The Internets Never Sleep

[laceblade]

Firstly, I will remind you all (as Dave reminded me!) that the first Act of Dr. Horrible goes live today! These are only staying live until midnight of July 20th.

I'd really like to know how the conversation went when deciding on the cover of this week's New Yorker. "It's okay for white people to be racist, because we're being ironic!" No.

Black Lagoon is one of my favorite anime series, and it's been announced that it will have a third season.

Last Sunday, I went to see the movie Wall-E with Creighton, Carolyn, Gordon, Antoine, and a couple of friends of C&C. I had forgotten to mention that, but I did find the movie incredibly sweet. Probably the only critique I have of the movie is its treatment of obesity, equating it with laziness, stupidity, and ignorance. There is an article describing this, and why it sucks, here.

Wall-E is an innovative and visually stunning film, but the "satire" it draws is simple-minded. It plays off the easy analogy between obesity and ecological catastrophe, pushing the notion that Western culture has sickened both our bodies and our planet with the same disease of affluence. According to this lazy logic, a fat body stands in for a distended culture: We gain weight and the Earth suffers. If only society could get off its big, fat ass and go on a diet!

But the metaphor only works if you believe familiar myths about the overweight: They're weak-willed, indolent, and stupid. Sure enough, that's how Pixar depicts the future of humanity. The people in Wall-E drink "cupcakes-in-a-cup," they never exercise, and if they happen to fall off their hovering chairs, they thrash around like babies until a robot helps them up. They watch TV all day long and can barely read.

It ought to go without saying that this stereotype of the "obese lifestyle" is simply false. How fat you are has a lot more to do with your genes than with your behavior. As much as 80 percent of the variation in human body weight can be explained by differences in our DNA. (Your height is similarly heritable.) That is to say, it may not matter that much whether you eat salads or drink "cupcakes-in-a-cup," whether you bike everywhere or fly around in a Barcalounger. If you have a propensity to become obese, there's only so much that can be done about it.

That's not to say that our circumstances can't lead us to gain weight. But there's little evidence that overeating causes obesity on an individual level and no real reason to think that anyone can lose a lot of weight by dieting. (Most of us fluctuate around a natural "set point.")

The article should be read in its entirety. It contains many links, sending you to lengthier discussions of these issues. Perhaps someone could forward a link to Rachel Moss.


I don't know how many of you have been following the Helix kerfluffle, but the most absurd exchange I've read thus far has been when writer Yoon Ha Lee contacted F&SF Helix, asking them to remove her story from its archives. She no longer wants to be associated with them after a writer posted their rejection slip on LiveJournal, showing that it contained negative views of Muslims. Emphasis is added by me.

Sanders flounced off in a huff, stating that the story "never did make any sense" and that he only accepted it to "please those who admire your work"--what altruism!--"and also because (notorious bigot that I am) I was trying to get more work by non-Caucasian writers." If I were a writer currently submitting to Helix, I would kind of worry about that bit--all things considered, if a story really does suck, I'd rather have it rejected so I can fix it.

He then played psychic and claimed that I only asked for the story to be withdrawn "because, let's get real here, you feel the need to distance yourself from someone who is in disfavor with the kind of babbling PC waterheads whose good opinion is so important to you, and whom you seem to be trying to impress with this little grandstand play."

He closed with: "There was a suggestion I was going to make, but it is probably not physically practicable."

I'm actually totally okay with being told the story makes no sense; I'm fond of "Shadow Postulates" for my own reasons, but it is indeed a flawed story, albeit a flawed story that several readers have enjoyed, so it's not all to the bad.

In any case, there it stands. As for my literary career, small thing that it is, maybe it'll survive, maybe it won't. We'll see.

Meanwhile, if you are a fellow chromatic writer who writes stories that make no sense (and trust me, I have done this LOTS, and I have friends' comments and the rejection slips from F&SF--which I am, note, not posting--to prove it), try Helix! Send 'em in! There's a home for us now! (Well, y'all rather than "us," because I suspect anything I hypothetically sent to Helix would be deleted unread.)

What a jerk! Where do these people come from?

Sanders has now said that any writer who wants a story removed must pay $40.

Comments

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

I thought the one thing that tempered Wall-E's portrayal of obesity was that the blame was placed on the corporation and not the individuals.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

I guess, but to me that suggests the people are all sheep, which is kind of worse?

[hellocthulhu.livejournal.com]

I actually think the New Yorker might have done Obama a favor on this one. They've brought all the insinuations that the right wing has been making about Obama front and center, and showed how stupid, racist, and ignorant said insinuations actually are. It's an excellent piece of satire, really. The problem is the people who are being called to the floor by it are too damn stupid (or willfully ignorant) to realize they've just been served.

