Today I was watching TV and I saw a commercial with Sarah McLaughlin. She has such a beautiful voice that I never thought about what she looks like. She’s very pretty. She is also thin.
As I followed this train of thought, it occurred to me that if she had been fat, chances are we never would have known how talented she is. As I thought through the other musicians I love, I came to realize that the vast majority of the people I listen to are thin. In my itunes library I have 897 artists. Admittedly, I do not know what all of them look like, but of the mainstream artists there in my hard drive I can only think of three or four that are legitimately fat. There are a few more that are air quotes “fat” (think Kelly Clarkson).
I wonder how many talented people we will never hear because of the inability of people to see past body shape. The music industry is hard enough to break into for someone who does not face that prejudice — it must be exponentially harder for someone who falls outside those rigid definitions of beauty that so many have embraced.
I wonder how many actors never get to practice their craft because casting directors can’t see past their own fat bias. How many writers never try to publish because they cannot get past the fear of being mocked in the press as a fat author. How many dancers never get a real shot because people cannot wrap their heads around the possibility that someone can be active and still fat. Who knows what beauty, what creation, will never come to fruition because of our prejudice.
This is why fat hatred, and racism, and homophobia, and misogyny, and every other form of blind group hatred are everyone’s problem. When only the privileged have a voice, we all lose.
My Improvisational Life 