Oh boy, was I mad this morning, and sorry and shocked and disappointed. I thought maybe Joan Rivers had learned her lesson regarding Elizabeth Taylor. I thought maybe, with the tragedy of her husband’s suicide, she would let up on others’ problems. Shame on you, Joan Rivers. You beat up Elizabeth unmercifully. Yes, she was fat. But surely you knew she hated it. She hated her fat and the dirty rotten jokes you made about her. I repeat, shame on you, Joan Rivers!
Elizabeth Taylor showed you. In her interview with Oprah Winfrey, after she’d lost all her excess weight, she told how much the fat jokes hurt. She exposed your cruelty and the cruelty of others. During that interview, Miss Taylor looked every bit the “goddess of beauty” she ever was. My heart aches for her as I see her gain weight back, and my heart aches for me. It aches for every single fat person suffering this cursed affliction.
I was enraged with you this morning because you were degrading yet another fat person. Why can’t you tell nameless fat-people jokes? Why do you have to single out and tell jokes about a particular fat person? I can appreciate a fat joke. But to single out one fat person —that’s sheer cruelty. You even had a rude joke, specifically designed to hurt Delta Burke, displayed in print on the TV screen.
I didn’t laugh when I saw it this morning. It will never amuse me. I noticed that your audience wasn’t rolling in the aisles, either.
Delta Burke. Now there is a beautiful woman. A beautiful, overweight woman. I suffer for her as I suffer for all fat people. But I must admit, Designing Women is one of my favorite TV shows of all time, and her acting, her style, is very much a part of the reason. It encourages me to see her achieving success, even though she is (oh, I hate the word) fat. It inspires me to see an extremely beautiful, well-manicured, expertly coiffured, flatteringly dressed, exceptionally classy fat person. I want to be her kind of fat lady!
Today at noon, I observed twelve women waiting to pick up their morning kindergartners. Five of them were dreadfully obese. Yuck. I received the message loud and clear. Almost half of these mothers or day-care providers were obese! Being a stay-at-home woman in this day and age is dangerous. With a combination of garbage TV (soap operas, etc.); fixing children’s lunches, snacks, and dinners; and all the instant puddings, pies, candies, cookies, and frozen delights available at every corner convenience store, we simply don’t have a chance. Six of us had fallen to the seduction of food and were pathetically ponderous. I am determined that there will soon be one less obese mother waiting at the school!