When I heard the recent story about the Marie Claire blogger, Maura Kelly, and her view and rant on fat people, I was pretty annoyed and disheartened. Maura Kelly said many things that I find to be discriminating, not to mention downright rude. A small part of what she said in her blog this week: “I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything -- just like I'd find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroin addict slumping in a chair.” A lot of people besides myself have taken offense to her words, one because she is rude, two because she is saying fat people are equivalent to drug or alcohol addicts.
My whole life I have struggled with being overweight, thin years and heavier years, nonetheless I have never had a problem with dating or having people want to date me. I think that has more to do with the person I am then what I look like. Sure I prefer my thinner self, cuter clothes and all of that, but when I am heavier I think I still deserve a life.
The show that started all of this controversy and made Maura Kelly write her rant, is a new show on CBS, called Mike and Molly. The show happens to be one of the funniest shows I have seen in a really long time, it actually has the ability to make me laugh out loud several times during each episode. The show is clever and the actors and actresses are really funny. That being said, yes they are very overweight, HELLO, that is the whole premise of the show and what makes it funny. The show teaches a lesson that Ms. Maura Kelly obviously did not get. The lesson is just because you are overweight does not mean that you don’t deserve a life that is full of love and one that is productive. I did not start watching this show because of the premise; I watched the show because I thought the actress that plays Molly was really funny on Samantha Who. This is the same for me for a thin, black, white or any other person, I don’t care what you look like, I just care if you are on a sitcom, I want you to make me laugh. Molly and Mike, you make me laugh and that is all I ask for.
Apologies after a firestorm are not readily believable. Would Maura Kelly have ever apologized without the backlash from many people including Sharon Osbourne saying she was going to cancel her subscription to the magazine? I think not, just like the other celebrities covered in the magazine she writes for, apologies for being rude, racist or a cheater are kind of hard to accept after the fact.
