The Making of "Big As Life: Obesity in America" (Continued)

On Monday morning, I sent him a package of information about size acceptance and discrimination. This consisted of a number of magazine articles, scholarly articles, the ISAA bibliography, ISAA posters and brochures, a printed Without Measure newsletter, and a list of useful contacts in the movement.

Pretty soon I got a call from Donald, asking when it would be convenient for him and Gerard Issembert, producer and director of the project, to come out and meet with me. We set up a Saturday appointment.

Well, I spent a week cleaning my house and gathering materials to show Donald and Gerard. I assembled books and videos I have collected over the years, as well as artwork I have done on my own journey to size acceptance.

They were particularly interested in the artwork. They felt my story was compelling in and of itself, but the artwork could very well make for powerful sequences on film. I had put my heart and soul into my art. It was a pleasure to share it with people who really wanted to see it.

Saturday arrived. Boy was I nervous! I felt I was auditioning, which I was. I had so much to share: I wanted them to pick me so I could tell my story to millions of people on television. From the beginning, this was most appealing to me. I have given seminars over the years, written lots of letters, talked with hundreds of people about size acceptance and what it is like to be fat, but this was an unusual chance to reach more people in one shot than I ever had in my whole life.

The meeting went well. Again I was impressed with the questions Gerard and Donald asked and what they told me about the project. I shared my story in detail, I talked about my experiences in the size acceptance movement, and I covered key points I felt people in the mainstream must understand before they can embrace size acceptance, or at least, abandon their ill feelings about fat people. They were receptive to all these things.

At the end, I pulled out my artwork. They were impressed. This artwork consists primarily of photographs I took while I was a student at The Corcoran School of Art. These photos are self-revelatory and explore the feelings I had as a fat person. I knew they were powerful: it was a great catharsis to make them and I had noticed people felt moved to come tell me about their pain as a response to seeing my pictures whenever I showed them.