The reaction to my “coming out” as Jolly last week has been huge. It turns out that we are larger than we realized! (That’s Jolly in-joke humor. We can say things like that. If you say it, it’s oppressive, obesophobic hate speech, and I will have your butt in court faster than you can say “Big Mac.” Comprende? Building a truly Jolly-Affirming Society is going to require a lot of sacrifice — for you. Sacrificing a sense of humor is a small price for you to pay so that Jollies always feel affirmed in our okayness. Or are you one of those Khristianist hypocrites who doesn’t really believe in love?)
Given the volcanic response, we’re starting a new organization for Catholic Jollies who are out and proud called “Pig With Me.” We will be wearing cool XXXL-size sashes of brown and green and staging protests at Mass to demand a more inclusive Eucharist of chocolate éclairs and Mountain Dew. Please do not confuse us with the radical group FAT UP. We do not use violence to attain our goals, since this tends to turn people off to capitulating to our demands . . . um, in addition to being wrong, of course. No, we prefer intimidation to violence. All we are asking is for the Church to get into the 21st century and face the fact that outmoded notions of the common good don’t fly in our present consumer culture of freedom of choice. The sole criterion of the good is what two or more consenting individuals want to do. We demand the right to fork what we want with whoever we want.
Of course, I’ve been flooded with questions, ideas, and suggestions as our rolls swell (watch it, obesophobic punsters). One heart-rending post from a Trans-Fatty reader said:
Mark, your glorious manifatso was very inspiring, but did not address the struggles of those of us who, though born with a high metabolism and slight frame, yet feel — know — that inside we are really, really fat.
For years I denied this internal reality, and accepted that — as people constantly reminded me — I should be “grateful” to be so naturally thin. But how unnatural it felt! In college I began to experiment with wearing baggy shirts and bulky sweaters . . . only when I was alone in my room, at first, but as I gained confidence, I began to wear oversized clothes all the time, and even took to stuffing them a bit to give me that “hefty” look I craved.
After years of preparatory counseling (thanks Dr. Schmuckton!), I’m happy to announce that I am now planning to have dozens of pounds of fat surgically grafted on to my body, and look forward to finally living as I know I was meant to live. This is risky — especially since many so-called “advanced” countries will not allow doctors to perform the procedure — but what matters is that I should be able to express any idea that enters my imagination in any way I want. I’m a little nervous about dating again, but I can’t wait to get my new driver’s license showing my new officially state recognized weight of 265 pounds!
What could be more natural and liberating than the course of action this brave soul has chosen? We not only are what we eat, we are what we will ourselves to be. As the beautiful hymn puts it, “We rise again from ashes to create ourselves anew.”
On the other hand, other readers are not enlightened at all. One of them writes concerning our liberating call for a chocolate éclair and Mountain Dew Eucharist:
I find the above quote too close to irreverence for the sacredness of the Eucharist to be humorous. I truly doubt that Canon Law 924.1, which says that only bread and wine is to be consecrated into the Body and Blood of Jesus will ever be changed based on over 2,000 years of tradition.
Next you’ll be telling me that God says only a man and a woman are fit matter for the Sacrament of Matrimony. The Church needs to get with the times: the New York Times, to be precise. We’re out and we’re stout! Deal with it! Or, as one of our LGBT sisters says: Keep your rosaries off our XXXL hosiery! Down with Weighcism!
Another reader writes with concern and sympathy for the suffering of Jollies:
Could it be that my obesophobia is inhibiting the efficacy of my prayers?
Yes. That’s exactly your problem. God is punishing you for your bigotry. He’s also telling you that you need to get in touch with your inner Jolly and start apologizing in the dim hope of finding forgiveness. A lot of people suffer from repression of their own Jolliness because of their obesophobia. No doubt you are one of them. However, with enough abject grovelling and denunciation of yourself and your loathsome bigotry, you can know the freedom and liberation of Temperanormative Shame. Well? What are you waiting for? Get cracking with the guilt! You’ve got a lot to make up for!
Still another reader asks:
I’m getting a little dizzy from cognitive dissonance. I’m not sure if a Christian society is supposed to embrace Jollies with Chestertonian good humor . . . fight Jolliness with 5 day a week PE and outlawing public displays of cankles and fat rolls . . . or tolerate Jollies but periodically humiliate them.
