The F-Word

Don’t forget that Karl Lagerfeld has a history of saying shitty things about women’s bodies – like this classic:

“No one wants to see curvy women. You’ve got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying that thin models are ugly.”

It’s the insult of the statement, not the word “fat”, but it’s hard for me to hear and to use that word without all of the baggage associated with it because it is a word that has been deliberately used to hurt me and its not been an easy thing to rid it of its intense connotations.

It’s like a knife. Is it going to cut you or is it going to butter you up? The first 1000 times it cuts you and so you’re going to be wary of it buttering you up because it’s gonna feel like a cut and you are going to bleed no matter what. Its an involuntary emotional reaction that I can’t control. I want to control it. Help me get it under control.

I have bad history with it. I got called fat when I was doing All American Girl and I didn’t eat after that and wound up in the hospital, my kidney failing at 24 years old. I also developed a heart murmur and still have bad shit my body won’t forget from that time. The incident easily cut at least a decade off my lifespan. I was perfectly healthy before. Now, I have to be a lot more careful.

I remember the phone call vividly.

The producer was my good friend. She was rad, a fun gal. She came to my trailer in secret and we smoked cigarettes where her kids wouldn’t see or smell it. I really loved her – I trusted her.  I needed someone like her then. You need your women around you to keep you safe. I was young and scared and I just wanted a job for fuck’s sake. I was only trying to work.

She called huffing and puffing and saying that “your…….body……. was just toooo…… your face……. The …..fa..t….. you’re too fat. You are just so fat we can’t do this. You are too fat and we have to do something…… you have to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. ANYTHING.” and I felt like I was going to die and I nearly did. It was beyond my control, and almost 20 years later I am still utterly destroyed by any negative assessment of mine or any woman’s body. It’s not just me I bleed for when I am cut by this word, it’s everyone. I feel for all the world like I am feeling for all the world.

I give other people too much power because I can’t look the other way or shrug it off or ignore it or consider the source. I overreact because that is my nature, but at least it’s fairly poetic. What’s awesome is I can actually laugh about it. I really do.

I am laughing thinking about how stupid Karl Lagerfeld feels and how he has seen that talking the way he does about women’s bodies is worse for his business than he ever imagined. I am laughing thinking about him sweating his words and trying to fan that fear sweat away.

I am still boycotting Chanel, ha! As if I could afford anything they sell anyway!!! Hhahaha. It’s also ugly. Chanel shit is just ugly. Who gives a fuck about quilts? Hahahahhaahah fuck Karl and fuck Chanel. And fuck people who try to insult women by calling them fat. Fuck them all. Hahahahahahah.

I am actively trying to reclaim the word fat. I am actively trying to get better. But I do have a disease that is deadly as cancer or AIDS. Anorexia kills. Bulimia kills. I am still sick. I am in remission I guess, but the virus lives in me. Dormant for now. But it’s there.

I want to educate people about my disease. It’s caused by ignorance and casual cruelty. I want to stop the spread of my disease.

People thinking they can say whatever they want about women’s bodies and thinking they will not be held accountable? No, I am not having it. I wanna be like Fatgirl!! You could shine a big stretch mark in the sky and I will come whizzing through the night on my motorcycle to kick some douchebag’s ass!

If you think you can dismiss our beauty and belittle us you should just know, say what you will, but I am going to make you eat your words. Fatgirl is coming for you. Na na na na na na na na FATGIRL!!!!!!

And how about another FUCK YOU KARL LAGERFELD

HAHAHA

34 thoughts on “The F-Word

  1. Great post – and I will carry “Na na na na na na na na FATGIRL!!!!!!” with me everywhere, forever. Awesome.

    Now this fat girl’s taking her fat arse belly dancing, and will be fabulous.

  2. “rise above it? no. i am gonna stay right here and kick your ass” Amen, sister!! I am gonna stand there with you and kick some ass too. FUCK YOU LAGERFELD is right.

  3. I love you Margaret! I love that you stand up to a**holes like Karl whatever the hell his name was. People like him make me just as crazy as the morons like Mitt Romney who want to pray away the gay! The stupidity and intolerance running rampant these days makes me want to go postal sometimes! Brava and thank you for being you, because you are awesome!

  4. You remind me of growing up and hearing people call me fat because of a round Asian face. I remember being told to leave the table because I had one serving and I was too fat for two. I remember being woken up at 6am to run laps because I was the only fat kid in my family. I remember the same boys that tripped me in the hallways at school all asking me out on the same day when I lost 70 pounds by sticking my finger down my throat and making myself sick over and over. It will always be a struggle for me to look in the mirror but at least I’m healthy. And I will never buy Chanel either. You always write exactly what I need and when I need it.

