One thing I want to talk about is how easy it is as a plus size viewer to relate to Penny's attitude towards her society.
It has set her up to pretty much die alone, it has made her, despite every wonderful quality, unsuitable for love because of her weight. That terror and desperation Penny feels is real for a lot of plus size teenagers who are convinced no one will ever love them. It was definitely real for me.
Penny's resentment and the injustice she feels at Marina and Daphne's pretty skinny privilage is also too real. Penny has watched both women break the rules (or she suspects in Daphnes case that she has) either way they are rewarded for being skinny and conventionally beautiful with security and love.
Penny knows that if she was in Marina's situation no one would be coming in on a white horse to save her, and that is a cut that is raw and will never fully close no matter how much healing etch she does- it hasn't for me.
The hurt Penny feels at everyone making jabs and comments when she is just trying to live is the most realistic kind of cruelty plus size women suffer. Even Marina lashes out at Penny 'I got pregnant from cake,' Penny until this point had been the only one to be decent to Marina, and Marina (I dont care what her reasons were) goes right after Penny's weight.
Penny will hear that comment every time she sees or eats cake, and it will ruin it for her slightly. Penny realises too why Marina chose that joke to make, and even if Marina had not meant it about Penny's weight, that is how Penny will internalise it. It's how I internalised every comment any one ever made in terms of food and it fucked my relationship and thoughts about food as a teenager.
This is also when I lost all respect and sympathy for Marina who lashes out at everyone who tries to help her. My line was when she took the cake jab at Penny though, it was cruel and Penny had been nothing but kind and good to her and it reminded me quite harshly of every unjust time someone had lashed out at me about my weight because they had a bad day even when I had been nothing but understanding and kind.
Penny has internalised and realised that her society will never see her as having value, and that she should not expect to ever be treated with respect or kindness, that society can use her as a punching bag and because she is fat she deserves it.
Penny lashing out with the scandal sheet...I can't tell you how many times I have wanted to lash out at society and even my friends and family for their comments and barbs and the unfairness that being good and kind, smart, and creative meant nothing if I wasnt skinny, but how skinny pretty people only had to be that, and were rewarded for it.
To me Penny is a fantastic character because she shows the side of plus size women that rarely gets shown (most of the plus size women I know have had the same desire for vengeance against society that Penny is actualising) Penny has basically gone 'if no one will punish them for the shit that would get me punished, then I'll fucking do it.'
It is a very realistic portray of a plus size teenager with internalised societal hate, means, and has really hit a point where she legitimately has just stopped giving a fuck and just wants others to feel as bad as she does (dramatised obviously, but the foundations are very close to how I have felt as a plus size woman throughout various parts of my life.)
Thankyou for attending my TED Talk.
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