I should have thought my point was extremely clear: A Christian society is supposed to a) offer nothing but applause and total affirmation to the Jolly lifestyle; b) die and get out of the way; or, best of all, c) some combination of the two. Tolerance is not enough. You MUST approve and celebrate! We demand that each and every member of American culture stop “tolerating” and start cheering the Jolly lifestyle with full-throated approval. Shame-based humor must cease.
One reader raises a vital point about our national security and the urgent need for our military to voice full-throated approval of the Jolly lifestyle:
I particularly want to know when the military [will] cease its unrelenting discrimination against Jolly people. Just because I am not skinny doesn’t mean I don’t love my country.
Precisely! The purpose of the military is to make me feel affirmed, accepted, and applauded for whatever appetite I wish to indulge. It is absolutely crucial that our troops not only know what and how much their comrades-in-arms eat in their spare time but that they be forced to applaud it. The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy has to stop! Military personnel should be compelled to make accommodations for Jollies and our special needs and desires, particularly on the field of combat. Otherwise, they betray the very American values of consumerism and limitless appetite they are committed to defending around the world!
“Pie Curious” writes:
I think you underestimate the breadth of the Jolly experience. I know that there are many people like myself who would not identify as Jolly who have nonetheless experimented with the lifestyle. There’s no denying those heady college nights when I took comfort in the company of Papa John and Sam Adams. I consider it a rite of passage and know that I learned a lot about myself through it.
While I certainly appreciate your willingness to experiment with the Jolly lifestyle, I’m afraid I have to also say that I have just about had my fill (watch it, obesophobic punsters!) of this sort of non-committal “Jolly till Graduation” play-acting. What the Jolly Movement needs are people who are out and proud, not kids playing games. So: Thanks for your interest and support, but you disgust me and we will crush you when our God of Love finally achieves total cultural domination. All your half-hearted dabbling does is lead young Jollies into profound Slender Identity Confusion.
Another reader says:
Don’t forget the evil organizations like Weight Watchers. They would have us believe that they can cure Jolliness. There are even former Jollies like Marie Osmond and Valerie Bertinelli who boast of their ex-Jollydom and how they are now Normal. And how about doctors who perform the evil liposuction? All of them must be named and shamed and put out of business by any means necessary.
Have no fear. All of these will be lined up against the wall when my God of tolerance really gets what we want. I mean, what He wants — you know: justice, peace, and love. All that.
One of my more scholarly readers writes:
Jolliness has been seen as a sign of wealth and well-being. It signified that a person had access to food and was not overworked. It was a particular status symbol for a man to have a Jolly wife — it meant that he was a great provider.
(A remnant of this can be seen in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, in which the protagonist, dreaming of wealth, remarks that his wife would then look “like a rich man’s wife/With a proper double chin.” )
Even today, on the island of Mauritania, many young girls are sent off to be properly fattened up so as to be attractive to prospective husbands. This is, alas! much less common than it was, as Western influence is destroying the native culture’s embrace of Jolliness.
Artwork has celebrated female Jolliness in particular — from the Venus of Willendorf to the ladies of Reubens. But again, anti-Jolly prejudice has reared its ugly head, so that now it is more difficult to find positive images of the Jolly woman.
Popular music has been an anti-Jolly stronghold for a long time. (The old song, “I Don’t Want Her, You Can Have Her, She’s Too Fat For Me” comes to mind.) Something of a breakthrough was made by the pioneering Sir-Mix-a-Lot, with his classic “Baby Got Back,” but he was still bound by his prejudice against large waistlines. (A similar flawed view informs the more recent song by Beyonce Knowles, “Bootylicious.”)
Perhaps the finest examples of transgressive celebration of the Jolly in popular music are “Eat It” and “Fat” by Mr. Alfred Yankovic. This genius, under the guise of parody, has managed to write paeans to the Jolly lifestyle. This is all the more remarkable as he himself does not seem to be Jolly, but a true artist can see beyond his or her own limitations.
