Discrimination at Large

ENG 101

Belky Luna

Discrimination at Large by Jennifer A. Coleman and Shallow Hal

The article “Discrimination at Large” and the move “Shallow Hal” are two sources that clearly illustrate the reaction of America as whole against overweight individuals. In “Discrimination at Large”, Jennifer is a woman who is overweight and is treated harsh because of her obesity. In the movie Shallow Hal, a woman by the name of Rosemary is also a woman who was treated harsh because of her overweight status. The article and the movie have a lot of similarities in the sense that these two women face the same problems by society. They are two women who are obese and both are mistreated, seen differently, and criticized. People have no respect for them and joke about them. Based on the article” Discrimination at Large” and the movie Shallow Hal you can clearly see how society is unfair to people who are overweight.

In the article, a quote which shortly and clearly illustrates America’s sentiment towards overweight individuals is one that mentions that “Fat is the last preserve for unexamined bigotry”. What this quote means is that people have this image of fat people being ugly, lazy, disgusting, and etc. All these images people have about fat people is wrong and unfair. Because of society and the media, fat people are treated with no respect. Kids grow up thinking it’s okay to think of them as slugs and disgusting, because of this, society and the media is to blame for the unfair treatment against fat people. According to the article, “kids catch on early to be sensitive to the feelings of gay, black, disabled, elderly and speech impaired people. At the same time, they learn that fat people are fair game. That we are always available or their personal amusement”. Here Coleman shows how society makes it appropriate to mock obese people which shows another example of how Americas attitude is unfair. According to Coleman, society teaches adolescents that it’s not ok...