You know, I hadn't realized that Dana was actually supposed to be fat.
She's been... the Designated Ugly Girl. She had the face only a mother could love, she had boyfriends who couldn't appreciate her "from the neck up." I guess I spaced on her eating a whole sandwich plus dessert as being coded for fatness, silly me. She's now waddling and had a big nose, so ...yeah, I think Mr. Pike Had A Statement He Was Making, sheesh.
It's SUCH crap, and that attitude was SO pervasive when we were growing up. It's consistently amazing to revisit childhood media and realize how much messed-up baloney was baked into it. (Not amazing/surprising, so much, more... amazing/rage-inducing???)
(And not just when we were growing up, obviously: I've still been using Bones as background hula-hooping entertainment in the mornings before work, and the fatphobia in that show (which ran from 2005-2017!!) is RAMPANT, at least in the early seasons. Yeesh.)
That's weirdly true... there was ALWAYS A Fat Girl in books from childhood, since fat-shaming has always been an acceptable "for your own good" kind of prejudice. I recently reread Blubber, by Judy Blume - now, here's a whole book about a girl who is SUPPOSED to be fat... but from the descriptions, she isn't really more than plump. The whole thing turns into just that she was Other, and too indifferent to her Otherness, thus was scapegoated out of the herd of the True Believers. Blume makes everyone in the whole book grotesque... and the adults unbelievably stupid. And complicit. And I always find myself wondering in books like this... "Wait, what was your point again?"
When I go back and read some of those 70s era middle grade novels, they feel very ADULT to me, more-so than contemporary middle grade? It's very strange and I haven't quite put my finger on what's going on there. (I've got a few that I'll write about soon—I've got next week off from the library, so I'm hoping to do a bunch of reading/writing then!!)
You know, I hadn't realized that Dana was actually supposed to be fat.
She's been... the Designated Ugly Girl. She had the face only a mother could love, she had boyfriends who couldn't appreciate her "from the neck up." I guess I spaced on her eating a whole sandwich plus dessert as being coded for fatness, silly me. She's now waddling and had a big nose, so ...yeah, I think Mr. Pike Had A Statement He Was Making, sheesh.
It's SUCH crap, and that attitude was SO pervasive when we were growing up. It's consistently amazing to revisit childhood media and realize how much messed-up baloney was baked into it. (Not amazing/surprising, so much, more... amazing/rage-inducing???)
(And not just when we were growing up, obviously: I've still been using Bones as background hula-hooping entertainment in the mornings before work, and the fatphobia in that show (which ran from 2005-2017!!) is RAMPANT, at least in the early seasons. Yeesh.)
That's weirdly true... there was ALWAYS A Fat Girl in books from childhood, since fat-shaming has always been an acceptable "for your own good" kind of prejudice. I recently reread Blubber, by Judy Blume - now, here's a whole book about a girl who is SUPPOSED to be fat... but from the descriptions, she isn't really more than plump. The whole thing turns into just that she was Other, and too indifferent to her Otherness, thus was scapegoated out of the herd of the True Believers. Blume makes everyone in the whole book grotesque... and the adults unbelievably stupid. And complicit. And I always find myself wondering in books like this... "Wait, what was your point again?"
As for Mr. Pike... maybe he had an ex named Dana.
When I go back and read some of those 70s era middle grade novels, they feel very ADULT to me, more-so than contemporary middle grade? It's very strange and I haven't quite put my finger on what's going on there. (I've got a few that I'll write about soon—I've got next week off from the library, so I'm hoping to do a bunch of reading/writing then!!)