Hero Things

[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

Last week, I wrote a piece about not using fat as shorthand to indicate that a character is bad, which ended thus: "It's not just important to avoid writing fat villains whose fat is used to lazily communicate their inherent badness. It's also important to write fat heroes."

In response, I received an email from a rather defensive professional storyteller who wanted to assure me that the ubiquity of fat villains is just a coincidence, but conceded that I had a point about the lack of fat heroes. Only to then ask: "What would a fat hero do, though?"

I read it. I read it again. I blinked at the screen.

At first, I didn't even understand the question. Then slowly it dawned on me, with a sickening twist in my gut, as these things always do, that the question was indicative of how thoroughly dehumanized fat people are, our lives so invisibilized and our bodies so pathologized that we are a mystery to our fellow travelers on this bit of dirt.

What would a fat hero do, though?

Save the world. Rescue people. Leap over tall buildings in a single bound. Fly. Run so fast they are but a blur to mere mortal eyes. Lift mountains. Traverse oceans. Fight for justice. Rescue a kitten stuck up a tree. Stop an oncoming train with a single hand. Drive an amphibious car. Throw a weaponized bowtie with alarming accuracy. Wear a cool costume. Pilot an invisible jet. Walk through walls. Get the bad guys. Travel with a sidekick. Reverse time. Catch a nuclear bomb in their bare hands. Fight off an alien invasion. Lead an alien invasion. Negotiate with an alien overlord. Punch an alien overlord. Pow! Drag themselves up from the rubble to make one last stand when all hope seems lost. Morph into a bird, a leopard, a shark. Fall in love. Ride a glorious stallion into battle. Pull a sword from a stone. Breathe life back into a fellow hero. Breathe life back into a nemesis. Have a secret identity. Search for the truth about one's mysterious origins. Go on a quest. Fall from grace. Redeem themselves. Fail. Triumph. Win the day.

A fat hero would do hero things.

This should be as obvious as understanding that an XL t-shirt does the same thing as an XS t-shirt. T-shirts, whatever their size, do the thing that t-shirts are supposed to do.

But fat humans are not regarded as doing the things that humans do. We are presumed to lead different lives, limited lives, less than lives. And if there is evidence that our lives look very much like our thin counterparts, then our experiences are questioned and demeaned. Your happiness isn't genuine happiness. Your marathoning is inferior marathoning. Your day at the beach is a sad day at the beach. Your love isn't real love.

Which is the way we rationalize how it's possible that a fat person, who is not meant to deserve any of these things—joy, motion, social participation, affection—somehow manages to have them all the same.

We can't even imagine that a fat mortal lives a human life. No wonder we can't imagine what it is that a fat hero would do.

This is the reality of a fat person's lived experience: It is easier for someone telling the stories of heroes to conjure a man from another planet who can fly, shoot lasers out of his eyes, blow icy cold wind from his lips, lift the earth itself, and successfully conceal himself behind a pair of glasses than it is to imagine a single thing of which a fat hero might be capable.

Imaginary heroes are more real to us than ordinary fat people.

I say again: It is important to write fat heroes. And fat heroes do hero things.