{"id":23559,"date":"2017-11-12T16:03:15","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T00:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=23559"},"modified":"2017-11-12T16:04:21","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T00:04:21","slug":"giles-coren-garbage-human-fatphobe-and-horrifyingly-father-guest-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=23559","title":{"rendered":"Giles Coren: Garbage Human, Fatphobe and, Horrifyingly, Father (Guest Post)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[This post is by Ragen Chastain, reprinted with her permission from Dances With Fat.<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

Giles Coren writes a column for Esquire about fatherhood. His most recent piece is titled: \u201cI Don\u2019t Care What My Son Becomes\u2026 As Long As He Isn\u2019t Overweight.\u201d I thought I couldn\u2019t be shocked by fatphobia anymore but I was wrong.<\/p>\n

Before we get into his advocacy of child abuse and killing fat people, let\u2019s take a look at his kid, who he calls \u201cmorbidly obese\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m going to take his letter and break it down. Please consider signing and sharing the petition to get this piece, and Giles\u2019 column, pulled from Esquire UK<\/a>. If you\u2019d like to give Giles some feedback on his piece, you can find him on Twitter here<\/a>\u00a0.\u00a0If you\u2019re a dad, it would be particularly helpful if you would step it up and let him know that this is completely unacceptable, and let the world know that whatever the hell he\u2019s doing, it\u2019s not fatherhood.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d also like to be clear that this isn\u2019t Giles first day as a human-shaped piece of garbage, having previously published a piece (also for his Esquire column) where he said it was ok if his daughter didn\u2019t do well in school because she could just marry a banker.<\/p>\n

Finally, the quotes from his piece will be indented. All are offensive, many cross the line into blatant, violent, hate speech, including discussion of burning. They may be extremely triggering. If you want to skip this post entirely, I don\u2019t blame you. If you want to skip the quotes you will still get the gist of the post without reading all of his bigoted drivel.<\/p>\n

I know what you\u2019re thinking. You\u2019re looking at that picture of my son and you\u2019re thinking, \u201cFat little bastard\u201d. Sure, he\u2019s cute. He\u2019s got a nice little face. He looks a bit of an idiot because his mum took him for a haircut on the morning of the photo shoot (completely failing to grasp the first rule of shoots which is, \u201cnever have a haircut closer than two weeks before, or you\u2019re going to look like a chump\u201d) but on the whole he is a good-looking boy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wrong right off the bat there Giles.\u00a0 What I\u2019m thinking is \u201cPlease, please, please<\/em> don\u2019t let this article be about a dad who is taking out his size bigotry on his four year old son.\u201d<\/p>\n

Except he\u2019s fat. Arse on him like Vanessa Feltz and a full frontal presentation at bath time that puts one in mind of a\u00a0Gavin and Stacey<\/em>-era James Corden or a well-waxed Christopher Biggins, all giggly on too much ros\u00e9.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At this point (while I know full well that regardless of his kid\u2019s size it\u2019s wildly inappropriate for Giles to think of him this way, or to involve so many other people in his blatant size bias) I am compelled to look again at the picture. While it would be perfectly fine if his kid fit this description, he absolutely does not. I\u2019m forced to assume that Giles wanted to splash around in a pool of fat hate and decided to facilitate that by pretending that his kid is fat. Regardless, there is no size his kid could be that would possibly justify fat-shaming him.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all very well to say that it\u2019s puppy fat. It\u2019s all very well to pinch his cheeks and go, \u201cWho\u2019s a cheeky chubby-chops? Awww, wittle fatty boom-boom\u2026\u201d and nuzzle your face in his tummy and blow raspberries and feel how they ripple through him like a fart in the bath, but what if\u2026 IT DOESN\u2019T GO AWAY?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If it doesn\u2019t go away, then you will have a fat kid. If he doesn\u2019t have a growth spurt, then you\u2019ll have a short kid. The thing about kids growing up is that they grow up into adults of all kinds of shapes and sizes and none of that requires ALL CAPS HISTRIONICS because all bodies are good bodies.<\/p>\n

You know what I\u2019m saying? Adele\u2019s parents probably thought it was puppy fat too. And Paul Hollywood\u2019s. And Russell Grant\u2019s. No doubt Diane Abbott\u2019s family assumed that she would change shape when she was out of nappies. But the change never came.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Giles seems really, really angry that fat people are allowed to exist and he continues to try to involve as many of them as possible in his bigoted farce of an article.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s reasonable to assume that the parents took their eyes off the ball, let their porky pups feast on a shitty diet and do fuck-all exercise into adolescence and now look at them: ostensibly successful, yes, but laughable to behold with their untucked shirts and stretched, shiny faces.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s not reasonable \u2013 it\u2019s fatphobia and stereotyping. People, including young people, come in lots of different sizes for lots of different reason. People of all sizes eat whatever Giles\u2019 definition of a \u201cshitty diet\u201d is, and people of all sizes choose not to exercise. People\u2019s choices and sizes are none of Giles\u2019 business. People of all sizes wear untucked shirts and have shiny faces. Giles, needs to get ahold of himself, he has completely failed at keeping his blatant bigotry subtle while pretending that he cares about his son.<\/p>\n

