Even if you’re not as chronically online as I am, you’ve likely seen the increasingly Photoshopped visage of Vice President JD Vance seeping into your social media feeds.
He’s been stretched and squashed and otherwise distorted into a Cabbage Patch doll, a member of the Lollipop Guild, a carton of eggs – any form that could be considered both round and infantilizing. It’s caricature, generated with the intent of taking Vance down a few pegs.
But in the process, we’re breathing intentional new life into the noxious, unfortunate social trend of body shaming. It’s a familiar tactic, one far more often deployed in service of criticizing or otherwise attempting to silence women in politics, from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Their sartorial choices are heavily scrutinized; their bodies are either sexually objectified or torn to verbal shreds.
Regardless of the direction of the attacks though, it’s lazy, puerile work – and I’ve seen more than a few progressive voices engaging in it as of late. Voices that justify the jokes by claiming the male, conservative subjects of their ridicule deserve mockery for playing roles in the rapid dissolution of our structures, safety nets and social norms.
I’m not saying I disagree with that notion on its face – I’ve said before that progressives should increasingly set aside respectability in service of pushing back harder against autocracy, against hatred and bigotry. But in pointing at physical traits like Vance’s perceived fatness, or going after other members of President Donald Trump’s administration for their own variations from our absurd societal beauty standards – are you not automatically implying that these are bad things to be weaponized in the first place?
And, is it worth it to communicate to people you love – or people you’ve not met, but who have not wronged you in any way – that this is how you view their deviations from a white, slim ideal?
Look, I’ll be honest: I’m not especially hurt by the jokes myself. I would be an unintended target, because I am fat – a word that I use without a hint of self-deprecation, because it is short and easy to understand (like me). But I gave myself the gift of engaging in the process of divorcing my sense of self-worth from people’s assessments of my desirability. That said – one needn’t be personally bothered by a thing to care about the fact that it hurts others.
Our society does not make the mental separation I’m describing easy – it takes work, and often requires therapeutic help, and many don’t have that kind of time or money. Which means they are, right now, navigating a world where not only are their rights and futures under threat, but where they are also made to feel lesser than simply for existing in a body that isn’t an advertiser’s version of perfection. Where even those by their side seemingly look down upon them.
In this madness we are living through – is your “joke” really worth the prospect of adding to that pain?
There’s An Alternative
You can, instead, focus on the fact that those currently in charge are horrible people who are making everything worse. That they are offensively, repulsively ugly on the inside.
You can continue to call out their grifts, their woeful lack of skills or intelligence. You can discuss the ways in which they are hypocrites who will let people die rather than abort a nonviable fetus – while lying about that willingness to win elections – but will then scoff at the idea of giving kids free lunches; who will claim they’re offering protection by not letting trans women use certain bathrooms or play certain sports, but will then work to pave the way to easier gun access for everyone, including domestic abusers.
The body-shaming remarks, though, should remain relics of another time.
I understand that some will accuse me of spoiling their fun in encouraging such a redirect. And I’m aware that we need fun right now – that laughter is medicine, and in some ways, resistance. But, how fun is it, really, if people who are just as scared and burdened as you get hurt in your process?
Isn’t joy best when we can share it with others in the fight? ◼️
