I agree with Consolation. Here’s a piece that does a good job of explaining why fat jokes about Christie should be avoided, even if you disagree with his policies. (I’m not overweight but I have close family and friends who are). I strongly recommend this piece:
http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2014/01/13/262076085/chris-christie-and-pulling-the-red-handle
I am overweight. If there has ever been an overweight person one would be tempted to make fat jokes about, it’s Christie. But, he’s such an a$$hat that there is a lot of material without ever needing to go to the weight jokes.
Btw, I’m from NJ and pay extortionate amounts of NJ taxes, so I take his fraud and corruption personally.
@ ixnaybob-
Living in NJ, it goes beyond taxes and corruption, it is about him as a person. He has made nasty comments about the looks of his political opponents and their wives, for example, then gets all huffy if someone comments on his weight , or for example, when he and his buddies ran up a 65k bill at Giants Stadium for a football game, all on the taxpayer dime, this from the same person who said that free lunch programs for poor kids was ‘wasteful’ spending. When you have someone who is a bully, who is mean and nasty, who has made jokes about others appearance or their families (he was once quoted as saying about a lesbian couple with kids that they were committing child abuse by having kids),it is very hard to be sympathetic towards him or his weight. That said, I also don’t want to hurt people who did nothing to me, especially since I am not body beautiful, I’ll stick to calling him a pile of pus,I like that much better, fits his soul (or lack thereof) to a T.
Look, I’m not a fan of Chris Christie myself. I lived in New Jersey for more than 20 years until 5 years ago, and my son still lives there part of the time, and goes to graduate school there, and is working at Princeton this summer. (I had to get that in, of course.) But there’s more than enough to criticize him about – an endless supply of flaws, in fact, including (but by no means limited to) his opposition to LGBT rights – without stooping to fat shaming. I would be rather hypocritical if I condoned that kind of language, given the non-stop and highly personal ridicule that trans people (especially trans women) are subjected to in the media on a daily basis. (And I have no personal stake in the fat shaming issue, either – I was ill last week and couldn’t eat and managed to lose 15 pounds in four days , which isn’t so uncommon for me. So I have the opposite problem, generally.)
“I agree with Consolation. Here’s a piece that does a good job of explaining why fat jokes about Christie should be avoided, even if you disagree with his policies. (I’m not overweight but I have close family and friends who are). I strongly recommend this piece”
Same with me. I have someone that I dearly love, that struggles with weight. It is on her mind every single minute of every single day. She exercises like crazy, and does not overeat. It is incredibly unfair, and I hate that this torments her. If there is one group of people of any color that is routinely discriminated against and has to endure mocking comments, it is people who are overweight. I absolutely hate it.
I also can’t stand the NJ Governor. However, like IxnayBob said, there is plenty of material there to hate without going to the weight jokes.
In a nice piece of irony, my youngest goes to school in Christie’s town (Livingston). He is in the middle of a F2M transition (it’s complicated, and there are factors other than gender involved). He has only recently come out everywhere, but the point I wanted to make is that in NJ, even in the a$$hat’s town, there is (mostly) acceptance and support.
As much as I dislike the Kardashians, and I count Caitlyn in that family, they’ve been a net positive for kids like my son. As I’ve said before, I just wish she were more Jenner and less Kardashian.
@notelling, what a GREAT piece!
@ixnaybob: Good luck to your child.
@VeryHappy, thank you.
@ ixnaybob-
I am glad your son is doing well, and is finding his way.Christie’s attitude represents a pretty small part of NJ, I have lived here most of my life, I live not that far from where you do, and for the most part NJ tends to be live and let live. That doesn’t mean there aren’t idiots, there always are, and Christie represents the minority of Catholics who think that the Church’s stand on LGBT people means the law should reflect that position (from what I know of by repute, his wife is even worse). I belonged to a church in the heart of an area that is basically fairly well off, suburbia, not exactly Berkeley, Ca, and it has several pretty liberal churches with quite a few LGBT members, that says a lot.
Not to mention that with his eye on running for president, Christie is always looking to appeal to the GOP base, so even if he personally wasn’t anti LGBT (and sorry, all his claims that he isn’t against LGBT people is utter BS, it is pretty apparent he is), he would be doing this to appeal to the Christian conservative base in places like Iowa and such.
And I do apologize for using his weight like that,I know what it is to struggle with weight, and I know how hard it is being in that position. The irony is if Christie was of ‘normal’ weight, he would likely say nasty things about someone’s weight. I’ll stay with my other favorite names for him, like Captain Bligh and others I don’t think I can use on here:)
And your comments on Caitlyn reflect my own, I wish too she was less Kardashian in the way she is handling this, whatever her motives, it comes off as being all about self publicity, which doesn’t help her or anyone else.
^^ Have you read the VF piece or just read the auxiliary media about it? Again, it is very balanced and addresses the Jenner v Kardashian approach at length as well as the motivating factors in doing this more publicly.
