The Art of Stigma Refiguration
Open Access Deposited"Blessed are the Hot, Fat Girls"
The Art of Stigma Refiguration” examines how fat women and femmes of color represent themselves in the arts and in media. This dissertation begins from the premise that fat people are made to feel ashamed of their bodies because of racist, misogynist, and fatphobic stigmas ascribed to them predominantly through medical discourse. In four chapters, this dissertation looks at artists working with different mediums and technology, ranging from black-and-white photography to pornography. Through close readings of their biographies and their most notable cultural productions, I argue that fat women and femmes of color represent themselves through a technique I refer to as “stigma refiguration.” Stigma refiguration is a process by which fat people revel in the oppressive ideologies they are subjugated to. A key argument in this dissertation is that representation matters. As such, this dissertation is supplemented with a project titled “The Interludes.” “The Interludes” is a collection of audio, photography, and video interspersed between each chapter which reflects on the research process. “The Interludes” discuss topics such as the experience of engaging with the artists’ archives, the author’s life during and after writing each chapter, and the author’s inspiration for writing about each artist. The purpose of this creative project is to show just how much representation matters, and that such stories are important in the process of knowledge production. In a time where fat people are advised to love themselves and/or lose weight in order to better themselves, this dissertation offers strategies for living otherwise.
In the last two decades, fat people have emerged as public figures succeeding in creative industries such as music, modeling, and fine art. Public aversion to fat people and fatness is simultaneously on the rise. Fatness continues to be a pathologized embodiment in the eyes of the medical-health-beauty establishment. Neoliberalism has incentivized the management of fatness on the individual level through weight-loss practices categorized as “wellness. ”“‘Blessed Are the Hot, Fat Girls’
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