But there's little evidence that overeating causes obesity on an individual level.

I will guarantee you that anyone who sits in a chair all day drinking cupcakes in a cup is going to turn into a human version of Jabba the Hutt eventually. A majority of people could maintain a healthy body weight if they ate better and exercised. I am rather chunky myself, but I know this is because of my own lifestyle choices and don't try to justify it by lumping myself in with the small percentage of people who have a severe genetic condition that causes obesity. Not being born one of those people whose metabolism lets them eat anything and stay thin DOES NOT mean you're "genetically disabled" and damned to be fat; it means you have a standard metabolism, and if you want to be standard-sized and healthy, you're going to have to work at it a bit.

If anything, I think Wall-E was too soft on the "fat, dumb, and happy" humans. It kind of portrayed them as innocent victims of corporate maleficence, instead of a society that let themselves end up where it did through willful ignorance and refusing to say "No".

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Here I will quote a comment in the thread I linked, from ap_racism:

What this reminds me of is an article I just read re: visual literacy, and how it's even more sorely lacking in the US than textual literacy. I absolutely believe it was intended to be satire. But to me that just demonstrates that the people at the New Yorker are out of touch with the fact that a large percentage of the population-- not just a few "paper-doll heads"-- either believe the things portrayed outright or have a nagging feeling that there is *some* truth to them, d/t racism and Islamophobia. I'm sure the editors see this as "over-the-top," but it's not-- not really, and not that far over-the-top. The fact they see it that way tells me that they are in denial about the depth of racism in this country-- a denial which works nicely to perpetuate it. I don't see this as much different from the "ironic" racism in Family Guy, South Park, etc.

And getting back to visual literacy, I think this is irresponsible on the part of the NY'er. Studies show that vocally refuting lies has, to some extent, the opposite effect, as a large minority of people remember the lie the more they hear it repeated, not whether or not it is true. You know... "I heard SOMETHING about Obama and Osama, I just don't remember what." Images are often more powerful than words, yet even fewer people have the tools to deconstruct and analyze them. On some level, this is just another contextless image of the Obamas as scary militants that gets tucked away in the public's subconscious.

Not to mention the coming backlash-- "OMG WE CAN'T EVEN DO SATIRE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE WITHOUT THEM PLAYING THE RACE CARD OMG OVERSENSITIVE." *sigh*

Dan, did you read any of the articles linked in the Slate article?
There are lots of good ones in there, but in particular, I recommend:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/books/review/Bazelon.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12566139?ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14684391

Your comment implies that it is someone's fault if they are overweight (although you do allow that some people can be morbidly obese due to genetics), which is not always the case. Overweight people eat the same amount of food, or less, as "average" or thin people do. What you call "lifestyle choices" or "working a bit" is what many people spend their entire lives doing, only to be overweight forever.

I think your view of society is pretty bleak, in terms of people "let themselves end up" overweight through "willful ignorance," and I say that while recognizing that I myself am a pretty hardcore pessimist. Not only is it bleak, but it still implies that it is an overweight person's fault if they are overweight, which is rarely the case.

I suggest you ask brdgt about this (after her Prelims, of course!). We spent an entire unit in our Women's Studies course discussing body image, and one sizeable piece of that track was society's perception of fat.

[hellocthulhu.livejournal.com]

Well okay, let's clarify one thing; I'm not talking about the people who have a few extra pounds, or even 10-20 pounds, extra. I think society freaks out way too much about that, in fact I've often told friends obsessing over the last couple pounds to lighten up and enjoy themselves.

The image the comment you posted put in my head was of someone the size of the humans in Wall-E rolling through Wal-Mart on an electric scooter that can barely move under their bulk, stuffing Twinkies into their basket and whining about how it's not their fault. That's what I was reacting to, and I'm sorry they aren't getting any sympathy from me. In no small part because I was almost there once (maxed at 320), and it was ENTIRELY my own fault through poor lifestyle choices, and it's been through my own efforts that I've dropped a lot of that off.

On the New Yorker front... I used to be a hardcore conservative, and it was largely satire and mockery of conservatism from people like Ted Rall and of course Jon Stewart that helped me see where I was wrong. When you live in a society that devalues intellectualism, sometimes the only way to convince someone that they're wrong is to hold their position up to ridicule until it gets through to them.

And yes, I am very pessimistic, and my misanthropic jokes are not entirely in jest.

[hellocthulhu.livejournal.com]

On a happier note, thanks for reminding me Dr. Horrible came out today! That made my afternoon.

[frecklemehappy.livejournal.com]

I want to see Wall-E!

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Did you mean she contacted Helix?

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm sorry! Someone pointed this out on my blog, too!