The Accusation of Suicide and Suicide

Few should be judged solely by the worst of themselves and if this is the worst the now late Anthony Bourdain has done he couldn't be said to have been as bad as all that. By the accounts of many, he was kind generous and supportive to them.

Still, I feel its entirely fair to revisit this video which illustrates the weird chasm that's opened up between our more typical reaction to an apparent suicide and how accusations of suicide are thrown at fat people as a justification for saying that our purported self destruction means we deserve abuse and death.

In the past, it was uncomplicated. The focus was on the loss of a life and the meaning of that to those left behind.

 

Now one has to ask, which reaction to suicide is the real one? As usual, folks can't hear themselves. It is typical of the double consciousness surrounding weight. The extent to which we live in different lanes remains unacknowledged.

How then should one view Bourdain's end, if indeed he has committed actual suicide? [Honestly, is there anything that doesn't split into real and false in this area?] There can only be one way really.

It would be nice though if from now on people dropped this stupid "slow suicide" meme and started to listen to what they are actually saying to (some) people.

No Slimming for Channel Four

If I was bending over backwards, I'd say Channel 4's a mixed bag when it comes to representing the fatz. It commissioned the TV version of "My Mad Fat Diary", which gave us much joy. It has also featured another series with a lead that acts like a human being and not a saddo obot. I typed in Channel 4, female, northern, detective and it came up! "No Offence". I saw bits of it and it thought it seemed well made and had an interesting antagonist, it got away from me.

The other side of this however is far bigger. That's the side that made TV fatsploitation classic Supersize/Superskinny. It has continued with this level of class, upping the ante being a typical achingly bourgeois ghetto for scienterrific fat phobia [you're fooling no-one C4]. Usually featuring, the-you are totes unaware of how much you are pushing into your face-type premise. Specialising in humiliations of the gotcha kind- where people are set up with secret cameras, caught eating pies/cake etc., to then be lectured with the expected pompous yet insipid twit-toned nutritionista.

Every airhead diet trend is taken seriously, all dieting is the same Mao suit, no matter the fabric or colour.

So it was a complete surprise to hear this channel criticise one of their stalwart presenters- Jamie "Please can we not have any more" Oliver. "Channel 4 tells Jamie Oliver he's wrong on junk food ad ban campaign". Thunderstruck, I did the mental equivalent of falling over my feet desperate to find out what their objection could possibly be.

I couldn't even speculate, I was taken aback by their rationale. Money. Not that they said this outright from the get-go;

Channel 4 bosses have said Jamie Oliver’s campaign for a ban on airing junk food adverts before 9pm is wrong, arguing that it is anachronistic because children rarely watch live television.

Megalmao.

......Channel 4 said any such ban could have a substantial impact on its revenue and prevent it from funding programmes about healthy living.

Arrrhahaha..further, snorts, guffaws etc.,

They're not bothered about participating in the relentless dehumanisation and exploitation of people in the name of reducing the size of their bottoms. 

When it comes however to trimming their fat bottom line, they come over all fat positive max, butt only because it means they'll have less money available to produce more useless pseudo science fuelled crap. 

Isn't that well meaning of them?

This is the age we live in my friends. Real maltreatment is not being exhorted to starve on the demand of others neurosis, but the prospect of corporate loss of funds.

Call the UN.

To be candid though, this could pose a dilemma.

Oppose Jamie Oliver or support him and possibly reduce C4's budget for fat hating propaganda.  Tough choice.

Never did I think anything could even for a moment make me reconsider objecting to the Oliver that wants to give less rather than ask for more.

Reclamation

Oh dear, someone has called someone the cee word, pass the smelling salts Agatha! "Why is it so Taboo?" I must confess: I-do-not-know.  It's sechsual, so it's taken on baggage from that. It also reflects the status of men and the age old habit of labelling women unclean and/or inherently harmful. We can see this in terf [look it up], yeah, I know, handmaidens came up with that-so what?

Their whole point is they don't want to have a mind of their own.

What I do know for sure is that the word has/is being reclaimed by women themselves.

When you seize your body back from (internalised) misogynist utility, you tend to find it hard to be offended by titles for la chatte. Let me not mislead, there's something about the word.

It conveys power and is powerful. Vagina's a dear Latinate, but it's a bit wet [sorry, not sorry]. Vulva, sounds like it could be a character out of Star Trek, or possibly a volcano. It isn't well know and can't even be shortened as in Vag.