I have not read it and would be interested in learning about that. I guess I have to buy the magazine to read it?
Your local library might subscribe.
@IxnayBob --I PMed you. Let me know if it didn’t go through.
I have had a subscription for years - it is my guilty pleasure that has some very good investigative pieces along with the fluff. Mine just arrived in the mail last week and I suspect that if many people read the article a good portion of their questions and gripes would be answered. It goes into some detail about her relationship with the Jenner kids, their feelings on the reality show and why she chose to do it this way.
One of my take aways was that she doesn’t pretend to be a perfect person or a rocket scientist and realizes that she has fumbled her way through much of her adult life (as have many people). She is now trying to live more truly to herself and to do some good with her visibility. She is also trying to repair her relationships with her kids. I think it’s unrealistic and unfair to expect any one person to carry the torch for a group or cause and expect that they have to stand on a pedestal. With this transition Bruce was, in part, trying to get off the pedestal that he’d been on since winning the gold.
@saintfan-
I don’t doubt that Jenner has good intentions, that she wants to repair the relationship with her kids, transition is not easy, and being in the spotlight makes it even twice as much. And no, no one person represents a whole community, no one person can bear that load (one person did that I can think of, Jackie Robinson, when he broke the color line in baseball, and he paid a terrible price for it I believe). I haven’t read the VF piece, but I think she also should have realized that doing a glam shoot in Vanity Fair and doing a reality program, after doing the whole Kardashian mess for years, was going to come off, rather than trying to do some good with her visibility, to being a publicity stunt to gain her attention and $$$. It is one thing to do interviews, it is another to do a reality series, which for the most part are not documentaries, they are different versions of Jerry Springer, the “real housewives of Bayonne”, “Honey Boo Boo”, The Kardashians, Jershey shore, are freak shows, publicity for outrageous stupidity, not about educating anyone. It comes off rather than trying to do good, of saying “look at me, look at me, and bring me the $$$$”.
I think it is unfair to put any kind of burden on her shoulders, she has a lot to deal with just being herself, but I also don’t think it is unfair to criticize her for the way she did all this. Part of the problem is Vanity Fair wanted to do this when the iron was hot (they probably had an exclusive agreement with her), which is great for their circulation, but also makes it look like she was striking when the iron was hot, and not necessarily to do good for others. Just speaking from my perspective, it comes off as being narcissistic, a la the Kardashian mess, rather than trying to come out and explain who she is, whatever her intentions were.
For me it comes down to skulking around while the paparazzi photograph you with long angle lenses and sell your story to the tabloids or owning it yourself. That means, as you put it, striking while the iron is hot rather than being a reactionary sitting duck. Based on what I was seeing on the cover of the supermarket tabloids int eh check out line she was getting more than her share of publicity already.
I have never watched Honey Boo Boo, The Kardashians or any real housewives so I am in no position to compare and don’t know yet what Caitlyn’s new show will hold, but I have read the VF piece and watched the Diane Sawyer interview so feel like I am at least in a better position to judge that than some people here.
How can you say what the VF presentation is if you haven’t read the piece or speculate on the content of the show if it isn’t out yet?
@ saintfan-
I didn’t read the full text of the VF piece, i have read commentary on it. As far as the reality show goes, the information that is out there on it, the teasers that have been put out there, is that it will be a reality show , not a documentary series, and that says a lot right there, there is a big difference between a documentary and a reality show. Reality shows tend to be about the sensational aspects of people’s lives, they are show biz, documentaries are about informing people, pure and simple. I don’t know what is going to be in the show, since it hasn’t aired, but given they have given it the label of ‘reality show’, that tells me a lot right there. Do yourself a favor, watch some of the ‘reality’ shows (which, by the way, are not necessarily ‘real life’, a lot of what goes on in them is scripted, believe it or not) then maybe you can see where I am coming from, and why it may not have been a smart thing to do it the way she has.
musicprnt, I’ve read exactly the opposite several times from people involved in the series: that it’s a documentary series, not a reality show. I guess we’ll see. And I agree with saintfan that her coming out in this manner is an attempt to control the narrative, instead of leaving it in the putrid hands of the tabloids – which were speculating about her in all sorts of repulsively tasteless ways in every single issue for months beforehand, and I’m sure would have continued to do so.
Really, Caitlyn Jenner is in an impossible position, due to her earlier involvement in the whole Kardashian freak show. While I certainly wish that she had taken another tack in terms of gender expression, I cannot blame her for wanting to control the narrative at this point. Of course, she probably has sufficient resources to retire to an obscure location at this point, but that isn’t for everyone.
The trans woman I currently know best recently had facial feminization surgery. She is not one of those trans women who, I am sorry to say, remind one of female impersonators. She usually wears pants, and hasn’t gotten into makeup. I find myself resisting the temptation to offer advice on hair and makeup, which is pretty funny since I am hardly a girly-girl.