  5. Karl Lagerfeld is a microwaved baked otato. He needs to shut it up. I am fat, beautiful and a plus sized BEAUTY QUEEN! Fat Girl is coming and she’s gonna whip your ass!

  6. I really do not understand why people call you “fat.” I have curves but hispanic people are very proud of their curves. I hate that it bothers you but it’s wrong of me to say since I cannot fully understand what you are going through. All I know is that no one knows what they are talking about. Fat, skinny, average…it’s all fine! You are amazing! Please keep being a role model to all your fans and kick the asses of those stupid haters. You have your funs and your friends who do not care HOW YOU LOOK LIKE!

  7. Ok, I have to compose myself and stop laughing. fatgirl..lol… Nobody should be bullied into losing weight. No one should feel ashamed of their body no matter where they are at fat, average, or skinny. Alot of skinny people get shit too for being too skinny. It really does hurt deep down, fucks with your psyche and lowers your self-esteem and you could start developing a distorted body image, where you are thin but when you look in the mirror you still see fat. It’s fucked up!!

    Seriously fuck that fucker Karl.

  8. sadly the first thing my grandfather said to me this xmas, after years of being apart,” Wow Amber you could afford to loose some weight.” It utterly destroyed my entire day. I only ate one helping of glorious fat filled mexican dishes the family made and avoided altogether my favorite apple pie. My aunt consoled me on fb, as she didnt attend, saying “It’s old school male misogynist crap. You have a body, you are a soul.” I’m chubby. Sometimes i love me, and sometimes i hate me.

  9. Fatgirl totally needs an army behind her, too… I see you have volunteers already, plus myself!

    I’ve been overweight my entire life and people have been utter shits about it, acting personally offended as if I go around kicking puppies. As if I’m failing in my supposed responsibility to be aesthetically pleasing to random assholes. Well, fuck that noise. I’m fat, and it means next to nothing about who I am as a human being. I’m fat, and for a while now I’ve refused to let people make me feel bad or ashamed because of it. (Doesn’t mean I don’t still beat *myself* up over it, but that’s still a work in progress.)

    Some of my favorite ever videos about self-acceptance were made by Joy Nash on YouTube. I don’t know if I can post links here, lest they be considered spammy, but “A Fat Rant” and “Staircase Wit” are awesome. I recommend them to everyone who verbalizes feeling self-conscious about their weight.

    Thanks for speaking out, standing up, taking no shit from any Victorian undertaker-looking weirdo. This fat chick appreciates it.

  10. I used to look at things like my thigh or buns and sob because I felt fat and therefore not good enough but you have made me feel better about my body ever since the first day I discovered who you are Margaret. Thank you.

  11. Thank you. Thank you for owning your anger, your strength, and your beauty. With every blog you write, I find myself in the curious position of reading my own thoughts and feelings, without having written them. My own words fail when it comes to emotions. I splutter with inarticulate rage when confronted and nurse the gaping wounds that people leave behind with their festering hatred, so I thank you for speaking up and not only speaking but yelling back. Love, Jolene

  12. That is more like it!! Karl Lagerfeld is an ass and deserves to be held accountable. Fatgirl. I could visualize the cartoon as I read it. It is hilarious! But you need a logo for Fatgirl. That could easily be the name for your next stand-up tour. When I think of the women who died because of anorexia, Karen Carpenter comes to mind. What a waste!!! Our culture is so obsessed with bullshit, with things that don’t fucking matter, while our world goes to fucking hell. It is absolutely insane. And Karl Lagerfeld is a good example of that insanity.

  13. I like my girls plump and chubby. Seriously. I don’t think skinny girls are that attractive anyway. But if you are overweight or obese that’s a different story. You have my endorsement!

  14. But don’t get me wrong. If you are a woman you should not base your self worth on what a guy thinks about your looks. Some guys think skinny girls are attractive, some don’t. So it is subjective, but your self worth isn’t.

    LOL, I’m a guy so why am I saying this!! Nonetheless it needs to be said.

  15. I love the way any criticism of the fashion industry from someone who is not model thin gets shut down with something along the lines of, “Oh, you’re just jealous because you’re fat.” Apparently, if you’re over a certain weight you can’t have an opinion on fashion or health or body issues, because you’re just so eaten up inside with bitterness you can’t think straight. I had a friend pretty much tell me that when I was complaining about how you only see one body type in magazines and ads.