We of the Lardo/Giant/Brickhouse/Tubby (LGBT) movement love Transgressive Art, just so long as it doesn’t transgress on our feelings. One obesophobic bigot sent me a link to the insulting “Too Fat Polka” here, but I have his IP address and we will be contacting the Hate Speech Police shortly. Right transgression will be rewarded. Wrong transgression will be punished.
Another reader exhibits correct thinking when he writes:
We definitely need to re-evaluate all of history from a Jolly perspective. I’m quite certain, for example, that Jesus Christ was Jolly: he’s accused of being a drunkard and a glutton, after all. It pleases me to think that he was really bending stereotypical expectations of girth. Yet the repressive and fastidious Powers That Were constantly portray him as skinny, even skeletal, hanging on that cross. That’s just not affirming. I want to see a Christ with a belly as vast and inclusive as my own!
And of course, all the greatest saints of the Church also were Jolly — though most of them had to hide the fact or cover it with shame. Even that promoter of temperanormativity, Thomas Aquinas, was as wide as he was tall!
Our great hero, of course, is Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick. There’s out and stout for you! Coca-Cola really tapped into the deep historical consciousness of our kind when they unveiled his Jolliness. (Just ignore those older portrayals of St. Nicholas as some lithe acrobat tossing coins in young ladies’ windows. That clearly has nothing to do with affirming Jolliness.)
Yes. This is exactly what is called for: a celebration of the rich heritage of Jollies in the Church, whether closeted like St. Thomas or out like St. Nick, as well as an exposure of the suppressed narratives of Jolliness in the Gospels themselves. The Gospels do not record one word from Jesus about the so-called “sin” of gluttony. Moreover, modern scholarship now attributes the so-called “fasting” narratives to the Skinny (S) redactor of Q. Likewise, the sayings attributed to Jesus that recommend fasting are, I am persuaded, an interpolation by a later obesophobic scribe. What the Gospels clearly record is Jesus letting his disciples pick and eat of the earth’s abundance even on the Sabbath. They show him comparing the Kingdom to a Wedding Feast, multiplying loaves and fishes, making vast quantities of wine, attending many feasts, and founding the Eucharist on the Feast of Passover.
This feast, it may interest the fasting old men in Rome to learn, involved far more than just a small bit of bread and a sip of wine. There was lamb, herbs, many cups of wine, and much more. But all this was suppressed when Constantine transformed the Jolly Jew of Nazareth into the harsh, fasting God of Catholic orthodoxy. Moreover, the early Church, before it was corrupted by contact with the obesophobic Paul, clearly followed in Jesus’ footsteps, celebrating the Eucharist in the context of an Agape Feast in which food and drink were so abundant that the prudish Paul attempted to crush the gaiety by reproving the Corinthians with shame-based exhortations:
When you meet together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Cor 11:20-25)
Note how Paul attacks the zesty appreciation of food and drink in the Corinthian community via guilt-inducing rhetoric that dampens the festive atmosphere with dreary worries about the so-called “common good.” Note as well the way in which he suppresses the narrative of the full flavor of the original Lord’s Supper, with its varied and extensive Passover menu, reducing the entire thing to a mere bite of bread and sip of wine. Then note how all the synoptic Gospels follow this pattern.
It is the misogynistic, homophobic, obesophobic Paul we have to blame for transforming the rich and celebratory festivity of Jesus into the cold religion of Christianity. As the founder of Pig With Me, I demand the Church repudiate the oppressive Pauline insistence on self-denial and instead Celebrate Immensity.
I do this because the Church is always reforming, becoming more and more faithful to what I am certain a future council is going to teach. We have to cast off the shackles of the Dark Ages when people were hundreds of years stupider than we are.
But at the same time, we have to remember that what I am saying is not revolutionary at all. No, as scholars like John Dominic Croissant have shown in such works as Jolly Feasting in Pre-Modern Europe, it took time for the repressive Pauline/Constantinian narrative to propagate throughout the Church. For a long time, the Church, according to Croissant, actually blessed the noble Roman custom of Safe Snacking in which the faithful held an Agape, ate as much as they could possibly hold, and then eliminated it in a vomitorium — followed by a Eucharist of whatever they wanted to eat. We know this because reliable ancient texts inform us:
The blessed St. Esophagus once held . . . dinner . . . . Poor, lame, . . . had their fill. Paul taught that Jesus emptied himself . . . . Do this in memory of me.
