We get paid less and we’re more likely to be fired. Poor people are more likely to be fat, after all. I don’t think it would be quite the same barrel of laughs if the motto of Pawnee were “First in Friendship, Fourth in Poverty.” Fat shaming and fat jokes like the People of Walmart photos are often a socially acceptable stand-in for the classist shaming of poor people. Pawnee’s motto is “First in Friendship, Fourth in Obesity.” NBC is still selling shirts and bumper stickers featuring it. This happens in the second season, and apparently the writers found the existence of fat people so hilarious that they never let up after. They’re just beefy, big-boned, chunk monsters. In the “Sweetums” episode Ann Perkins says, “Pawnee is the fourth most obese city in America. The discrimination and microaggressions that fat people endure are invisible to the wider culture, and Parks and Rec is a good example of this.įatphobia is a consistent presence in the show.
It’s weird that a show that is renowned for its kindness and feminism would rely so heavily on fat jokes, but it also isn’t. But every time I am about to decide that I do, Parks and Rec makes a fat “joke.” I have to put the word joke in quotes because the punch line seems to be that fat people exist. I’ve been binge watching Parks and Recreation episodes on Netflix over the past few weeks, and I really wanted to love it. This guest post by Ali Thompson appears as part of our theme week on Fatphobia and Fat Positivity.
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