The sort of people you want to follow down the street playing \u201cFlight of the Valkyries\u201d on a tuba.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No dude, YOU want to follow them down the street playing the tuba because you are an absolute garbage human.\u00a0 I continue to be absolutely stunned that Esquire would allow a piece that is nothing but hate speech to be published, especially under the guise of how to be a father.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m worried as fuck that my little Sam could go the same way. Not only because of how it will ruin his life but because of how it will reflect on me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don\u2019t give a single solitary fuck about Giles. I\u2019m worried that Sam \u201ccould go the same way\u201d because his father is a raving fatphobe who will undoubtedly do unimaginable damage to him every day until he can escape. (Pssst, Sam, find the Fat Acceptance Movement, a lot of us grew up with parents who were worse than useless as well, we\u2019ve got your back!)<\/p>\n

For while obesity as a demographic phenomenon can be classed as disease, epidemic, socio-economic tragedy, whatever, on an individual, case-by-case basis, each actual fat person is blatantly just a badly brought-up, greedy little son of a bitch committing the unforgivable sin of gluttony in a world where there is not enough food to go round.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Being fat doesn\u2019t ruin your life. The thing that ruins your life is this kind of (fact-free) fatphobia. \u201cObesity\u201d isn\u2019t a disease<\/a>, it\u2019s not an epidemic<\/a>, or a tragedy \u2013 it\u2019s just a ratio of weight and height. Granted, a ratio onto which some people (many for profit, others for attention, others because they are simply bigots) have heaped tons of negativity.<\/p>\n

Also be clear that there is plenty of food to go around. Hunger is a complex issue that has to do with things like capitalism, nationalism, racism and more. And even if it wasn\u2019t indisputable fact that there are thin people who eat far more than fat people, it would still have literally NOTHING to do with fat people existing. This is just another way that people who want to be bigots try to justify their bigotry, and using people who are starving to do it is particularly despicable.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d kill them all and render them down for candles.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let\u2019s be absolutely clear what he is saying here.\u00a0 He is saying that, given a chance, he would kill all fat people, then burn us. It\u2019s not funny, it\u2019s not cute, it\u2019s a call for genocide. (People will immediately suggest that I\u2019m going to far in saying this, those people are a part of the problem. \u201cI\u2019d kill them all\u201d is not an unclear statement.) Anytime you say that everyone who shares a single characteristic should be killed, you are going down a very bad road. I would love to know the name of the editor at Esquire UK who read that sentence and said \u201cSure, kill all the fat and burn them, that\u2019s totally reasonable. Leave that in.\u201d) Here, again, is the link for their complaints section<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It may sound harsh but how else are we to recoup the tens of billions of pounds they cost the NHS and the wider economy each year with treatment needed, working days lost, hospital beds broken, chairs smashed to splinters and good workers accidentally killed when fat people sit on them?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here Giles seems to be trying to make another wild stab at justifying his bigotry (won\u2019t somebody please think of the tax dollars<\/a>?!)\u00a0 But he\u2019s so overcome with his desire to say horrible things about fat people that he can\u2019t even keep it together for a single paragraph.<\/p>\n

It is no business of mine what Sam does with his life. I\u2019m not ultimately bothered whether he\u2019s rich or poor, artist or scientist, crackhead or alcoholic, married or unmarried, gay or straight\u2026 I don\u2019t care if he runs every letter of the LGBTQI spectrum to the end and back, and comes home with a cock in every hole and says he\u2019s changed his name to Rita. As long as he isn\u2019t fat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first sentence may be the only correct and appropriate thing he says in the entire piece. The rest is obviously total bullshit. Now might be a good time to remember that someday, who knows how soon, Sam (who might end up being fat) will read this. The idea that he would be more upset if his son had a larger body that if he was addicted to crack is obviously incredibly troubling, but also troubling is \u2013 again \u2013 Giles\u2019 tendency to feel free to use some marginalized groups in his quest to oppress fat people.\u00a0 Here he uses people who struggle with addiction as well as queer and trans people showing that while he\u2019s is definitely a fatphobe, he\u2019s certainly not a single issue bigot.<\/p>\n

