Fat Rant

[hickengruendler]

No: HPFGUIDX 150566

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" <willsonkmom at ...> 
wrote:
>
> Potioncat here, a little taken aback by JKR's website. She rants, 
very 
> appropriately, about the push for girls to be uber-thin.  Here's a 
> quote from her piece found in "extras":
> 
<snip> 
> 
> I agree fully with JKR, don't get me wrong. And yeah, I know Molly 
is 
> plump. (She's one of the good guys, for the record.) But really, 
take 
> a look at how JKR generally portrays overweight people in the 
series. 
> Dudley? Crabbe? Goyle? Vernon? Umbridge?
> Yes there are bad thin guys too: Snape, Dark Lord, Petunia... 
> 
> My 10 year old once pointed it out, because at the time he was 
chubby. 
> One of the bad guys was being made fun because of his weight, not 
> because he was a real jerk.
> 
> I just wonder if JKR knows she's doing all most the same thing as 
the 
> media she complains about?
> Potioncat
>

Hickengruendler:

As someone who is overweight himself (and right now after the winter 
to an extent that I definitely need to lose some pounds ;-) ) I was 
never much bothered by her portrayal of the "fat" characters.

The reason for this is, that with one exception, namely Wormtail, the 
fat villains are caricatures. They are overdrawn on purpose, both in 
the way they look and the way they act. Petunia's long neck and her 
skinny bones are the counterpoint to the (literally) heavyness of the 
male Dursleys. The handsome Lockhart is just as overdrawn as the 
horribly (and fat) looking Umbridge, and both are repulsive in their 
own ways. This, like already said, only leaves Wormtail as an 
overweight (or formerly) villain, who is not a caricature.

And there are some sympathetic "fat" people as well: Molly, Neville, 
Professor Sprout and I would add The Fat Lady, Slughorn and Myrtle to 
that list. However, they are generally described more carefully than 
the villains, especially Neville and Molly. It are only the villains 
or antagonists who call them "fat", while the narrator normally 
describes Neville (to use him as an example) as round-faced. The 
villains have no such luck and get often described in the most 
unflattering terms.

Hickengruendler