Cnut is also being reclaimed because of the reason behind the perceived insult. That the vagina was defined as a hole and it failed to be, because it is not. This biological mismatch frustrated the Man and this translated into a raging complaint that could be spat out any time a woman failed a patriarchal definition.

Part of this aspect has also survived and it is used by both men and women for someone they consider to not being doing what they should to the extent that they become an obstacle to right and proper aims. There is some etiquette. It's never sounds right for a man to call a woman this, though a woman can call a man this, it's probably not good either, from a psychological point of view.

Reclamation has been proposed for 'obesity'. That its just another word for fat. It isn't though. Nor does it refer directly to fat people. It exists as a rejection of acknowledging bodies bigger than slim bodies are as whole as slim bodies.

It's not as much to delegitimize fatter bodies as it is to keep slim in sight at all times. Imagine a slim person (always) standing in front of a fatter person, with the difference between the outline of the slim person and that of the fat person being the 'overweight/obesity'.

This difference is purportedly attacking the slim body and 'causing' harm to it. Nothing to reclaim in this sci-fi, it's got nothing to do with anyone but those who feel this. An 'obese' is not a person, it's an object lolling around waiting to be defined and programmed by those promoting this.

'Obeses' do not exist until this mindset takes aim at them, and they do not exist when it looks away. It is their life. Basically, a kind of zombie. Incidentally, slim people are increasingly becoming 'obese'. By that, I do not mean fat, I mean the remove they used to have from torturing food with negativity has gone. Remember when some of them retained a freshness from the default that food is a good thing?

Gone. They've now acquired the dull patina of stress about food that fat people have had all this time. Even when they try to be positive about food, like fat people, they sound increasingly strained and as if they're sinning. Noticed?

It hadn't occurred that this zombie puppet meaning could be of use if it was matched with such an implement. Amusingly, Donald Trump gets the meaning of 'obese'. His recent medical where his stopped a pound before 'obese' categorisation I think shows his instinctive recognition of the toxicity of this branding.

Yes, he's a fatphobe, but 'obese' is supposed to be medical/respectable. Yet Trump wanted nothing to do with it. His gargantuan ego sensed being danger and he opted to be mocked over being Jim Jones Kool-Aid level owned. And I suspect his doctor allowed it not simply out of any pressing, but because he too knows its a branding not befitting the office of the most powerful person in the US (nominally).

I don't blame any woman for not appreciating reclamation of cnut, but it pales besides worse.

How Science Does and Doesn't Go

Here's an example of what you are missing.

"Potential new cure found for baldness" everything is clear in 6 words. The issue: baldness, the aim: to resolve it. Use of the term 'cure' is quaint, from a time when the desire for solutions was evident. It also tells us that anything remotely undesirable easily lends itself toward pathologisation and the language of disease as metaphor.

Along with issue and aim is the need for a target, in this case it happens to be a compound that acts as a brake on hair growth. Amusing given the amount of times I have said usually scientific protocol is to look to stabilise a condition or state-to stop it increasing/moving on/continuing, at the same time as seeking a reverse gear.

Tackling baldness is presented as being about manipulating the action of cells, in an understandable way. It's clear that scientists are doing this for lay people. There's no resentment on the part of the professionals, who do not feel they're being overburdened or taxed by being expected to want to practise what they trained for-in addition to freely choosing what field they wish to engage in. Of their own volition.

All despite the utter triviality of baldness. There's no sense that this is an unworthy investment of scientific resources. Doctors are involved, supporting in this case leading research.

Current remedies, their efficacy and lack of it are accurately rendered, in no sense is a failure of these remedies the failure of anything but those remedies. Reactions to baldness are also allowed to vary. It is made clear some 'suffer', there's a distinct sense that you don't have to.

It isn't required and you are not accused of anything, if you do not by your own initiative choose to suffer from baldness.

Overall the tone is cool, detached and interested in its subject. Shaped by the professionals involved.

Looking at a sample of the most recent article on weight, "Study casts doubt on 'healthy obesity'", it's easy to see it has no real sense of its issue, no desire to resolve, and clearly it is on the attack. It is unfocused, goes nowhere, is highly personalised and seeks only to create anxiety and to demoralise its targets. Not the functioning of the body and its cells, but people.

There is no such thing as objectivity when it comes to 'obesity'. The construct itself is the stigma and its operatives are the stigmatisers.

The public go along with this, including fat people, who also allow themselves to be trapped inside its terms.