Regular readers will know that one of my dearest ambitions is to become a victim, and now it seems my dream is coming true. The trouble is it seems like a 'monkey's paw' deal. Victimhood is within my grasp but, staggeringly enough, my fellow passengers on the gravy train all turn out to be
loonies.
In the comments to
this post, JulieM correctly notes the Telegraph's spectacular double entendres, but actual comedy can't compete with this level of sheer weirdness.
As the WALL-E controversy hit the headlines, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (Naafa) was last week holding its annual convention in Los Angeles, a celebration of so-called "flabulous figures", seminars on fat discrimination, a fat fashion show, podgy pool parties and entertainment from weighty singing group The Fatimas.
OK, so that's merely eccentric, but it soon tips over into full-on hustling:
Fighters for fat rights are calling for legislation to ban weight discrimination in the workplace, denouncing airlines that demand they buy two seats and car manufacturers whose seat belts are too small.
Yes, it's a real mystery why it's so hard to find a seatbelt with real freedom of movement, although not as much of a mystery as why employers are reluctant to employ folks who are just
enraged! by having to buy two tickets just because they occupy two seats.
They are also battling doctors who won't treat patients who refuse to lose weight and companies that won't insure them.
Now is that just
the perfect summation of modern life or what ? Being a bloater brings health risks, so clearly the answer is to sue your doctor.
Actually, this seems to be a common theme:
Miss Wann (41 years in age and 20 stones in weight) is America's best known fighter for fat rights. She developed her motto - "free your ass and your heart and mind will follow" - and a magazine called "Fat!So?" after being turned down for health insurance because she was "morbidly obese".
Yep, she gets told she's on Guest List for intensive care, so she starts a magazine to protest against people warning her that she's going to suffer hideous health problems.
You just know that in a parallel world she's suing her doctor for
not warning her about her health problems, right ?
Anyway, none of that matters. In a completely unpredictable move, my fellow sumos are claiming that calling fat people fat is just like
The Racism!Miss Wann said the film company would never have considered stereotyping black people "dancing a jig" in the way they have done so with fat people.
She added: "Pixar should be out of business for portraying this level of prejudicial bigotry-mongering. These are 19th-century hatreds repackaged in modern animation. It's amazing."
Haven't blacks suffered enough without being conscripted by every goofy victim group out there ? Besides, the tubby whiners could probably do with some healthy, outdoor exercise like picking cotton.
I don't want to be pushed up against a thin passenger sitting next to me any more than they wants to be pushed up against me," she said. "But the seats keep getting smaller. I don't need all of the chairs in coach to be available to fatties in a comfortable way but I do think fat people have the right to interstate and international transportation just like everyone else."
Yes, and they have the right to pay for it too.
This next bits even weirder:
Fatima Parker, UK spokesperson for the International Size Acceptance Association..
No, not just that.
Fatima Parker, UK spokesperson for the International Size Acceptance Association says the government ought to campaign against "anti-fat" attitudes as much as obesity.
"Fat discrimination is even worse in this country than in the US because you see more big people and hear their voices over there," she explains.
This is certainly true.
"Fat people here are constantly told that we are failures: as people, as parents, as role models."
Ms Parker's argument is that overweight people are less likely to become morbidly obese, if they are allowed to feel comfortable about their bodies. She believes derogatory language and stereotypes about fat people as greedy will only make them eat more.
Yes, the only way to discourage bad behaviour is to accept it. It works so well everywhere else.
Hmmmmm.... doesn't that mean the way to discourage people from abusing the gravitationally-challenged is to encourage them to 'feel comfortable' about screaming abuse at the lardy ?
"On TV shows such as You Are What You Eat and The Biggest Loser, we are made out to be disgusting and less than human - called cows and whales.
It's hardly going to make me go and eat carrots and run around the garden.
"I would rather have cancer or diabetes than serious depression about how I look."
And thus was crushed the stereotype of human zepplins as slow-witted hysterics.
But that really is the crux of the argument. Leaving aside the more hysterical health nazis, no one disputes the right of these people to stage dive into the dessert trolley. It's just that freedom doesn't usually mean forcing over airlines to give free seats away, and banning people from calling things what they are. What these people really want is the right to live an insane lifestyle without consequences.
Actually, my real problem with it all is this: these people consume way too much food and so they claim victimhood. What about those of us who got fat through consuming non-solid energy sources ? How come no one ever takes out an onion for us persecuted drunks ?
Maybe that could be my breakthrough into victimhood: the Drunk Liberation Front. It's an idea who's time has come.