This morning, The Daily Mail printed a front page that featured journalist Liz Jones in what she’s calling an ‘empathy suit’ – which is another word for a fat suit that – as she explored what it’s like to spend the day as a ‘morbidly obese’ person.
The piece was meant to help her ‘beat her own prejudice’ and discover whether the body positivity movement has changed the way society treats fat people. But for most reading the article, their only question is ‘WHY?’
It’s the second time in almost as many months that we’ve had to have a conversation around the ethics of wearing a fat suit. In April, Sarah Paulson donned one in order to play Linda Tripp in American Crime Story: Impeachment. Many were disappointed to see their favourite actor partaking in such an obviously problematic trope.
Because given the long history of women donning fat suits for entertainment, Hollywood – and the British tabloids – should know better.
We sat it when Gwyneth Paltrow wore on in Shallow Hal, the premise of that film being that Hal – played by Jack Black – has a huge hurdle to get over in order to find an obese woman lovable. Then there was Monica in Friends, who wore fat suits in every flashback episode, again only becoming lovable to Chandler once she lost weight.
Almost always, fat suits are used by thin actors for a story arc where they go from someone unworthy of love and respect to a ‘beautiful’, thin woman everyone now aspires to be. They undoubtedly perpetuate fatphobia, and have real world implications on the way fat people are mistreated in our society.
Even when used in circumstances like Sarah Paulson or Liz Jones, you have to ask – why wouldn’t producers or editors just hire a fat person for that position? For The Daily Mail in particular, surely it’s obvious that it would be impossible for someone who has been thin their whole life to understand the broad spectre of fatphobia from one day of traipsing round London.
Choosing to put thin women in fat suits does nothing but provide a spectacle, rarely accounting for the real experiences of fat women across all parts of their lives. And yet we continue to do it, or at least allow it. It’s time we stop.
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