There's only so far you can push us chubby girls. I've suffered through it my whole life. Never being a skinny girl, never even being thin I have built an entire lifestyle on trying to camoflauge my fat-itude...from my college wardrobe which consisted almost entirely of black, to learning how to turn to the side, suck it in and stick my head up like a perplexed ostrich for every picture I've ever had taken...including ones I had in done in grade school. The world seems bound and determined to make me incredibly aware that as a physical specimen I am less than perfect. Years ago, I would hold my breath every time I went through an airline check point, terrified they were going to tell me that I had to buy an extra seat because I was so bulky I would surely suffocate any stick-thin, high-strung salesman that tried to sit next to me. I used to have nightmares about the other passengers on the plane getting stuck in my fat rolls or climbing on to my back in case the plane went down and using me to safely find land. I stopped shopping at Bath and Body Works because when you are a large woman AND smell like food, people automatically assume that you spend your afternoon rolling around in a vat of apple pie filling. I have suffered at the hands of magazine covers featuring women who look more like bicycle frames than healthy role models and have ignored the passing-over glances of men who thought I was too thick to wear on their arm.
But I don't think that I need to be burnt in effigy on a billboard by a bunch of over-enthusiastic morons whose battle cry is "Meat is Murder". Growing up in rural communities, we don't look at meat as murder. We look at meat as survival. We don't see a cow as a beautiful animal...stand it in a garden and we see a happy meal of the future. But the new PETA billboard featuring a large, large woman in a bikini and the words "SAVE THE WHALES, LOSE THE BLUBBER, GO VEGETARIAN"...well that would have to be the last freakin' straw. You know PETA, the People who Eat Tasteless Appetizers and expect everyone in the world to think they are better than the rest of us because they can eat wheat germ without cringing. No, seriously, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is a wonderful organization that does a lot of good...sometimes. But like any human-being-based organization, sometimes they overstep their bounds. Devaluing PEOPLE because they are fat seems a bit unethical...and at the least, not very nice.
Their spokesperson, a very rakish, hip young man whose name escapes me encouraged people to find out what PETA is all about by going to their website, so I did. The first thing that caught my eye was a promotion against McDonald's. So in less than 20 minutes, PETA had offended me as a woman AND slammed on the Ronald...this was not boding well for our little tofu touters. PETA has designed what they call an "UNhappy Meal" which features a ghoulish rendition of the Ronald brandishing a knife on a bloodstained box of "Chicken McCruelty" nuggets. That was pretty much all it took for me to write them off as overeducated, uber-funded, and bicoastal with a tendency to forget there is an entire nation in between said coasts.
First of all, PETA is not appealing to anyone who cares... Let me explain. The people who eat chicken mcnuggets have greater concerns than how the chicken was killed. In all honesty, those people have probably seen chickens killed the old-fashioned way (grab by the head and fling them like a baton until their heads pop OR whack the chicken in the head and then chop it at the neck) and they don't particularly care whether the animal likes it or not. To them, meat is murder, necessary, vital, tasty, tasty murder. Also, these are not people that care that there is no part of a chicken called a "McNugget" or nugget for that matter and no, it doesn't bother them to think about what anatomical region of the chicken they came from. These are also your people who consider hot dogs and meats that come in an edible skin a food group in and of themselves.
So after seeing the UNhappy Meal promotion and reading all about PETA and how they truly enjoy the shock factor when it comes to their advertising, I didn't feel any better because it then occurred to me that animals have more value in their version of society than large women. Would they EVER put a mutilated dog on a billboard and use some witty jab at mutilated dogs? No. They would put a mutilated dog on a billboard and say something shocking to make the public at large empathize with the dog...but they would never ostracize or ridicule the dog. They are all up in arms about glue traps and fur, but don't mind at all taking a jab at fat people? Maybe we should officially begin referring to ourselves as chubby bunnies...maybe then we would fall into a hands-off category that didn't give them permission to berate and belittle us. The rakish hipster desperately tried to defend his organization by saying that they are only trying to encourage people to live healthy lifestyles by becoming vegetarians. However most dieticians will agree that vegetarian lifestyles are no more healthy than a balanced diet with exercise, so the hipster blew it there. And as he sat there in his handsome face with his devil-may-care hair and his "Save the Whales/Harpoon a Fat Chick" smirk I realized something.
He looked delicious.
And that is why EVERYONE should fear the fat people. Not because we are taking up two seats on your plane or because we are eating the last of the bread pudding at the AYCE buffet or because we are ugly-ing up the joint. Because if times get tough, and worse comes to worse, well, Mama is gonna eat and that's the bottom line. And those who have something to offer other than lean meat will get eaten last...that way we can enjoy their talents before we enjoy their tastiness. So PETA people, I issue an invitation to you now: come and join my new organization; it's called EAT or Everyone's Attractive and Tasty. We'd love to have you for dinner, and I swear I don't mean that in a Hannibal Lecter way...
And chubby bunnies of the world, FYI. Rumor has it those vegetarians are like human versions of free-range chickens....YUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMY!
