie Wykes and Samantha Murray (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 82-83. Copyright © 2014

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Celebrity Special: Kristian Nairn

Northern Irish actor and Musician Kristian Nairn has toured globally as a DJ and offers a deceptively nuanced portrayal of fan-favorite character Hodor on HBO's Game of Thrones.

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Celebrity Special! Fortune Feimster

Writer and comedian Fortune Feimster made her TV debut in 2010 on Last Comic Standing before joining the writing and performing staff of Chelsea Lately on the E! network.

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Celebrity Special! Guillermo del Toro

Mexican director and producer Guillermo del Toro has won acclaim for his dazzling visual spectacles, ranging from the dark fantasy of Pan's Labyrinth to the towering monsters and machines of Pacific Rim.

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Celebrity Special! Josh Gad

Tony nominated actor Josh Gad reunited with Book of Mormon songwriter Robert Lopez for 2013's Disney hit Frozen, playing the snowman Olaf.

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Celebrity Special: Kate Smith!

Known as the First Lady of Radio, singer Kate Smith (1907-1986) was one of the most popular celebrities in the United States in the 1930's and 1940's, rising to the level of a patriotic icon as the original interpreter of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". She transitioned to television in the 1950's and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982.

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Athletes of Size Special: Akebono Tarō

Born Chad Rowen in Hawai'i, Akebono was a phenomenal success in the world of professional Sumo, becoming the first non-Japanese born wrestler to be elevated to Yokozuna, the highest rank in Sumo. His spirited rivalry with the great Takanohana helped spur a resurgence of interest in Sumo during the 1990's.

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Today’s adventure was visiting the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Two Shrinky Dink versions of Fatspo Coloring Book heroes came along in my backpack- sleepydumpling and fatbodypolitics. You can see how excited these two activists were to meet at last.

I would have a picture of them at the museum’s Mitsitam Cafe but neglected to have a camera along. So, no picture of my buttermilk fried alligator with red pepper jelly, sunchokes with carrots and dried blueberries, or the octopus salad so they are kindly posing with the brochure instead.

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Still awesome to see the FATSPO Coloring Book being colored in the real world. Especially since the FATSPO Coloring is entirely not a thing.