Poet, essayist, and activist Audre Lorde famously wrote, “If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.”
I didn’t see The Whale, for which Brendan Fraser won an Oscar earlier this month. Nor will I ever watch it, for the same reason I don’t watch videos of police murders; one must know when to turn away, one must recognize when the cost of viewing outweighs any benefit. So take what I have to say with a grain of salt (make it Maldon, please). Still, I’ve read a stack of articles about The Whale — Lindy West’s being particularly incisive — and I’ve lived a lifetime of fatness in a fatphobic culture. This qualifies me to speak, and here’s what I want to say: