Two best friends noticed a recurrent pattern of the negative portrayal of overweight people from media and entertainment outlets. They were increasingly bombarded by fat jokes, discriminating actions and the targeting of fat people in movies, TV shows and other industries like fashion and sports. Enough was enough.
Lindsey Averill and Viridiana Lieberman responded to what they saw by co-creating “Fattitude,” a documentary calling attention to a nationwide culture of the shaming of and prejudice against fat people.
A screening of the film and a Q&A session with the creators will be hosted by the Carolina Union on Feb. 26 from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., and the Mission Valley Cinema in Raleigh on Feb. 27 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Averill produced and directed "Fattitude" alongside Lieberman, a professionally trained filmmaker. Averill explained that the idea struck her as she was working on a dissertation with the comparative studies program at Florida Atlantic University.
Her project was about representations of fat bodies and media directed at teens. She said she quickly realized that many people didn’t understand this issue, and the pair wanted to change that.
“As far as 'Fattitude' is concerned, most people are walking around with some form of negative body image, and the reason that is is because we live in a culture that is so critical of bodies,” Averill said. “One of the things that 'Fattitude' is trying to do is change the national conversation about body image so that we don’t focus specifically on individuals and telling them that they need to build up more confidence about their body image.”
Over the span of five years, they interviewed over 50 individuals nationwide, ranging from plus size supermodels to feminist and fat activists. They compiled over 100 hours of footage and began to shape the story of “Fattitude.”
Averill said they approached the documentary like an academic paper, developing a thesis and formulating an argument. They chose to approach the negative portrayal of fat people by compiling an overwhelming amount of fat shaming evidence from pop culture.
“When you’re seeing one fat joke, it’s just one fat joke,” Averill said. “What’s the big deal? But when you start to realize that there’s this undercurrent of constant fat jokes, that’s a different story.”