To Be Fat Like Me Analysis

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Where do we draw the line between telling people “love who you are, no matter what” and “your lifestyle choices are killing you, change it?” If we’re going to survive as a society, we need to stop crumbling individual’s self worth by shaming them. Douglas Bar explored intolerance of the obese in To Be Fat Like Me, as he conducted a social experiment filmed in a high school environment, where a 130-pound jock donned a fat suit and facial mask to make her look like a 250-pound teenager. Aly, the protagonist, perfectly maintains a slim figure while her family has overweight troubles. Aly ridicules her mother and brother for suffering with these challenges. However, their weight problems gave Aly the idea to team with her classmate filmmaker on …show more content…

It turns out that fat prejudice differs in multiple forms that make it especially difficult to overcome. In order to seek her answers, Aly had to convert to the other side: overweight living. What she thinks will be a casual idea to win money to go to college winds up giving her far more than what she bargains for. The unsympathetic teen quickly discovers that it is not all fun and games as she began to feel ashamed in the body that isn’t even hers. Scenes in the movie made me feel guilty of some statements that I have made in the past. The objective was to record social groups and interactions and to report the reactions received. She had to leave the stereotype of a popular girl, and join the cliques of the people she would normally not associate with. The first day of summer school, as she walks into class, a male teenager makes noises as if she is an animal and then yells “boom” after every footstep she takes. On Aly’s first day, she hasn’t even spoken to anyone, and is already ridiculed and attacked for her weight. Struggling in Chemistry, she turns to a skinny girl seeking help, but is ignored. Another girl, Ramona, is the same size as her and offers for her to come join her study group. A true friendship develops, and Aly takes her shopping to the local mall. Aly still has the personality of being petite and confident, while her friend hates to wear clothing that is remotely tight. What disgusted me the most was the scene of thin sales associates taking the clothes from the girl’s hands and telling them to shop at other stores because they can’t find anything big enough. Ramona would not stand up for herself, so Aly tries to help. Ramona speaks the whole truth about how she felt and I appreciated the truth in every sentence stated, “when I’m fat I don’t own my body anymore, everyone else has a right to