Big Girls Don't Cry

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

There was a time when being fat was subversive.  Back then, the fat bitch was the funniest, snarkiest girl in school, and made the best pre-out-of-the-closet fag hag a gay boy could have: she wasn’t portly and didn’t hang out with you because she wanted to be touched.  She wanted good banter and someone who didn’t judge her, just what you wanted.  The other kids might have teased you for being kinky for fat girls, but both of you secretly knew what the score was, just as she understood the dark quip better than anyone because she also came from a dark place.  Together, you were developing your own brand of outsider performance art.

Now the fat bitch has become not only common and pedestrian, but worst of all something she despised becoming above all the things she despised becoming: pathetic, as in the true meaning of the word pathos: evoking sadness or pity.  Now she has her own reality shows to encourage her to change, and celebrity versions of those shows, and tears are shed, threats are flung at her by the slender, eliminations are made, and the frickin’ First Lady is coming after her with a baseball bat in the form of a national childhood obesity program, “Let’s Move.”