'R' you havin' a larf, Mr Gervais?

Thanks to tealou over at bfb

My attention was directed to this .

My reaction to this is not annoyance I'm aware of RG's irritating views on fat and have worked them out of my system enough for other things to strike me more.

What is interesting about this article, is that he makes other points that are astute and worth listening to, such as how we should not cut our bodies for vanity, how we care more about possessions than our health and how a pill for every ill is deepening that lack of self care:

"The problem is, we've got pills for everything, and all it does is encourage people to treat their bodies badly.

I agree that the culture of the almighty pill, does encourage us to treat ourselves badly in the sense that it facilitates the sometimes overwhelming desire to avoid our painful issues. By encouraging us to pretend we are 'ill' and that we need drugs for our illness this behaviour is validated and therefore entrenched. We get to 'legitimately' evade facing up to what we feel is excruciating. We only undo ourselves, sadly.

That's what usually rational people can't see, those of us on this side of the fat issue are frustrated by their inability to carry on thinking about weight with the same insight they bring to other matters, amply demonstrated by Mr. Gervais himself.

It's part of the corruption that occurs when you accept the logic that weight is within our control, using diets (not the same thing as we are capable of having some control over our weight). This 'logic' traps you. Because you cannot make it work, the anger at feeling forced to do something physical that you destest, combined with the sense that not liking it means you are lazy. Builds into an unexpressed and inchoate rage. Rage that you 'have' to do this, to force yourself to hurt. The fact that you are doing it to yourself makes it more upsetting, not less, you are supposed to protect yourself from misuse, but you've somehow failed. Just becuase you don't perceive it in this way, doesn't mean it is not registering in your mind. You've sold yourself out really, to attempt the very vanity Gervais has already critiqued. These feelings have no outlet.

This rage can only be directed inward toward yourself, probably making you feel like you are self destructive, this can itself lead you to act as if you are self destructive. Or it explodes outward, onto other fat people who've really just become an extension of the part of yourself you feel is the enemy. When you think about it, your aim is to defeat yourself, no a healthy line of thought

This of course is painful unsustainable as it eventually leads to burnout or even mental instibility. I'm sure studying that pattern more closely could reveal a lot about how mental illness often comes about in other contexts.

Sometimes when people with substance use problems are talking about it, you think to yourself, that's the drug (etc) talking, not them. This is kind of how it is with Mr. Gervais, it is his unsuccessful attempts to become slim throught his running regime talking. He should be talking about how he's taken up running, to lose weight, like he's supposed to and look, I'm still fat, what a con. He believes this is science though and that affects his capacity to reason. I wonder how he'll feel when he discovers this.

His sentiments are why some fat people are in danger of eroding their own civil rights. That is part of the problem I have with feeling that fat people are oppressed, the extent to which too many of us have and are still colluding in our own potential doom.