This sort of rigorous scholarship is forcing a startling change in the temperanormative regime that has hitherto dominated the Church, and it will soon be forcing changes in society at large.
One or two more points, and then I need to head off for the planning session for our upcoming Jolly Pride parade. (Any obesophobic humor in the comboxes about “blimps” or “balloons” will be met with swift and merciless punishment! A Jolly Church is a Church of Love, not a community of Shame or disempowering humor.)
A reader expresses his concern about the so-called “unhealthy” Jolly lifestyle:
Many comments and not a single instance of the word that renders it sadly less humorous than it could be to me: diabetes.
I totally hear you. But don’t let temperanormative mythology impede your embrace of your Jolly nature. The fact is, diabetes is everywhere, and everyone is at risk. One of the great tragedies of the 1980s is that, as the band played on in Reagan’s Amerika, Jollies and Coke users were stigmatized as somehow uniquely guilty of living a lifestyle that put them at “high risk” for diseases like diabetes, heart attacks, and stroke. Instead of acknowledging that these diseases could strike anywhere at any time, our obesophobic culture instead chose to place the focus on Jollies.
We now know that instead of hopeless calls for temperance-based education or religious mind control geared toward “disciplining appetites,” “avoiding gluttony,” and other such crude relics of Dark Age Catholicism, the key is to follow the ancients and practice Safe Eating. If we teach our children to eat without shame and then give the food back to Mother Earth when they are done, we could see a beautiful paradise of health and happiness such as existed before the imposition of temperanormative patriarchal religion. Nuns who have explored Wicca, such as Sr. Ann O’Rexia, have demonstrated that neo-pagan forms of non-papolatrous Catholic praxis hold great promise in this regard. Just because some of us choose to digest our food doesn’t mean that those at risk for diabetes need to do the same. Practice safe eating if you feel you need to, and live the rainbow of immensity.
With that, I bid you farewell in the words of reader Red Cardigan’s beautiful hymn:
Let there be pizza first
And let it be passed to me,
Let there be pizza first
As pizza was meant to be,
With gobs of mozzarella,
Sausage, olives too
Let us add pepperoni,
And pour a Mountain Dew.
Let there be pizza first
Let’s add extra toppings, now
Let there be pizza first
Let’s make it a solemn vow:
To take each pizza
And eat each pizza
Until our stomachs hurt!
Let there be pizza, first,
And then let’s all have dessert!
Stay Large and In Charge!
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Mark, pizza goes best with beer, and not one of those light, wussy beers: the real deal, like a dark beer, such as a Guiness Stout. Just remember, that pizza and beer are two of your basic food groups.
Really?
Pig With Me celebrates the rainbow of immensity in our rich and catholic sacramental life, Austin. Do whatever feels right for you. That’s what My Jesus tells me.
Remember, Mark, that President and Michelle Obama, as well as their two slender offspring, think obesity is downright yucky. How is it possible to even mount a struggle such as this now in the face of their abject disapproval?
The American people are clearly with us. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t…Y9wjpLy7pQ Where we lead, our politicians will follow–or face the punishment of the swelling Jolly movement.
…that you made me late for Mass this morning. Fortunately, I came home to pizza and my first Mountain Dew in 35 years, and I feel oddly forgiven… Ummmm….
You’re having waaay too much fun with this, Mark.
While this kind of aggressiveness is important while the initial barriers are still being broken, no doubt your enlightened readers will want to explore the most cutting edge contributions of academe. You see, the Jolly – nonJolly dichotomy is simplistic and misleading. The fact is that we all exist on a Jolliness spectrum. Some people are more Jolly than others, and our Jolliness can shift throughout a single lifetime; life is a constant beautiful process of exploration and self-discovery. Some people will also wish to shackle such biological indicators as waist-measurement or appetite level or eating patterns to the old dichotomy, which only shows how false it was. Human beings and the human experience can’t be placed into boxes like that!
John Dominic Croissant – brilliant.
