Oh Wait, Was She a Great Big Fat Person?

Fat - The Violent Femmes (mp3)
Wait - White Lion (mp3)

Sometimes honesty is nothing but a dangerous weapon. Maybe we don't mean to hurt people with it, but sometimes we do damage with our honesty that can't be easily mended.

One of the most personally agonizing moments in The Breakfast Club occurs when rich girl Claire (Molly Ringwald) spouts too much honesty for anyone. My alter-ego, the nerdy Brian (Anthony Michael Hall), suddenly realizes he potentially has four new friends from all walks of school life, and the ramifications of that possibility excites him.

BRIAN
So, so on Monday...what happens?

CLAIRE
Are we still friends, you mean? If we're friends now, that is?

BRIAN
Yeah...

CLAIRE
Do you want the truth?

BRIAN
Yeah, I want the truth...

CLAIRE
I don't think so...

ALLISON
Well, do you mean all of us or just John?

CLAIRE
With all of you...

ANDREW
That's a real nice attitude, Claire!

CLAIRE
Oh, be honest, Andy...if Brian came walking up to you in the hall on Monday, what would you do? I mean picture this, you're there with all the sports. I know exactly what you'd do, you'd say hi to him and when he left you'd cut him all up so your friends wouldn't think you really liked him!

ANDREW
No way!

ALLISON
'Kay, what if I came up to you?

CLAIRE
Same exact thing!

BENDER
(furious and screaming at Claire)
You are a bitch!

CLAIRE
Why? 'Cause I'm telling the truth, that makes me a bitch?

BENDER
No! 'Cause you know how shitty that is to do to someone! And you don't got the balls to stand up to your friends and tell 'em that you're gonna like who you wanna like!

CLAIRE
Okay, what about you, you hypocrite! Why don't you take Allison to one of your heavy metal vomit parties? Or take Brian out to the parking lot at lunch to get high? What about Andy for that matter, what about me? What would your friends say if we were walking down the hall together. They'd laugh their asses off and you'd probably tell them you were doing it with me so they'd forgive you for being seen with me.

BENDER
(furious once again)
Don't you ever talk about my friends! You don't know any of my friends, you don't look at any of my friends and you certainly wouldn't condescend to speak to any of my friends so you just stick to the things you know, shopping, nail polish, your father's BMW and your poor--rich--drunk mother in the Carribean!

Because I've always identified (begrudgingly) with Brian, Claire's words wound me every time I hear them. They are painful because they are true and honest, and Claire says them with a begrudging regret for and resignation to the way the world works.

Rebel flunkie John Bender (Judd Nelson) goes all great vengeance and furious anger on her, and his rhetorical skills overwhelm the argument, but they never can take away from the scathing truth of her honesty. Bender only wins because he plays dirty and can redirect the subject. When Brian returns to prodding Claire about her response, she again gives a painfully honest answer, making everyone angrier at her still.

Their anger does not change the validity of her claim. Sometimes it's easier to pass judgment on the one cruel enough to say it than it is to acknowledge that we'd be equally guilty... but denying it the whole time.

The only one who stood firm that her friends would accept Brian into the fold was Allison (Ally Sheedy), and that was only because Allison was friendless and could thus offer a lame "the kind of friends I'd have wouldn't mind" response. Which is much like me claiming that none of my pit bulls would ever bite anyone... if I ever bought any pit bulls.

At one point, Bender tells Claire that her name is "a fat girl's name." Which is the best way I can lead into my point...

What makes a fat person fat?

I know I'm burying the lead here, but when having to answer this question, I find myself in a horrible place. Rather than being Brian, the Club's naive victim, I'm suddenly Claire, the honest asshole who says stuff even though it's cruel to say. Obviously, I try keeping these thoughts to myself unless I'm writing a blog or dragged into a friendly debate.

Do fat people eat too much? Is it the curse of genetic inheritance? Do their grandparents spoil them? Are they a lazy at a different level? Can we blame it all on William Howard Taft or the gravitational pull of the moon or cauliflower? Our beliefs here sway us in stories about Kevin Smith and Southwest Airlines, or about health insurance costs, or about the decade of network television sitcoms ruined by the glut of snarky and annoying fat guys with hot wives.

A series of Slate articles wrestles with the science debate on weight and how much is linked to the curse of genetics. Although I can't rightly read these articles without acknowledging that I hit some version of the genetic lotto in being skinny, I also can't get past my own anecdotal experiences that most overweight people I know got that way because they eat too much, eat too unhealthily, and are far too inactive.

Overweight people should have to buy two plane tickets when necessary. I wince thinking that my insurance rates are governed by smokers and unhealthy eaters rather than my own moderately irresponsible lifestyle. That Leah Remini would fall in love with Kevin James makes me throw up in my mouth.

Maybe I'm an awful person for admitting this. Maybe it's such an aggravating topic because the whole truth is much more complicated than mere DNA structure or the number of Whoppers consumed. But I doubt I'll ever be capable of viewing one's weight on the same scale of "just born with it" as one's skin color, height, or even sexual preference. One day, if science can prove me wrong, I will do my best to change, but I will mostly pray that I won't pass along my own prejudices to my children.

To those loyal readers who are overweight or agitated by my stance, I shrug a Molly Ringwald shrug and regret to inform you that I can't even play "Heart + Soul" with my toes or apply lipstick using my cleavage instead of my hands.

I've loved the Violent Femmes song since I bought that album back in the '80s. I just added the White Lion song for the pun fun of it. And because it's probably White Lion's best or second-best song.