A Fat Acceptance Cartoon

A cartoon woman sits on a couch. She is eating a bucket of fried chicken. She is watching television. The caption says she is beautiful. The artist calls it body positivity. The cartoon is not body positivity. It is a caricature designed to make fat people look lazy, gluttonous, and simple. The artist claims to be an ally. The artist is a bigot.In this episode, I examine a controversial cartoon that went viral in the fat acceptance community. The cartoon was drawn by a thin woman who claimed to be an advocate for body positivity. Fat activists accused her of drawing stereotypes. The artist defended herself, saying she was just trying to be inclusive. The backlash was swift and brutal. The artist deleted her social media accounts. She has not been heard from since.The episode explores the fine line between representation and caricature. Fat people deserve to see themselves in art. They do not deserve to be reduced to a bucket of fried chicken and a couch. The cartoon that was meant to celebrate fat bodies ended up mocking them. The artist did not understand why. She was not fat. She had never been fat. She was drawing from imagination, not from experience. The result was a cartoon that hurt the very people it was supposed to help.Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the fat acceptance cartoon was not acceptance. It was an insult in crayon.