    Now I don’t buy into the “real women have cures” bullshit. All women are real women, no matter their size, and we have got to stop letting society pit us against each other. But it is a sad fact that we pretty much see only one body type in fashion. And then you have Lagerfeld thinking he has the right to comment on someone else’s size or tell H&M they shouldn’t make his designs bigger than a certain size. He’s a tossmungous tosser from Tossville.

  16. Fatgirl Army – I’m in. It is definitely that the word is used as an attack, a belittlement, and started for so many of us when there was really very little we could do about it, most of us were little girls when we were first called fat, how was that our fault? And yet so many now struggle either starving ourselves sick or raging against the world and “eating” our anger. My shrink finally hit it when she said my eating was a big “FUCK YOU” to the world. A big fuck you to grandpa calling me fat when I wasn’t, a big fuck you to the mean boys at school, a big fuck you to the Dr who thought putting a 9 yr old on a strict diet was a great idea. Getting past the anger is still a work in progress so I hear your hurt and anger and feel your pain too, for you and for all of us.

  17. Karl says what he does because deep inside he is very insecure. That’s why he wears sunglasses too, he cannot confront others. He is a frightened little boy who has been allowed by others to become elitist because it’s a club where they can all feel safe.

    He is we.

  18. Good grief, like Karl Lagerfeld can judge anybody by their outlook. Chanel girls all fine, runway shows all good, 16 year old model girls catwaking in granny gowns? juicy! But when the one last girl fades away into the backstage you KNOW you have to shut down the computer, yes, after that? there she comes the cunty Karl who’s just so fucking old and denying it every fucking second. Valentino might be old and abusing self-tanner every now and then but he never says such cunty stuff.

  19. okay for one, I am also a korean woman, and have dealt with some of the struggles you dealt with in your childhood… and understand the effed up expectations that come with growing up in the korean culture. For one, keep doing what you’re doing. I’m in love with your writing, and even though you yourself admit that it’s not the most appropriate or tasteful at times, your amazing skill and ability to express yourself through this art just TOTALLY justifies it hahaha. And also, I understand you dealt with alot of bullying about your image, but seriously… i look at your pictures and see your videos and you’re REALLY not fat. Not even close.
    You’re normal. You’re perfect. You’re beautiful. You’re exactly the way you should be. I really hope one day that everything and anything said to harm or hurt you mean absolutely nothing… because they really don’t and they shouldnt.
    all my love and blessings,

    Erin.

  20. and P.S., this is a CURVY korean woman with all of her ambition and efforts set on being part of the fashion industry. That’s right. Beautiful, successful, curvy korean women FTW.

  21. Thank you so much for writing this. Your raw honesty is … I don’t know what to say. Thank you for trusting us.

    Being Asian from Asia, I actually find it much more comfortable being here. Whenever I go home, I have everybody and their uncle tell me I need to go on a diet and lose weight, including my father, and random stranger grandmas.

    Another thing that hit me from reading your words is that I feel ashamed of all the moments when I say mean things about “celebrities” on the Internet. I was not thinking, partly because everybody is doing it. We forget that “celebrities” are people too.

  22. Take a look at Jenny Rivera, the DIVA. Se has a glorious voice, great kids, a fabulous life, and is still “a woman of the people” with definite emotional connections to housemaids, secretaries and janitors. No one gives a damn about her weight. Its ony the stupid gringos who obsess about thin women. The look mafia decides what women sould look like because it flatters male machismo and makes them tons of money. Its a scam, beind which there hides a totalitarian mentality.

  23. Hey Beautiful Fat Girl,
    we love you so much. All the women in my family love your sensibilities. Thank you for cracking us the fuck up!!!!! When I saw your stand up at UCSB I almost fainted from laughing – you CA RAZY! Come back please, and do your stand up!
    And fuck anyone pushing skinny, AND high heels! It’s 2-12!
    Happy Vib…I mean valentines day!
    XO

  24. Thank you sooooooooo much !

    You made a difference. You really touched me.
    I’m glad, while being a French gal, I came to know your witty spirit. First a few years ago, I came across the “Fuck it Diet Manifesto”. Then I’ve watched you on Drop Dead Diva …and tonight, via an other blog, I’ve discovered your vibrant post.

    Maybe just when I needed the most (Im trying to recover from a well entrenched past of EDs)

    Life works in magic ways, sometimes.
    Thank you.

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