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Originally Posted by alpaca witch
I'd consider myself a progressive thinker and advocate for what some would call "social justice" but really most of it just comes down to you know... common decency and just NOT being an asshat? With that said, I really can't see how this show would be guilty of fat shaming. If anything, it has more sympathetic and realistic overweight characters than most other shows could claim. Like what exactly do you want? All fat characters to be portrayed as perfect, untouchable white knights who do know wrong? That's just as silly and unrealistic as the alternative. I wouldn't even say Timothy's fat really, just chubby. He's pretty active even if he's out of shape, although now he's quite literally out of shape as a writhing mass of organs but still.
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Again, the issue here is that fatness is consistently used as part of a punchline, used in order to sell just how pathetic and unpleasant various characters are. That's all fat characters usually are: fat and funny. Very rarely are they things like three-dimensional or heroic. And while the show's portrayals aren't especially egregious, they are still part of the problem--the problem being defined as "they make it easier for people to believe what
Konchadunga believes about fat people, i.e.: that it'd be much better for everyone if they didn't exist."
So what's the alternative? Not to make them perfect, but to use them in roles that are different from the ones we usually see. For example, if we're limiting ourselves to existing roles, Kurtzman could have been a good fat character. Or, if we're shooting for the moon, April herself. That would have been fantastic, because fat people--and especially fat women--are very rarely portrayed as desirable. Granted, I in no way trust the writers to have done so without consequently making the character the butt of fat jokes, but I can dream.