RE: The fat lady
PODESTA,Lesley (Lesley.PODESTA@deetya.gov.au)
Tue, 24 Mar 1998 16:29:18 +1000
Malcolm wrote:
> Interesting observation, matt. Fat ladies (commonly referred to as
> bbws or "big
> beautiful women") have never really been made to feel comfortable in
> society,
> when, ironically enough, all of Western civilization started with a
> bbw, really.
Thanks Malcolm & Matt. Well Malcolm, you are such a complex character!
Personally I think that Buddy refers to Bessie as Fatty because he loved
her and they shared an intimacy that meant the power behind those words
was negated by their mutual bond. (Think of the things you can say only
to your lovers, the insults you can use only with your family, the fact
that you can walk into the bathroom while your son is in the bath and it
means nothing apart from the fact that privacy is a foreign concept in
your family.)
On the other hand Malcolm, you may think that your mother is not a BBW
but she must have been at least once when she was pregnant with you and
who knows what subconscious desire that evokes for you?
As Seymour said: "Ah Sharon Lipschutz. How that name comes up.Mixing
memory with desire."
With affection,
Lesley P
> ----------
> From: Malcolm Lawrence[SMTP:malcolm@wolfenet.com]
> Sent: Sunday, 22 March 1998 10:47
> To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
> Subject: The fat lady
>
> Matthew_Stevenson@baylor.edu wrote:
>
> > this reminded me of something that struck me in my last reading of
> f&z--zooey
> > always refers to bessie as fat, fatty, etc. is she the fat woman?
> and if she
> > is, might that open the door for some oedipal interpretations of
> seymour's
> > advice to zooey about the fat lady? just a few thoughts...matt
>
> The Venus of Willendorf, which is the logo of the BBW/FA webring.
>
> I've been chatting online in bbw channels for two years now, and in
> fact am in the
> process of being interviewed by BBW magazine for an upcoming issue so
> I've been
> crystallizing my thoughts about "fat ladies" all week, specifically
> the oedipal
> angle.
>
> I think that one of the reasons the media still refuses to glamorize
> bbws is, yes,
> the complex set of psychological layers involved with the body shape
> of what
> amounts to a pregnant woman. So many bbws only become larger after
> they give
> birth, but the whole concept of finding a mother erotic is a taboo
> here; but for
> males in this society if you're eroticizing about a mother you're
> either divorced,
> cheating, need therapy or are a lesbian. Because if you shift the
> perspective of
> idealized desire from a female who hasn't given birth to one who has,
> the amount
> of psychological tectonic shifting involved in that change of angle is
> monumental.
> And with this culture's emphasis on the beauty of the young and
> underdeveloped as
> opposed to the beauty of size and experience it's any wonder that the
> highest
> profiles on the landscape of the media don't deal with the real world.
>
> If I have to choose between interpretive camps, I'm a Jungian (who
> fully
> understands and respects how it was Freud who built the academic
> structures for
> modern day theory and analysis) but I guess I should point out that my
> mother is
> not, nor has ever been, nor is there any real chance of her becoming a
> fat lady or
> a bbw. Just something I thought I'd mention simply as a footnote
>
> Malcolm
>
>