Julie:
You are quite right to acknowledge that Jolliness is latent in everybody and that, in fact, most people are in denial about their jolliness. It is common knowledge that all our greatest writers, poets and artists are (or were) Jolly. Elvis, Marlon Brando, Oliver Hardy, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sidney Greenstreet, Elizabeth Taylor, C.S. Lewis, Orson Welles, William Shakespeare (creator of, tellingly, Falstaff), and, well, everybody who is anybody is Jolly whether or not they remain closeted. All the best people agree with me–or would if they were alive.
Hi Mark,
Thank you sooooooo much! I have really seen the efficacy of my prayers skyrocket since repenting of my obesophobia! In fact, I’ve found that now the answer to every prayer is always “Yes!” One resounding heavenly affirmation after another. I’ve realized that that commandment about loving God and others really means “if it makes you feel good do it!”
Can I eat more of this? Yes! Can I lie about that? Yes! So long as it makes you feel good!
I am also learning all kinds of really amazing things!
For instance, there are all sorts of animals that will, given the opportunity, eat without restraint until they get sick (like my pet beagle)–some will even eat until they die! I know, that sounds a little harsh, so I like to think about it as pursuing their enjoyment right into eternal bliss!
Therefore, since this happens in Nature it is definitely awesome for humans too!
Mark, you have really enlightened me, I would love to buy you a round (nudge, wink)! Oh shoot! Forgive me! That is insider humor only. I am such a hateful person! When oh when will I be able to finally throw off the shackles of my obesophobia!
Thank you, Mark! I can now lay down my burden, and cast aside my lunch of plain rice cakes and low-sodium V8.
I look forward to the day when we recover the beauty and richness of our sacramental rituals. Whatever happened to the milk and honey used at Baptism? These are attested to by St. Ambrose of Milan, along with his lesser-known brother bishops, Sucrose, Glucose, Fructose and Dextrose. And what about the liberal quantities of oil once used in the rites of initiation? Instead the celebrant might furtively dab a little on our slender bodies, focusing instead on more copious amounts of low-calorie water.
Speaking of early Church testimony, I’ve been doing some research on whether St. Paul was in fact a closeted Jolly? Why else would he employ such images as “I fed you milk, not solid food, because you were unable to take it” ? (1 Cor. 3:2) And notice that it was Paul who was willing to belly up to the dinner table, regardless of the company, when Peter hung back. (Gal. 2:11-14) Could Paul’s repressed Jolliness have been the much-controverted thorn in his flesh?
In any case, we surely do need a Vatican III to usher in a “re-sauce-ment” of these ancient customs and texts. Glad to see the whole batch of dough is being leavened by your levity.
Brian:
You have made an excellent beginning. Your clear-headed acknowledgement that animal behavior always maps perfectly to determining what is natural and healthy human behavior is prescient. And your apostolic willingness to impose the gift of Shame on other obesophobes gives me great hope that with enough effort, you will win through to forgiveness of your bigotry–if you are good enough. But you still have decades of work ahead of you. Don’t expect any pity from me. It’s your job to feel sorry for me and my people.
Steve:
Yes. Rev. John Shelby Spongecake has, I think, made a very convincing case that Paul’s self-loathing as a closeted Jolly lies at the root of his shame-based approach to the glories of fulfilling the natural demands of his appetites. His insistence on beating his body and subduing it, as well as his frequent fasting suggest a personality radically out of touch with the need to embrace what God made him to be. Unfortunately, that personality formed much of subsequent Christian piety into the cruel Lenten prison camp in which we still live. But God is raising up prophetic voices like, well, me to challenge this destructive influence at the root of the Faith.
Recalling from reading that the Vatican tailor did not have vestments immediately large enough for the jolly late Holy Father Blessed John XXIII for his Urbi et Orbi address, might I recommend that he be considered the Pig With Me Patron? I am also curious, are the donut sales after mass at the Parish I attend really a Pig With Me training and recruitment tactic under the guise of funding seminarian stipends?
Absolutely! When Jolly Pope John convened the Council, he threw open the pantry doors of the Church and let the Spirit of Vatican II in, with its rich diversity of yummy smells ranging from fresh bread, to tasty roast beef to the sweet scent of delicious chocolate fudge. What he actually said, taught, and believed is not nearly as important as what I feel he would have said, taught, and believed had he been me, today.
Fat Albert balloons at the Jolly Pride Parade?
