FANTASY, FATNESS, AND FEMALES: MEDIA IMAGES

It is odd that women who are food celebrities on television are typically slender because, like some of the famous male chefs with their extra pounds, one would expect some of the women to show a few pounds around their middles. But the typical woman looks as though she owns a crunch machine, maybe one that sits right by the pasta machine in the kitchen so she can squeeze in a few sets between preparing crème brulee and cooking a veal roast stuffed with brie. No matter how elaborate, fanciful, and rich the meals are that they prepare, not an ounce appears on the women’s bodies. Why are their figures so sleek and toned? They represent a fantasy, one in which a woman can indulge in all foods and not gain weight. Of course, we know too well that real life does not work in this fashion, but on the Food Network, it does.
Food television is popular with women because it creates a fantasy universe where eating that éclair does not mean you have to spend another hour on the treadmill. The fact that few fat women appear in the world of cooking-culture stardom is one example of a popular culture phenomenon I refer to as “the missing fat woman.” The media contain remarkably few, certainly not in a number that recognizes their real presence in the United States.
Despite these millions of real women, fat women rarely appear in the media and, in some cases, vanish entirely. For example, women’s magazines and teen girls’ magazines typically include no fat women. Occasionally a story might describe someone who was fat, but she always loses fifty or a hundred pounds, in the process finding true happiness and a hunky boyfriend. Celebrity magazines, such as People, rarely feature fat celebrities, unless it is discussing Oprah’s or some other star’s new diet.
This fantasy world where no woman carries any extra weight impacts how real women perceive their bodies. They see so many unrealistically slender bodies that they begin to assume that their bodies should be similarly thin. This feeling is aggravated because American culture is inundated with ways to slenderize, many focused on women. Every diet food imaginable crowds the shelves of grocery stores. Every diet book possible fills bookstores.
Health clubs and gymnasiums inundate cities and towns from coast to coast. Television shows and tabloids are replete with ways to diet. Losing weight obsesses our culture, and the media add to this by depicting thin, beautiful bodies that few women can actually acquire, so they feel that they must strive for thinness, whatever the cost. Anorexia and bulimia are rampant because women feel such a desire to lose weight. Even if a woman is not anorexic, she is still apt to wish to lose five or ten pounds.
Like magazines, television shows and movies rarely depict fat women. It is a strange world in which every woman is tall, slender, and no one needs to lose a pound or two, a remarkable contrast with reality. In this universe where no female carries an added ounce, let alone a pound, the Fat Ladies rebelled against the culture of thinness. Like Roseanne Barr, they were fat and unapologetic about it. Such women provide a needed corrective to the scores of shows that star thin leggy beauties—although a caveat is that the Ladies and Roseanne are allowed to be fat because they are funny, so they are not supposed to be taken too seriously. Despite this, the popularity of the Ladies and their show, points out that females wish to see figures in the media that better represent their own bodies and experiences.
It is difficult to understand the Ladies’ fame unless one also discusses the Food Network’s popularity. The tremendous growth of food television has created a new space for celebrity chefs, including the Fat Ladies, but many other names could be added, including Martha Stewart, the Iron Chef, Paula Deen, Emeril, and the Naked Chef. In the United States, it is unusual that people do not recognize these names from cooking shows on the Food Network. Even if viewers do not watch the network, they are still likely to be familiar with the chefs and the shows in which they star because of the popularity of food television.
There is no question that the network is an important part of American popular culture, which is a major accomplishment since the network had a modest start, beginning in 1993 with six million subscribers (Brown 27). At first, some commentators worried that it might not survive. Who could be interested in watching twenty-four hours of people cooking, an experience vastly different from turning on Julia Child for an hour? But, apparently, millions were. By 1998, the audience had risen to 33 million homes (Grimes TV5). In 2000, the Network reached 50 million households (Slatalla F13). In 2004, it reached 80 million households (Aikman A32). In the last decade, food television has grown tremendously. Why have millions tuned in to the Food Network?
Food television is “hot.” Director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University Robert Thompson observes, “The Network has managed to take food and turn it into a glamorous hobby... It has the same effect as rock ’n’ roll on a whole generation of viewers. We’ve gotten to a point in our culture where you’re hip if you’ve discovered the latest hot program on the Food Network” (qtd. in Slatalla F13).
Another commentator observes, “For millions of households, the Food Network has become as much a staple as bread and butter, though ten years ago the idea of a twenty-four-hour cable channel devoted to ... food was a little hard to swallow” (Littlejohn 5D).11 Today, the network “has become a pop-culture fixture, featured in movies and television shows... and has been parodied on Saturday Night Live... And the appeal has been far-reaching, with everyone from kids to college dorm buddies and from husbands and wives to singles, novice cooks and experts” (5D). One of the reasons for the success of food television is, as David Rosengarten, a Food Network host, observes, “There’s been a ‘Hollywoodization’ of food TV” (qtd. in Puente 2D).
In other words, the network has adopted some of the same styles and techniques of other media hits, such as talk shows or real-life adventure shows. Recipes and their creation have become “hot” and sexy, which is evident in all the attractive women and men featured on many food shows. It is also apparent in shows, such as The Naked Chef, that emphasize sexuality or at least sexual puns. With the Food Network’s focus on Hollywood glamour, the Fat Ladies’ success was more surprising. The British duo provided a much-needed corrective to the large numbers of slender female bodies crowding other cooking shows.
