Time Machine —

I love vintage photographs.

There’s something so beautiful about the glimpse of life long-gone that helps me understand how similar we — in our modern, high-tech world — are to our grandparents or great-grandparents.

I think many people tend to romanticize the past too much. People tend to think of those who lived at the turn of the 20th century as somehow more moral, more conservative, more reserved, more restrained, more like the way we people, the degenerates of the future, should be.

This directly relates to fatness because I often hear critics of fat people suggest that obesity was never a problem before because our ancestors were such virtuous, self-controlled people.

Nonsense.

People have always been exactly the same people are today. People have always been, and will always be, motivated by fear, hope, greed, generosity, lust, anger, joy, hunger, desire, power, love and death. The only difference between our grandparents and us is that we happened to be born in an age run by machines, while their motivation was limited by the technology and artistry of their day.

It’s not that we’re different people, it’s that we are different times.

That’s how I view vintage photographs: same people, different time.

If you were somehow able to take your grandfather as a baby and raise him in our day, he would have the same modern problems, the same modern temptations, the same modern dilemmas that we now face.

At dinner, your grandfather did not say to himself, “I’m going to eat this modest portion of lean meat and vegetables so that I can maintain a moderate weight. And I cannot wait to get to the factory so I can exert myself strenuously for hours, so as to be lean and trim.”

In fact, family meals in the 1950s could be quite large and elaborate, and having a robust appetite was not considered unhealthy.

Yes, there has been an increase in our collective weights (an average of 7-9 pounds since the 1980), but if anything has caused that increase it is the change in our culture and our environment, not in the people.

Our grandparents embraced processed foods and urban sprawl like it was the last front of the Great War. Our generation merely inherited the foundational shift that our grandparents began. To blame us for not getting enough exercise is ridiculous if you don’t also blame your grandfather for dreaming of the day we got push-button automation.

Anti-obesity crusaders would have you believe that obesity is something dangerously new that is happening to us, but the truth is that there have always been fat people and there will always be fat people. The amount may have increased, but it isn’t due to some fundamental flaw in our generation. In fact, if you want to blame anyone, you should go straight back to the 1950s when modern food production and the car culture flourished.

But there is no need to place blame on anyone for what is, largely, a genetic endowment. Each of you has seen photos of your grandparents and distant relatives who share your body size and shape, among other attributes.

It was with this in mind that I created a new Tumblr called Fuck Yeah, Old Time Fatties.

FYOTE is an attempt to collect and share photographs of vintage fatties to dispel the myth that obesity is new to the human race and that we are different from our ancestors.

We’re not.

We’re just as beautiful, just as loved, just as sensuous, just as intoxicated, just as horny, just as badass.

And yes, there were fat children and fat celebrities back then, too. In fact, while going through the Flickr set of the Library of Congress, I’ve found entire sections of fat jazz musicians, such as the gorgeous Sylvia Syms. And another interesting find has been photographs of Native Americans, who seem overwhelmingly populated by fat people.

The response to these photos has been overwhelmingly positive with a few mixed responses. For example, I posted the following photo of a man and a fat woman fooling around.

Somebody responded by saying, “She doesn’t look that fat at all.”

I responded,

You’re exactly right because she’s not. At least not by reasonable standards.

But by BMI, she would be considered at least overweight, and as we’ve been warned all too often (most recently, in this absurd study from Harvard), even being a little bit overweight is like living with a cobra in your house: it may not kill you today, but soon and very soon.

To better understand who is and is not a “fatty,” please refer to Kate Harding’s most excellent BMI Illustrated project (which should have a Tumblr… hint, hint).

We’re told that being in the overweight category is a death sentence (despite solid decades-old research, which strongly disagrees).

We’re told that anyone who has a body like the one pictured above is unhealthy, unsexy, unlovable, unacceptable, inappropriate, immoral, and a threat to national fucking security.

I’m sorry this is absolutely, undeniably wrong.

But this is not the forum to discuss that issue. If you want to agree or disagree, feel free to speak your mind on my personal Tumblr, Atchka!

This blog is a showcase of beauty, history and reality.

But yesterday I stumbled across a wealth of material that I hadn’t expected. Someone posted an enormous collection of circus fat people. You know, as in…

I wasn’t sure how people would respond to sideshow photos of death fatz, so I asked and the response was overwhelmingly in favor of posting them.

So, I’ve been cataloging them and getting ready to post them later this week/early next week.

While going through them, a few things jumped out at me. First, was the infantilization of fat women: Baby Irene, Baby Ruth, Baby Betty, Baby Thelma, Baby Bliss (a guy), Baby Bunny, Baby Emma, Baby Flow, Baby June, as well as Little Baby Viola, Little Eva, and Little Kewpie. That, I kind of understand, but I find it really, really weird.

And, of course, there are all the Jollies and Happies: Jolly Babe, Jolly Dolly, Jolly Ethel, Jolly Joe, Jolly Lee, Jolly Ollie, Jolly Pearl, Jolly Ray, Jolly Edna, Jolly Emma, Jolly Josie, Jolly Nellie, Jolly Trixie, Jolly Val, Happy Emma, Happy Jenny, Happy Jack.

But what really struck me was the sexualization of fat women. I touched on this a bit in this post (which includes a nude photo of a Dainty Dotty), but there are so many more where the women seem to be scantily clad and seducing the camera. For example:

Given the context of the time, much of this would be considered pornographic. Logistically, people were paying to see fat flesh, so maybe these kinds of outfits aren’t considered pornographic since, to them, fat women are inherently sexless.

That doesn’t explain the provocative poses, the come hither looks, and the general sensuality that the women exude in the photos.

Nor does it explain the posters that seem to promise erotic delights more than grotesque monstrosities.

Compare that with today’s fatty sideshow, “The Biggest Loser,” and you begin to notice something: fatties weren’t always loathed by the media and society. Despite the dehumanization of a sideshow, the circus fat lady was treated with greater dignity and respect than your average Biggest Loser contestant.

Which makes me wonder what has really changed over the past century. Have we suddenly become fatter, lazier, more gluttonous? Or is the more significant change that we have become a more intolerant, more hateful, more self-righteous nation?