You neglect to mention the persecution inherent in the notion of a “fat gene.” This is clearly refuted by the way Jolliness has increased the USA without their being an equal genetic change. Yet to this day Jolly people will claim it stems from their genes in an awkward attempt to deny the nature.
You are a genius and filled with the wisdom of our Great, Immense Lord! I am healed of my regret of being considered overweight by the repressive BMI chart. I am now cured of my thinking and see God for what he truly is, a loving and accepting God who wants me to have that chocolate bar!
First of all, I’m tired of such faux courage demanding social acceptance for jollies. Real courage is just living your life and not worrying about what the world of “skinnies” thinks. Let them be converted by the jolliness you demonstrate in your every day life.
and b) While you’re at it, if you can put in a plug for us jolly vampires, or people of girth with vampirism, I’d appreciate it. I’m tired of all these Twilight skinny little suckers pretending that they represent. I’m also tired of living in the shadows. Literally. Time to quit pretending as if we can be identified with a single facet of our being. Fellow oversized vampires of the world, unite!
Jollily and eternally yours,
Drake Pavarotti
P.Ss – who do we talk to at the federal govt. about getting college scholarships? any help would be appreciated.
Female Jollies have unique needs. Male Jollies often think of themselves as special and the women are not properly represented. Maybe it’s because our jolliness is often closely aligned with our freedom of choice. Once we get big during pregnancy, we are expected to return to our former tiny little selves. But as any woman who respects her right to choose, and has seen the Vagina Monologues, non-jolly women are the victims of a patriarchal society, and find peace only when they abandon preconceived notions of family. I hereby declare my right to choose where when and how I will be jolly. I have a one-butt kitchen. And it belongs to mine!!!
Once again, “large”, “round”, or “Jolly” is not the same as gluttonous.
I completely understand your parody of the insistance on the part of the gay pride movement that submission and abandon to one’s bodily appetites is somehow natural and sanctified, a “right” which we must somehow “protect”. I get it. I see where you’re going; you are attempting to demonstrate, through satire, that we are called to practice virtuous moderation and holiness in every part of our lives – both in consumption of food and drink, and in our sexuality.
But by describing your gluttonous alter-ego as “jolly” and “round”, you are perpetuating the myth here that fat people are gluttonous and deserve to be mocked for their seemingly apparent state of sin.
Just as leprosy is not a direct result of someone’s sin, so to obesity is not (necessarily) a direct result of someone’s gluttony or slothfulness. But you use “jolly” as a synonym for “glutton” and that is wrong.
There really is such a thing as fat hatred, Mark, and I feel you may be participating in it here.
Mark Shea, I love you.
Veritate:
I weigh 300 lbs. Believe me, I’m aware that being fat does not always mean being gluttonous. What I am lampooning is not fat people but the insistence that the perverted appetite must be celebrated rather than met with Christian courage, love and support. You either get the joke or you don’t. But as a guy who has struggled with weight for 25 years, I’m the last person on earth to make fun of people who are trying to practice the virtue of temperance. I fail at it frequently, but I at least try not to insist that everybody around me celebrate when I do or enshrine it as a right or gift of God as the champions of certain other disordered appetites in our culture have been doing for the past generation.
I get the joke. I guess I just don’t think it’s funny. There is no comparrison between fat people who want to be treated with respect – who wish to live in their bodies, nourish them and keep them healthy, without the expectation that they deprive themselves of nourishment for any reason other than spiritual penance and fasting – and gay people who insist we celebrate their unchaste lifestyles.
I want you to understand that the day after my son was born, a man in the hospital asked me when I was due. Mark is doing a great job of using parody to outline the basics of natural law. Read A Modest Proposal and The Abolition of Man. There you will find a way to understand that we can all accept our weight without making fun of others, and why Mark is writing the way he is. Don’t feel hurt, or criticized. Take this for what it is… and indictment of those who advocate for abortion and homosexual marriage in the Catholic church. Really, this time it is not about you.