Despite its nontraditional female stars, Two Fat Ladies was a great success when it was first aired. One writer for the New York Times observed that the Ladies “took off in the United States... In the blink of an eye, they developed a cult following among those who have an innate fondness for British eccentrics in the tradition of Miss Marple and ‘Fawlty Towers’ ” (Hamlin F1).12 Another commentator noted that the show “made the Food Network worth watching” (Schrambling F1).
The program was a hit in other countries, including Canada and Australia. One journalist for Montreal’s Gazette in 1998 observed, “Squeeze over Spice Girls, make room for the Two Fat Ladies. The latest British sensations are whetting appetites not with music but with their straight-talking, calorie-unwise, and politically incorrect approach to cooking” (Petosa W4). When the Ladies visited Australia, they were treated like a “mixture of the Queen Mother and the Beatles,” as Paterson remarked (qtd. in Mack E5). What explains the women’s appeal around the globe?
One reason was that their shows and cookbooks allowed the audience to look at rich and decadent food. The Ladies provided what I refer to as “food pornography.” In a culture where such food is taboo to consume, especially for women, we like to look at food. Even if we do not cook or seldom do, we still enjoy looking at images and reading descriptions of food that fill the media. Whether television, films, newspapers, cooking articles, or cookbooks, our culture is saturated with images of food.
Much of the food imagery is glamorous and upscale, depicting meals that few real people would actually make and serve. Elaborate recipes are accompanied by photographs that show equally perfect images. These lush words and pictures are literally food pornography, created to be gazed at by the audience but not actually consumed. Like traditional pornography, food pornography is about desire but never allowing that desire to be fulfilled, so the viewers wish to have more. We seem to enjoy gazing at food as much as eating it, which is a reason that food pornography has grown so popular, especially with the women viewers it targets. Some women would even say that looking at food is better than eating it because one does not gain a pound, no matter how luscious a recipe is.
Women long for food in a society where eating has become the ultimate crime, so they turn to food porn to fulfill their desires, knowing they can vicariously savor the chocolate gateau or seven-layer lemon torte. Food pornography feeds women’s craving, and one place to seek satisfaction is food television. The Ladies’ show was a classic example of food pornography, as the two created innumerable rich recipes for their viewers’ pleasure. However, the Ladies challenged the food pornography stereotype that a beautiful slender woman prepares decadent dishes but, obviously, never indulges herself with anything more fattening than half a Ry-Krisp cracker. They indulged in their recipes and suggested that it was acceptable for women to do the same.
Another reason for the Ladies’ success is that they questioned a society where being thin and young are considered essential attributes if a woman wishes to be successful. The Ladies fought the stereotype that a woman’s happiness is directly related to how beautiful, youthful, and slender she is. The show’s producer noted in her introduction to The Two Fat Ladies Ride Again (1997): “In an industry where women’s success in front of the camera is mostly defined by youthful good looks and anodyne personalities, Jennifer and Clarissa’s success is an enormous achievement” .
Similarly, another commentator observed, “On television, the realm of the pert and the blond, [the stars] were revolutionary. In a world that fears fat on the body as much as on the plate, here were two women who were not afraid to revel in excess” (Schrambling F1). The Ladies were a radical change in a media universe where every woman has to be blond and youthful. They possessed neither of these traits and, more important, they did not strive to appear as though they did. They took pleasure in their fat older bodies and displayed them proudly as the two roared around the countryside on their motorcycle; they conveyed a subversive message that being fat was not as negative as the popular media suggested.
In a society obsessed by the necessity of women being thin, no matter what the cost might be to physical health or emotional well-being, the Ladies were resolutely anti-diet, as the cover of their videotapes made clear: “If you’re fed up with faddy diets and supermarket blandness, take a lesson from the Ladies.” In their world, one did not have to worry about following the latest diet. Clarissa expressed her views in an article in the Financial Times in 2004 when she wrote about the death of Robert Atkins, the diet guru. She observed,
The legacy of today’s ultra-thin “heroin chic” models—and of celebrity diet gurus—is anorexia. The popularity . . . of our television food program, Two Fat Ladies, and our cookery books may point to an era where people worry more about inner well-being than their outer image... I shall... go and eat my perfect breakfast of Christmas ham and fried eggs... Do not make a resolution to diet but learn to love yourself—fat and all. (Wright).

Jennifer was no less anti-thin fascism. She remarked, “It’s the last taboo, isn’t it—fat? ... It’s all the fault of the Duchess of Windsor. She came up with that stupid line, ‘You can never be too rich or too thin.’ And America took it to their heart” (qtd. in A. Woods A9). The Ladies shook up America’s deeply entrenched belief that the only content woman is ultrathin. They questioned the idea that thinness equates happiness and that fatness equates unhappiness. This challenged a media world where being fat was the ultimate sin, suggesting that fat women actually enjoyed their lives.

By Sherrie A. Inness in the book "Secret Ingredients"- Race, Gender, and Class at the Dinner Table, Palgrave MacMillan, New York,2006, p.172-177. Adapted to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.