On Monday this picture appeared on my Facebook wall, posted by an acquaintance. I have seen, and written about, similar sentiments before, but this one takes the whole damn cake, but it also led to a little lightbulb moment for me.
There's a lot going on here explicitly and implicitly, and this is my take; Mega corporations like Monsanto are bad for us. GMOs, which Monsanto are infamous for developing, are therefore also bad for us. The pinnacle of human achievement is a man with an automatic gun and a bloody shovel (agriculture? peasant revolution? Beating down peasants? Herding the fat man forward? You be the judge). Thanks to things like McDonalds/fast food and companies like Monsanto, humans have passed our peak and become fat, with all it's awful associations. The next step down the road is mindless consumption, shown as the pig.
I left the following comment on both my friend's wall and on my own when I reposted the image: "I'm
really sick of 'progressive' folks on the left (and just assholes on
the right) using fat people as a scapegoat for the world's ills. Fat
people are fat for a variety of reasons, not just because of poor diet
and/or lack of excersise. Monsanto is evil; equating fat people with
Monsanto makes fat people the enemy. I say no thanks to that thinking
and think we can do better than stereotypes." A friend reposted it with my comment and added: Really. Knock it the fuck off. Your bigotry (hell yes, I went there) is unbecoming.
Under her post the conversation got heated as a mutual acquaintence said she didn't see this picture as a statment about fat people per say but more as a commentary on how Monsanto is turning us into mindless consumers unable to care for ourselves by robbing us of the ability to grow our own food, and making us eat that which we don't even know is safe. I was agog she didn't think this was about fat people; as a fat acceptance advocate I immediately focused on this as yet another image of fat people being badly treated in the media, that people who are that big are being used as a symbol of what GMOs
and fast food do to people is hateful, misleading and wrong. As a scientist, she took the image very differently, focusing on what she knew about Monsanto and their despicable practises.
When I was taking English in university I was introduced to the post-modernist way of thinking and reading; if I read a text and see something in there, it's there (and I can prove it in a 1500 word essay!). What characters wear (red shirt vs. white shirt) for example, says something about their motivations during a scene, or maybe if it's a theme, their personality. What seems obvious to me may not be to you because of our different upbringings, associations, experiences, etc. For me, the Monsanto picture is *obviously* a jab at fat people as well as the company. That she didn't immediately agree with me or understand that put me on the defensive, and things went downhill from there. I failed to keep an open mind. I failed to consider how she might be seeing things (other than to assininely tell her to check her privilege. *facepalm*). Her
perspective and experiences and mine are very different so it led to
very different takes on the image. She agrees that the use of a fat person in the picture is wrong, but that's not the most important part of the image to her. Neither of us is WRONG mind you, just
coming at something from very different places.
Sometimes, with fat acceptance or feminism or anti-globalization or occupy or any of the dozens of things I care deeply about, I need that reminder; the world is not made up of people who think like me and agree with me, and just because they DON'T doesn't make them an adversary, not until they actually show it. Jumping all over someone for having a different take on something doesn't help to have a conversation. Then again, the positions that I hold on many things are pretty rigid for a reason, and if someone *doesn't* agree with me, it's probably because of unexamined privilege and/or sheer ignorance and/or bigotry. You're antichoice? Homophobic? Misogynist? Racist? Violent? A fat hater? I'll tell you right where to go and how fast you can get there. People who hold those views don't want a conversation and I wont validate their opinions with giving them one. They're entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts (to paraphrase D.P. Moynihan). On the other hand, someone simply saying "I don't see that the way you see that" is not one of those people, and deserves better than an ill-thought out and snarky reply on Facebook. So my journey into maturity continues!
Wow, thank you for this post. You just described the major issue I have with FA discussions about food politics -- I come to food from an environmentalist POV and unfortunately critiques (like the Monsanto image you link) of our food system are often dismissed in FA spaces as being wrong because they are fatphobic (see: Monsanto image).
And while, depending on the critique, that fatphobic charge may or may not be true (and when it is, it should absolutely be called out), when people dismiss the entire critique and its validity out of hand they're often missing a good point underneath. I often see FA activists wholesale dismissing environmental concerns and arguments, including those which intersect with social justice concerns, because someone didn't understand FA or unwittingly perpetuated fat stereotypes. Which just results in a lot of good ideas getting thrown out. The same thing happens in non-FA spaces too -- mention FA and suddenly your whole argument is suspect. I often feel like I'm expected shut up and take the party line (in whatever space I might be in) instead of trying to talk through the issues.
Thanks for stepping back and realizing that two people can see the same image and get two different things out of it and still both be correct in their assessment. That image DOES play on fat hate; at the same time it uses a common idiom ("turning into pigs") to concisely get across that Monsanto is bad news. I agree with the message, but not the way it's disseminated. It's a sucky thing, to be trapped between them.
You're welcome! I'm glad you got so much out of it. Feel free to share it in your environmental/social activist spaces. ^__^
I think the *point* of the poster is a harsh critique of Monsanto. However,the criticism/insult is being communicated with a picture of a fat person. This in turn demonstrates fat-hate. Like, if someone were, during a political argument that is not at all about fat, to insult a thin person with whom they do not agree by calling them "fat." Fat-hate wasn't the point, but it certainly was present.
Intentional or not, what I take away from that poster is Monsanto makes fat people and fat people are bad, therefore Monsanto is bad. And it's the stuff that is unintentional that is often worse than the intentional stuff. Because it's harder to root out and explain.
And, oh my goddess did this resonate with me, "I need that reminder; the world is not made up of people who think like me and agree with me, and just because they DON'T doesn't make them an adversary, not until they actually show it." I am reasonably good at listening to contrary opinions IF the opinion is presented to me without malice, or attack. Since it's not usually presented like that, I'm usually primed to go on the defensive about my position. Remembering to breathe and count to 10 would do wonders for me.