So this "cat person" new yorker story that's going viral

Mate I’ve got an English degree, I think
I know what I’m talking about.

2 Likes

I didn’t think it was fat-phobic as such (although I could see why it might come across as such/ hit a nerve.) I thought the writer was trying to sum up that moment when, having thought you were ok with a certain course of action, something innocuous catches your consciousness and turns you, and you just realise you’re just not into it. Repulsed even. but you realise that you’re going to have to give it a go anyway because women* are conditioned to go along with something as hateful as this rather than upset men.

  • not all women, but generally as a group who are not men.
2 Likes

Incidentally, I saw numerous red flags about his behaviour from about a third of the way through, but I am a graduate of the Freedom Programme (run by Women’s Aid) and am perhaps a bit over-wary now. Incidentally, I recommend it to anybody who has found themselves in a cycle of falling into relationships with emotional abusers.

it is also free-

3 Likes

There are several mentions of Robert’s weight, all of which Margot phrases as expressions of disgust / disapproval, but I don’t really get how that makes the piece itself / author fatphobic as is I’ve seen people suggesting.

1 Like

I hadn’t seen much about that side of it, so haven’t given it a huge amount of thought, but two things spring to mind:

  • weight does seem to be used in culture as a shorthand for attractive/ugly and probably shouldn’t be, although that’s something that we had a whole thread on recently.
  • I wonder how many people seizing on that are doing it to divert from the wider issue of how this man (and a much, much wider group of men) is behaving.
3 Likes

I thought it was just the writer’s chosen device for highlighting the psychological shift in Margot’s consciousness to not really having a view other than noticing his shape, to suddenly being revulsed. She could have tried it with the annoyingness of his beard maybe, but that would have been harder to reveal. Bad breath?

I dunno, I can see why his tummy was maybe a cheap and easy target.

1 Like

Yeah, that makes sense.

disappointingly so! I demand a refund!

1 Like

I too expected a literal cat person :frowning:

or just more realistic? it’s cold reality that an out-of-shape body can be a turn-off, some people can overlook it if they really like someone. i say this as someone who has a hideous body shape tbqh.

1 Like

tbf physical shortcomings of any kind are used as shorthand for personality defects in so much art it’s a bit cringe in 2017. dont think thats why robert is fat tho.

1 Like

I pay £120 a year to have The New Yorker delivered through the letterbox. Haven’t read it yet, but when I do my opinion will be better than yours.

Use to be £80, then sterling tanked after the Brexit vote. As if I didn’t have enough reasons to hate Johnson and Farage.

1 Like

“I don’t understand why people are treating it like a polemic that they’re meant to take a clear lesson from.”

this - it’s like people don’t really understand what fiction is

3 Likes

New Star Wars film out this week.

there’s nowt wrong with jar-jar’s face.

chuds are pushing the fatphobic angle online

I don’t think that the story is fatphobic (as you say, just because a character is, doesn’t mean that the writer is), but some of the gleeful responses to it have been.

It’s also a convenient label to sling at the piece if you don’t want to engage with what it’s saying, too.

Yeah but if you feel like “the baddie” in a story like this hits a bit too close to home you’re going to clutch at whatever you can to deflect. So the chuds have picked accusations of body shaming and misandry as the go to this time around.

BUT does the way someone reacts at the end of a relationship for whatever reason, dictate who they are/could have been as a person for the entire relationship?

Also she really wasn’t very nice and handled it really immaturely. Letting her friend send a blunt message to end a relationship, telling everyone about how bad he was in bed etc.

Basically neither of them come out of this looking amazing.

Still don’t get why everyones losing their shit over it.

Tried to give it a second go
Sorry, nope

1 Like