Post-Mortem Fat Shaming: The Return of the Public Dissection
Obesity is an increasingly prevalent condition in the western world, one which elicits both revulsion and interest. Helen Archer in her article “‘So much fat!’ — the cruel autopsy of a 17-stone woman on the BBC” writes that not only is obesity taking over the UK as a health epidemic, but also as a grotesque public fascination. News segments blur the faces of overweight people while focusing in on their bulging clothes, while the number of shows like “The Biggest Loser” and “Fat Families” keeps increasing, contributing to what Archer calls “constructive fat-shaming.”
Much like criminals were executed and dissected in public for entertainment, so too do the obese go under the knife in the documentary “Obesity: The Post-Mortem.” The alleged purpose is to inform the public about what really happens inside the body of an overweight person, but the overall effect is offensive and exploitative. In the documentary, doctors cut open the body of an American woman who weighs “almost 17 stone” and has donated her body to science. She died from a heart failure, which while not directly caused by her weight, was likely influenced by it.
Her face is covered. The knife reveals the yellow mass of her fat, and the doctors joke about how much of it there is. The woman is compared to butter. The only humanizing details are her breast implants and scraps of nail polish, but otherwise she is reduced entirely to her weight. The documentary is accompanied by the testimonials of other overweight people and text describing the stereotypes they face. However, so little attention is given to these segments that the stereotypes (fat people as less productive, competent, etc.) are almost presented as fact.
There is really not much difference between the public dissections of criminals in olden times and this tasteless display of anatomy. The viewers are most likely lay-people, there to gawk at someone who has done something wrong and see a spectacle. They may see something interesting they didn’t know before, but nothing that will inform their daily lives. We don’t know the woman’s background, but the overall tone of the documentary frames her weight itself as a crime. Archer notes that it completely ignores intersections of poverty, psychology, and genetics in favor of the “fat is gross” narrative. What benefit does such a demonstration have then, if not education or enlightenment? It may be time to put popular science under the knife.