My daughter I am less worried about. Possibly because she is as skinny as a cricket. But if at some point in adult life she pulls the ripcord, well, there are uses for a fat woman. She can be kind of cosy. Whereas a fat man has nothing to offer but his ability to consume. To bring forth upon the world a fat son is indeed a shame before God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not satisfied at simply inappropriately (some might say abusively) using his son for this ridiculous exercise, Giles brings his daughter into it and makes the transition to blatant and disgusting misogyny. Unfortunately he doesn\u2019t even have enough new ideas to support the entire diatribe, so we\u2019re back to the old \u201cfat people eat a lot\u201d crap. Even if this was true it would be a tired argument at this point but, again, it\u2019s simply not.\u00a0 And once again I\u2019d remind you that his son will someday learn just how conditional his father\u2019s love for him really is. So while I\u2019m angry at Giles for being such a blatant and vocal bigot, I\u2019m terrified for Sam growing up with an abusive, misogynist, fatphobe for a father, and I would support child services if they removed the kids from the home.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s hard to know what to do about it. I\u2019d put him on a strict diet and buy him a hamster wheel but my wife is not the moral absolutist that I am and she is the one who does the Ocado orders. And cooks most of the food. But is a bit of a lazy tart. Sorry \u2014 a busy working mother with many other important things to think about, who knows her way down the path of least resistance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So Giles also doesn\u2019t respect his wife. This is my not-surprised face. In good news, it looks like Sam may have one decent parent.<\/p>\n

So the boy eats a lot of white carbs, sugary cereals, pizza, fried chicken\u2026 much like a poor child in America\u2019s morbidly obese central heartlands. Which is why Sam looks like one of them. He doesn\u2019t like fruit or veg and none of us can be arsed to force them down him. But he does like a tub of ice cream and a long run at the television of an afternoon. And on even the shortest car journey he expects his iPad and a sack of Kettle chips.<\/p>\n

So he gets them. And I say, \u201cCan\u2019t you give him a carrot instead?\u201d<\/p>\n

And my wife says, \u201cIf you want him to eat carrots, you try feeding him a fucking carrot!\u201d<\/p>\n

So I let it go. And I feel ashamed. But then I see these middle-class kids with their weekday screen bans and their steamed fish and vegetables and no chocolate or sweeties and 10 hours\u2019 oboe practice a day and it makes me want to puke. And I find that I\u2019m kind of proud of our somewhat slutty stance on it all, or lack of one. Otherwise, I suppose, I wouldn\u2019t be admitting to it here.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is quite the juxtaposition of bigotry \u2013 marginalizing an entire swatch of America, middle-class kids, and those who play the oboe is not beginner level oppression. Giles is a piece of shit, but at least he\u2019s good at it? Let\u2019s be clear \u2013 giving kids (of all sizes) lots of food choices and helping them to develop a healthy relationship with food is a positive thing, giving kids food and then shaming them for eating it is just fucked up and is basically trying to give your kid an eating disorder.<\/p>\n

\n

I try to look on the positive side. Such as the possibility that having a fat adult son \u2014 who I will unquestionably continue to love with all my heart no matter what \u2014 might help me to lay aside my prejudices regarding fat people and bring me to a more respectful place vis-\u00e0-vis the fat and ever fatter future we unquestionably face as a race. And that being grotesquely flabby, sweaty, knock-kneed and impotent would mean that Sam was unlikely ever to have a girlfriend or any mates or be invited to parties, so he\u2019d have more time to work at becoming a nuclear physicist or getting filthy rich and supporting me in my old age.<\/p>\n

And then other times I think, \u201cI\u2019d best get the chubby fucker\u2019s jaw wired before he\u2019s old enough to stop me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Classic abuser technique. First he spends the entire article being clear that if his son is fat he would be perfectly happy to kill him and burn him, that he would rather he struggle with a drug addiction than be large, that he would consider him to be a \u201cshame before god,\u201d and that his son would (continue to) be the recipient of every piece of fatphobia with which Giles\u2019 little essay is dripping. Then Giles does the whole \u201cI still love you, maybe I can be better\u201d rap. But, as we\u2019ve learned, Giles can\u2019t hold it together for long, so he throws in a few more stereotypes and then leaves a little reminder that he is capable of physical abuse.<\/p>\n

My heart goes out to Sam, I hope that he can somehow escape this situation clinging to a\u00a0 healthy relationships with food and his body, and I also hope that he can avoid becoming the super bigot that his father is modeling to him and anyone else who will read his work.<\/p>\n

As far as Giles goes, I think we all know where he should go:<\/p>\n

\"Move<\/p>\n

Red box around a picture of a trash can with the text \u201cMoved to Trash\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Final reminder to take some action here:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sign (and share) the petition<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

File a complaint with Esquire UK
\n<\/a>They will require the following info (you can copy and paste to avoid giving the article traffic.)<\/p>\n