About eight years ago I was working as an assistant to my friend and mentor, S., and we had an office over at Disney. We shared a suite with a few other writers and directors, and actors, casting agents, and network people were always wandering around the hallways. One morning I headed into the ladies' room to find wall-to-wall women, all thin, all blonde, all pretty, all 20-25, all crowded in front of the mirror chattering nervously. As I walked through the door, conversation screeched to a halt and least twelve pairs of blue eyes started to size me up.
I'm not the Casting Director, I announced to the room. Conversation started up again and I got in line to use the facilities.
What do you do? asked the girl behind me in line.
Oh, I'm a writer, I told her, lying just a little bit.
You're lucky, she replied. No one cares what you look like.
...
The most frequent insult I read in the bulk of my hate mail is you're fat. It's not always simply you're-fat, sometimes I get hey-fattie or you-pig or in the case of this weekend's missive, the fatmistress (I'll award points for creativity.) Hurled at someone else it's almost always an insult, used to describe yourself it's almost always an apology. It's the It's the last insult, colorblind and classblind. While men appropriate it from time to time, it's a unique part of the female lexicon - as J.K. Rowling once said, fat is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her. Fat is synonymous for a whole host of other words. Fat stands for Failure. Fat stands for Hate. Fat is fists flying in the fight at the bikeracks after school.
Whether or not I am or I am not fat isn't the point, as I reside firmly in the no-(wo)man's land of the size-ten-to-twelve, so fat as a descriptive adjective is all in the perspective of the beholder. There is probably someone out there reading this right now who would like to be my size at the same time another reader is thanking her lucky stars that she's not. No matter who's the target, fat will always remain the weapon of choice in the insult arsenal because of its easy application and laserlike accuracy. It's curious to me that in a universe where women complain about the impossible standards of beauty, of waiflike actresses and airbushed images of supposed perfection, the fat grenade is still thrown with such frequency. My guess is you throw it one too many times, it's bound to blow up in your face.
...
Of course, out here in Blogland, we hang our own damn selves out to dry. I can't really complain when I'm the one controlling the flow of information. No one's forcing me to post pictures or share intimate details of my life. It's a choice. And I can't have it both ways, I can't want to be noticed and then get upset when someone notices me. I won't say that the first time I was called fat by a hate mailer it didn't hurt, but after the first ten-of-so times it just gets old. If the worst thing someone can say about me is I'm fat, then I'm probably doing okay.