Veritate:
I’m not writing about fat people per se. I’m writing about gluttonous ones–and that as a satirical metaphor. I have nowhere said that to be fat is ipso facto to be a glutton. You choose to draw this inference, not me. If you feel you need to have imaginary issues with phantom attackers, then, as a 300 pounder, let me suggest that what is really called for here is some Insensitivity Training, because I’m not backing down on the satirical point I’m making. There exists in our culture an insistent demand for celebration of a particular disordered appetite. There exists in that community too people who, through no fault of their own, are faced with disordered appetites, physiological disorders, and so forth against which they heroically struggle in the pursuit of virtue. I say of them: May they be praised and honored among the saints. They are heroes to me. But there also exist (especially in the community) lots of people who expect me to applaud them when they just cave in to appetite without respect to nature or the common good. The more they demand applause or whine about being victims, the less sympathy I have with them. Likewise, I have little time for rhetoric about “fat hatred” in this conversation. I’m not talking about fat here at all. I’m talking about people who demand celebration of appetite instead of support in attempting virtue. Deal with it.
Vaunt all you want, Stoutie. It will do you no good. History shows that wherever Jolliness gained a foothold, the societal seams burst asunder and large globs of culture came flopping out.
Mark, we are on the same page. I agree with nearly everything you posted in your last post, especially the heroic efforts people make to live their lives in virtue, despite being burdened with unatural appetites. God bless them!
I know you’re not talking about fat people – you’re talking about sinful people – but for better or for worse, your words “Jolly” and “stout” are euphamisms for fat in our culture. I do feel it’s important for us to be cognizant of the connections we draw when we play with words, as you have in your recent parodies of “the champions of certain other disordered appetites in our culture”.
You’ve acknowledge that you have no fat hatred and I thank you for that. I pray that we are both able to grow towards Christ in our struggles. Thank you for exploring the irresponsibility of refusing to abstain in favour of social complacency.
I can’t help but wonder if, as you were writing this, you felt similar to C.S. Lewis did while he was writing Screwtape. I thought it was humorous, but at the same time, it is deadly serious. By the anger and hate that drives those of the homosexualist movement, I am glad that I don’t even want to spend a minute in their skin. Even though this was a parody of their movement, you no doubt had to “step into” the shoes of the collective radical homosexualist. My presumption is that this would have drained you of all energy as it would have me. If I’m angry for more than 5 minutes, I feel like I have to take a nap to recoup.
Joe:
Yes, I regard the pieces as a subset of Screwtapian literature. (Funny you should mention it, because I was actually thinking this morning that of the small number of demons mentioned by Screwtape, the clear patron of the Jolly Movement would have to be be Slubgob. I mean, how onomatopoetic can you get?)
Unlike Lewis, I didn’t find composing the piece dry or unpleasant but uproariously funny. I don’t know what this says about me, but it’s probably not good.
…for being reasonable. I should add that the use of euphemism is absolutely essential to the game of rationalizing evil. “Liquidate” for murdern. “Enhanced Interrogation” for torture. “Self-Esteem” for pride. “Initiative” for Avarice. “Righteous Anger” for bitterness. “Strong sense of Justice” for vengefulness. “Blob of tissue” for baby. “Undesirables” for victims. “Gay” for “sexual acts contrary to nature”. The list goes on and on. Something in human nature can’t bear to call evil by its proper name. So naturally I had to coin some euphemism for gluttony to make it all pretty.
So, for this whole bit to actually work, it would be necessary that being obese is actually something like an abuse of the body, no? A sin?
Mark is fat. At least, it looks so from his picture. So, really, he’s making a fool of himself as much as anyone. He’s basically saying his own body weight is on par with the homosexual abuse of the body.
So, for this whole bit to actually work, it would be necessary that being obese is actually something like an abuse of the body, no? A sin?
No. For this whole bit to actually work, it would be necessary that championing gluttony as a virtue, perfectly natural, good, a civil right and a sacrament is both an abuse of the body and a sin. Rather as the champions of another disordered appetite continually do.
I do not, in fact, champion my disordered appetites as good, much less demand that everybody in the world applaud and celebrate them. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve taken them to confession and what a long struggle it’s been to lose 35 measly pounds. I do however, figure I might as well make use of my failures to edify rather than undermine the Faith. If I get laughed at in the process, oh well.
“Falstaff said that to be fat is not to be hated; but it certainly is to be laughed at, and that is a more wholesome experience for the soul of man.” – GKC
Amazing how some people just can’t go with the flow and enjoy satire on its own terms. Mark, my Jolly brother, you rock!
