American Activist Calls for Justice for Fat Women: Do Not Say Queen-Size or Obese

Aubrey Gordon corrects the unjust perception. (Instagram)
Aubrey Gordon corrects the unjust perception. (Instagram)
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American Activist Calls for Justice for Fat Women: Do Not Say Queen-Size or Obese

Aubrey Gordon corrects the unjust perception. (Instagram)
Aubrey Gordon corrects the unjust perception. (Instagram)

As fat activist Aubrey Gordon delivered a talk at her first-ever book signing, her doting father Rusty turned and whispered to the person sitting next to him: “That’s my daughter.”

This tender, seemingly innocuous moment, which comes towards the end of the documentary “Your Fat Friend,” could have passed unnoticed without the gaze of a camera, but it is one laden with meaning. Rusty could barely bring himself to say the word “fat” when filming for the documentary first began six years earlier.

“My parents are the heroes of this film, without question,” Gordon told CNN of the film that is out now in Europe before beginning a tour to the US and Canada.

This space between Gordon’s activism and her willingness to lampoon the world’s reflexive anti-fatness is what immediately drew director Jeanie Finlay to Gordon’s story, she told CNN.

It is this gap, existing within a loving family, that allows Finlay’s movie to challenge the audience’s own perceptions of fatness as it documents both Gordon’s work for fat justice and her — at times — painful everyday interactions with her friends and family.

“It’s not a clean story of there’s a good guy and a bad guy,” Gordon said. “It’s sort-of like we’ve all been trained up to think we’re being the good guy, when actually we might be making life considerably harder for fat people.”

The pair first met in 2017, shortly after Gordon’s life had changed irrevocably. The community organizer from Oregon had written a letter to a thin friend following an argument about body image, and another friend who had been asked by Gordon to proofread it, suggested publishing it online. Gordon agreed on the condition it was published anonymously, and the letter went viral, accumulating tens of thousands of views.

Under the pseudonym “Your Fat Friend,” she began blogging anonymously, spotlighting these ways in which the world makes life harder for fat people.

Gordon wrote about the “intensifying” panic that accompanies boarding a plane; about receiving “qualified” compliments that are “congratulations for hiding unappealing parts of my body;” about “what it’s like when no one believes your body can be healthy;” about being “met with sidelong glances and open gawking” at the gym.

Filmed over the course of six years, “Your Fat Friend” traces this period in Gordon’s life as she drives around Oregon, pulling over to type out one of her essays when inspiration hits — “a fat lady in a tiny car,” she quips in the film with trademark wit.

But the movie also details the online reaction to Gordon’s writing — the abuse, death threats, and doxing she suffered, alongside the messages of solidarity — before she reveals her identity after writing a bestselling book.

“The film for me is an act of visibility,” Finlay said in a recent post-film screening Q&A in London. “It’s about Aubrey being anonymous on the internet as a name. Then she is a face on a book jacket with a different name, then she’s a severed voice on the internet as a podcast host. And then she steps into a room as a whole person and her family sees her.”

Finlay’s visual storytelling highlights this too. The documentary’s opening shots depict Gordon swimming in outdoor pools, her body reflecting and refracting off the water as the camera’s lens wanders over stretch marks. It is neither voyeuristic nor glamorous, simply presenting Gordon in a matter-of-fact way.

“Just say fat,” Gordon says in an accompanying voiceover, reading aloud one of her essays. “Not curvy or chubby or chunky or fluffy or full-figured or big-boned or queen-size or husky or obese or overweight. Just say fat.”



Latest Tests Show Seine Water Quality Was Substandard When Paris Mayor Took a Dip

 Boats carrying members of delegations sail along the Seine during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
Boats carrying members of delegations sail along the Seine during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Latest Tests Show Seine Water Quality Was Substandard When Paris Mayor Took a Dip

 Boats carrying members of delegations sail along the Seine during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
Boats carrying members of delegations sail along the Seine during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Tests results released Friday showed the water quality in the River Seine was slightly below the standards needed to authorize swimming — just as the Paris Olympics start.

Heavy rain during the opening ceremony revived concerns over whether the long-polluted waterway will be clean enough to host swimming competitions, since water quality is deeply linked with the weather in the French capital.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a highly publicized dip last week in a bid to ease fears. The Seine will be used for marathon swimming and triathlon.

Daily water quality tests measure levels of fecal bacteria known as E. coli.

Tests by monitoring group Eau de Paris show that at the Bras Marie, E. coli levels were then above the safe limit of 900 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters determined by European rules on June 17, when the mayor took a dip.

The site reached a value of 985 on the day the mayor swam with Paris 2024 chief Tony Estanguet and the top government official for the Paris region, Marc Guillaume, joined her, along with swimmers from local swimming clubs.

At two other measuring points further downstream, the results were below the threshold.

The statement by Paris City Hall and the prefecture of the Paris region noted that water quality last week was in line with European rules six days out of seven on the site which is to host the Olympic swimming competitions.

It noted that "the flow of the Seine is highly unstable due to regular rainfall episodes and remains more than twice the usual flow in summer," explaining fluctuating test results.

Swimming in the Seine has been banned for over a century. Since 2015, organizers have invested $1.5 billion to prepare the Seine for the Olympics and to ensure Parisians have a cleaner river after the Games. The plan included constructing a giant underground water storage basin in central Paris, renovating sewer infrastructure, and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.