i am noticing a new trend in the american civic religion. healthy people are mean and shallow and jolly fat are more humanistic. the persuit of physical health, be it beauty, agility or fitness is somehow despotic or inhumane. instead we should all be slobby hipsters or fat ugly dykes (not a polemic against dykes, but simply the media representations of urban lesbians being more compassionate/liberal).
dont believe me? in movies and tv shows the health-nuts are mean and shallow and fat people who listen to them have a false conciousness for feeling bad about their perfectly normal condition. a few examples
1. house
2. wife swap
3. king of queens
4. nip and tuck
5. hells kitchen.
its really nausiating
perhaps my definition of civic religion is different from yours but I believe that something is civic religion if it is codefied in law or appearing to be a candidate for codification (like universal healthcare). If anything then, something reflecting the civic religion would be like the show "Biggest Loser" because it fits in neatly with the current discourses in favor of government healthcare. In my opinion fat people being cool is a subversive blow to the health proposals being bandied about, especially that old supreme endorsement of statism by Huckabee -namely that the state can force people to exercise.
Just my two-cents
Instead of trying to put your own views into the plots and shows, I suggest you try to analyze them based on what the writters intended.
garegin:1. house
Here, we have the pursuit of perfection and the obsessions it brings; for instance, House's necessity for an answer to every case that he takes and his willingness to go to extremes to get them. In this context, the use of fat people could very well be used to further differentiate the pursuit of perfection and the passive acceptance of the world as it is.
garegin:3. king of queens
The main character is fat, as many other characters are, because he is supposed to be a plain, average person that other plain, average people could emphasize with.
Would you prefer it if everyone on television who is fit to be a good character, and everybody who is unfit to be a bad character; though, I bet you'd be merely rephrasing your present rant saying that television is trying to mold us all into perfect soldiers.
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
- Edmund Burke
If anything, characters like Doug from KoQ or Peter Griffin from Family Guy are so funny precisely because they lack control of their impulses, have high TPs and are thus in some regards infantile. I don't think anyone is trying to promote them as paragons of virtue...
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Jon Irenicus: If anything, characters like Doug from KoQ or Peter Griffin from Family Guy are so funny precisely because they lack control of their impulses, have high TPs and are thus in some regards infantile. I don't think anyone is trying to promote them as paragons of virtue...
Indeed.
You should read "The Fat Man" by Mencken; I think it's in his Second Chrestomathy. You'll see an older view of "glory to the fat man!" I think perhaps both the glorification of the fat man, and the puritan glorification of the straight laced health crazed man have been present throughout most of Civilization.
In my view there's a golden mean between health and unhealthiness. I'm a heavy smoker and drinker, but balance it out with an above average rate of exercise and a jovial, lighthearted worldview.
I would guess that the trend your seeing is partly a reaction against the over glorification of health rather than an agenda to make people fat. Or, in many cases it is simply unrelated. After all, look at smokers in movies. In "Thank You for Smoking," they noted that all smokers in today's films are RAVs-- Russians, Arabs & villains.
i think you guys misunderstood me. i didnt mean the main characters or plots in those shows. i mean top gear uses sociatist/statist cliches, but its a show about cars!!! its apparent that these shows only reflect general social trends and are not the mouthpieces of propaganda
i think there is a deeper point here. since "higher" values like social interaction, intellectual betterment and being in-vogue are cooler than having a nice nose, the former are more praised
my ramble is actually that the media and the mainsteam has an inconsistent position. if soul and human values are infinitely priceless then you have to live like the cynics. you cant put on lipstick and shit on people who go to the gym.
i think that my point is very clearly explained by a feminist thinker's comment i read in a book. it was an argument over porn and she said that one cannot say that the porn stars' emphasis on their physical beauty is more base than someone who reads books or listens to mozart
i got two words for you. ugly betty
Well it annoys me to no end that things such as cosmetic surgery are viewed as taboo, and that beautiful people, or those who otherwise take care of themselves, are often demonized, but that is perhaps more a reflection of certain attitudes that permeat the entertainment industry. Governments are quite happy to have fit drones, as it means they have to spend less on caring for them. I personally would like to see more beauty in the world...
Governments are quite happy to have fit drones, as it means they have to spend less on caring for them. I personally would like to see more beauty in the world...
truer word was never spoken. although i say social problems are the health of the state, therefore it would probably be in their interest to inflate the national medical bill
Jon Irenicus:Governments are quite happy to have fit drones, as it means they have to spend less on caring for them.
I guess this means you're taking government at it's word?
"The best way to bail out the economy is with liberty, not with federal reserve notes." - pairunoyd
"The vision of the Austrian must be greater than the blindness of the sheeple." - pairunoyd
Freaks are freaks.
No, more so by its actions. They want to introduce a fat tax in the UK, for instance, to account for the "costs" fat people impose on the NHS. Similarly, it's sometimes argued smoking should be banned for the "costs" it imposes on taxpayers.
They want to introduce a fat tax in the UK, for instance, to account for the "costs" fat people impose on the NHS. Similarly, it's sometimes argued smoking should be banned for the "costs" it imposes on taxpayers.
a measure which was inverted by the right and is fanaticly opposed by the left
Use the quote function. It is not politically palatable, but so what?
my point is that the measure was pushed forward by the taxpapers, specificly un-compassionate rightists, NOT the gov't. your point is taken though- the state apparatus stigmatizes the fat people as undesirables
Right, I'm not concerned about political opposition so much as the government itself. I guess this is an instance of democracy being tyrannical then.