I deny the judgmental terms with which we are labeled. Obese is a made-up medical term and overweight? Over whose weight I’d like to ask. Fat is simply descriptive.
By the way – Love the picture. Land O’ Lakes is my favorite butter. You should taste their ice cream as well, yummmm!
They just have Jolly-jealousy. You know why?
Pannus Envy.
the 325 lbs dude is pointing at you NFL commercials as a lame excuse for player community service telling kids to play in order to end the American “obesity” “epidemic” if there really is such a thing…I honestly can’t recall when I last expected the American Medical Association to actually define their terminology for life and the health thereof according to the principles of biology; until the BMI accounts for the weight of my much too large brain, I consider myself excluded from the grave threat to national security that obesity poses. Jollity may exclude me from a GI uniform, but it can’t keep me from fitting through the double doors of the Parish.
Clearly the Jolly lifestyle is God’s will for us – why else would it be so easy to pack on the pounds as we grow older. Can’t those skinnies see that an increaing waistline is just a sign of the Jolly’s increasing maturity and wisdom and overall wonderfulness?
If the Jolly Movement is to succeed, we must permeate the broader popular culture. We must demand that the networks cast more Jolly actors, and not just in “best friend” roles. We must call upon Jolly writers to create dramatic works that will make viewers sympathetic to our cause. We must write musicals like “La Cage Aux Frites,” the story of a Jolly couple who run a popular fast food restaurant whose son is engaged to the daughter of an intolerant vegan family; and movies like “Babyback Ribs Mountain,” about two cowboys trapped in a bigoted world that only accepts slimness, who one day fall in love with super-sized portions barbecued meats.
Mark, you’ve truly opened my eyes here. I can no longer worship a gaunt and skinny Christ, someone who is out of proportion to me. I have cast my eyes eastward where I see the welcoming Budai (the fat or laughing Buddha) and the girthful Ganesha–and to the past where I see the plump statuettes of the Mother Goddess. I’m now free from lean-o-centric theological oppression.
Very wise. As Marc Driscoll of Mars Hill Church might say, “I can’t worship a guy I can beat in an All You Can Eat contest at Royal Fork.”
Holy cow! Does the Royal Fork still exist? I use to love eating their chicken wings and drinking all four kinds of pop including the diet, plus canonically raiding the desert trays. I guess I was Jolly and didn’t realize it because no name had been bestowed on the movement by the movers and shakers, i.e. the people in charge, the big cheesi. Note to self: I wonder if this should really be considered a movement, since I don’t move much more than my silverware?
Ahem! Also, I keep outgrowing my sashes, so now I just drape one over my shoulder along with the rest of my outfit. Is that okay, or will I now not be acknowledged? Will people close their eyes and pretend I don’t belong or even exist? If you make the rules of inclusivity to exacting, you will lose a large part of your members.
Mother Angelica used to love to point out that Thomas Aquinas was fat & so was St Anthony but the Italians would never admit it
Christ promised us a new heaven and a new earth. In fact, we are to receive a resurrected body and we are to dine at the table of the Lord, at the heavenly banquet no less. I was wondering if you would consider a third post positing the Stout’s eschatological fulfillment. How will heaven lead to an even greater perfection of the Stout’s body as well as desires? Let
The pun is intended, because I know you’re big enough to take it. (Seriously, my wife and I think you are the dumbed-down G.K. Chesterton of our time. No, wait! I didn’t mean it like that. . . !)
A beautiful parody! A shame that you couldn’t write lyrics for Sir Arthur Sullivan to set music to (But then Q. Victoria would eliminate you from consideration for Knighthood.)
TeaPot562
Cheers for defying the politically anorexic culture of our day. But… the body IS a temple of the Holy Spirit – and that doesn’t mean a major basilica. Fact is, dear GK Chesterton may very well have drunk and eaten himself to death. Had he taken a little more care, we might have had many more wonderful words from his pen.
Such important Television stars as William Conrad as “Cannon”, and Jackie Gleason, and Burl Ives?
We can’t even find these tremendous talents on TV Land!
The slim police are trying to crush our spirit!!!
(I’m gonna get another donut……)
Like Jake and the Fat Man???
Why was that show cancelled???