Carol Lay makes me sad (book review of a book I haven't read)

[psocoptera]

Back when I Discovered Comics, Carol Lay's Story Minute became a major influence on how I thought about panel breakdowns and the pacing and size of stories you could tell in a comic.

She's got a new graphic novel out now. It's called "The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude". There's a sample chapter available.

My reaction: sad. Of course, people can do anything with their bodies that works for them, and people can write whatever books they want to and I don't have to read them, but a) I wish this not-very-interesting subject matter wasn't how an artist I admire was spending their time and creative energy, and b) her perspective on weight seems harsh and limiting to me.

For example, on page 7, panel 5 of the sample chapter, Lay tells us that her "default weight" seemed to be 160 (pounds), and "at 5'9" that was at least 30 pounds too much." She shows us pictures of her clothes pinching, ripping, and popping buttons. (I just really wanted to say to her, dude, it's okay to buy clothes that fit.) On page 10 she draws herself standing on a scale looking sad when she can't maintain a "zaftig" 137 pounds. On page 15, panel 5, she draws her "before" and "after" self, 158 pounds vs 123.

I feel like I should say again, Carol Lay's body is not subject to my approval; there is absolutely no reason in the world she should care at all about what I find appealing or attractive. But this seems to me to be a story about how she dieted herself down from an unremarkable weight to a very skinny weight, and to my eye she already looks great standing on that scale on page 10, as she draws herself. And if *she* loved her body at 158 as much as she does at 123, she could be spending pages 17-25 on something more fun and interesting than calorie counting and denial fantasies. So it makes me sad, that she's apparently poured 200 pages into promoting the Pursuit of Super-Skinniness.

(As it happens, I'm also 5'9", and I also "naturally" weigh something like 160 pounds - my depressed, "sitting around and eating too much vending machine junk and too little good food" weight (as of spring 2008) was something like 160-165, while my strong, active "hiking weight" (as of summer 2007) was about 150-155. I'm not sure how pregnancy will affect that long-term, but I really can't imagine any scenario in which I would want to weigh less than 150-155, and I don't really care if my new strong and active weight is higher, if I can in fact get back the strength and stamina. (Fitting into my old clothes would save money, but, as per above, I totally believe "clothes that fit" are a reasonable expense.) To me, on me, 125 pounds would be scary skinny, like, serious illness skinny, and I can't imagine looking good or feeling good at that weight. Carol Lay might have much lighter bones than I do, or be built very differently, or any number of things that invalidate my automatic comparison. But I will definitely not be reading a book that will tell me how I can "change my fattitude" and go from the left side to the right side of page 15, panel 5, even though it's by someone who used to be one of my favorite cartoonists.)

Comments

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

While there is no reason at all that you should care about what I find appealing or attractive, my reaction to your last question was "why on earth would you care about the minimum weight recommendation?". Sexy curvy girls "should not", in my little world of preferences, be looking at the minimum weight as some sort of ideal. I am aware that "you can do well at being you!" sounds like something out of a 1970s children's brainwashing film, but if I was rewriting this graphic novel, that is what I would like it to say. (Gah, I'm going to have to start worrying about these messages in things my kid sees, aren't I. Stupid Cult of Skinny.)

[miraling.livejournal.com]

Well, thanks! :) But what I sort of incoherently meant is that, even though it doesn't say it in so many words, the approach in the comic is definitely that (at least for her) the bare minimum "healthy" weight for her height is the right one. I mean, it seems to me like the ideal here, as well as sort of everywhere else I look is to weigh as little as you can get away with. So I guess it's discouraging to know that someone seven inches taller than me thinks 125 pounds is about right for her, when I can't even imagine approaching that weight. I think it especially hit me hard because 120 lbs is the imaginary fairy-wish weight I think about reaching. So if that's what someone that much taller than me thinks of as ideal, what would be "ideal" for me? 115? 110? 100?

I'm not sure how clear I was being there. I guess it's just hard for me to set a realistic, actually-good-for-me weight goal. I could probably feel much more in control of everything if I were really comfortable with a genuinely appropriate-for-me weight, but it's hard to not think "but I'll still be fat" in that range, or to think about the last time I was that weight and how unhappy I was about it at the time.

Er, sorry for going on about all of this. And yeah, I don't know how anyone is sane about weight growing up with all of Cult of Skinny stuff, but maybe you have a better shot than most at keeping these messages at a distance, having thought about it in advance?

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

I hope this doesn't sound annoying preachy, especially from someone who's had "thin privilege" for much of their life by just happening to weigh something considered societally acceptable, but my fantasy numbers are 8 hours/9 miles/+-4500 feet/15 pounds. That is, being able to do an all-day 9 mile hike, up and then down 4500 feet, with an average pack weight around 15 pounds (probably the meeple half of the time and our supplies and water the other half). I would be able to summit Katahdin and Mt. Washington with that level of hiking badassery. I say this is a fantasy because I'm really, really, *really* far from that right now (right now I waddle at approximately the pace of my grandmother and my pelvis aches after an hour on my feet - which is not at all strange, given that I'm 34 weeks pregnant, but it's certainly not my body ideal), but it's also not completely crazy for me - I feel like I was getting in range of this when we trained for Half Dome. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get back to that point, but I would totally go for fat+that over skinny and not. Or at least, I *think* I would. Never having had to take much societal shit about my weight, I can't really understand how much it would suck...

Anyways, shorter: I think the answer to the whole weight target thing is that the only way to win is not to play, and a realistic ideal is being whatever weight you end up at when you can do cool physical things you want to be able to do. (Other numbers that come to mind for me are 19/21, being able to dance 19 out of 21 dances at the English-Scottish Ball, or 0/90, being able to make it through a basics yoga class without once worrying about my survival ::grin::.)

[glynhogen.livejournal.com]

"weigh as little as you can get away with"

That's something I also see and feel. In my case it's largely because if I'm at the low end of my ideal weight, then I'd have a buffer between my current weight and "too much" (which for me falls right around the overweight line). This is probably related to the fact that I've never had problems being underweight (and I also don't like to have to make too many food sacrifices; buffer=no worries). Most discussion about weight revolves around how much you should lose and how you should go about it, not what you should do if you're underweight (aside from "shut up, stop bragging, I'd kill for that problem").