allegra means happy—and is also my name

reanimatrix:

northernindra:

bookshop:

feministdisney:

unknowablewoman:

fatbodypolitics:

red3blog:

Earlier this month, Disney announced a collaboration between Blue Cross Blue Shield Florida to bring their considerable experience and expertise in marketing to children to the health insurance industry’s long-standing commitment to blaming fat people for their health problems. These titans of industry will pool their talents to give fat shaming of children a brand-new re-branding. Oh, that’s not what they announced, of course, but it is what they are doing.

Newly unveiled at Walt Disney World’s Epcot Center is ”Habit Heroes”, an exhibit and online game designed to combat “bad habits” by personifying those habits and then stigmatizing those personifications. I’m guessing you are already ahead of me. 25 Pixar-inspired characters make up the “Bad Habit Gallery”, a collection of low-ambition super villains content to use their powers to model socially unwelcome behavior. I’m not going to really get into the advisability of the project. This sort of negative reinforcement feels misguided in general, but especially when the negative reinforcement involves creating cool characters of the things you are supposed to be stigmatizing. (See Hungry) Never mind the broad condemnations of things like being in a bad mood are just setting kids up to fail. Everyone gets in bad moods or doesn’t get enough sleep enough some of the time. Especially counterproductive is shaming kids for lacking self-esteem. You’re going to make kids feel bad about themselves because they feel bad about themselves? Way to go, Disney. So, there is a lot to complain about, but as you probably deduced, what really concerns me are the fat shaming characters in the “Bad Habit Gallery”.

….

For information about contacting Walt Disney World and Epcot, please visit their site or find them on Twitter @WaltDisneyWorld. Contact information for Florida Blue can be found here or on Twitter @FLBlueCenter.

This makes me so angry and sad and hurt. A place that is suppose to be the happiest place on earth is now using my body and bodies like mine to create more shame, more harm.

I am so fucking done with the world today…and it’s not even noon.

agreed that the first one is a fail on their part to shame because she looks like she’s having a ball and I want to go out for drinks with her tonight

but anyway

WHAT
THE
FUCK
IS
THIS

DISNEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING.

also good, thorough commentary on it all! 

If I hadn’t read the post, I would have assumed this was some kind of awful trolling. But no! Jesus Christ, here is what the official Disney Parks blurb says about “Habit Heroes”:

This new experience encourages children of all ages to learn healthy lifestyle habits and become more active. Guests can join forces with Habit Heroes Will Power and Callie Stenics to fight off villains like Sweet Tooth and The Snacker.

You can even go look at the Gallery of Bad Habits

online. HERE’S WHAT IT SAYS ABOUT “SWEET TOOTH”:

Sweet Tooth
BAD HABIT: Too many sweets

BEST WAY TO DEFEAT THIS BAD HABIT: Like Snacker, Sweet Tooth has a soft spot for healthy snacks like fruit, but just doesn’t know it yet. See if you can get her to try some!
BIO: This shapely girl may disguise her unhealthy habits, but in reality her blood sugar is so high you could bake a cake with it!

In other words, HOW DARE SHE HAVE A FIGURE THAT MISLEADS US ABOUT HER TOTALLY UNHEALTHY LIFE STYLE. HOW DARE SHE NOT CATER TO OUR NEED TO BODY POLICE HER BY NOT HAVING A BODY FAT ENOUGH FOR US TO EXPLICITLY SHAME.

i feel physically nauseous. oh my god, i can’t. i can’t.

What.

What is this I don’t even.

Look at that gallery of bad habits.

Low self esteem and high stress levels are bad habits? STRESS ISN’T A FUCKING “BAD HABIT” YOUR CHILD SUDDENLY DEVELOPED, YOU IDIOTS, ITS YOU BEING BAD PARENTS AND BEING UNABLE TO PROVIDE THEM WITH AN APPROPRIATE ENVIRONMENT. ARGH.

This is just. Just. It’s psychologically toxic, that’s what all this is.

 *sigh*

Thanks for adding to the whole “people with low self-esteem are shitbags” mantra that just… gives those of us with low self esteem lower self-esteem.

Does no one really see the… irrationality of that?

Ugh. UGH.

Okay, some of these are really well-intentioned. Hygiene-related ones? Yes. Reminding people to stretch before exercise? Good habit to have. Wearing sunscreen? Excellent decision. Anti-bullying? Awesome.

But the fat-shaming? No. Just … no. There are ways of promoting a healthy lifestyle without going “FAT = HORRIBLE”

And speaking from experience, every time someone tells me that I shouldn’t have low self-esteem about an issue or should stop thinking negatively, I feel worse. To borrow a situation that my acting teacher mentioned as far as actions/motivations goes, when someone’s freaking out, you don’t shake their shoulders and scream: “CALM DOWN!” It doesn’t help, and that’s what I feel like a lot of these are doing. Turning insecurity into a supervillain that can be fought by “THINKING POSITIVE THOUGHTS YEAH!!!!!!!!” trivializes how much of a struggle some people have in fighting their personal demons. Never mind the fact that some insecurity is forced upon us by society….

I don’t know, maybe racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, shapism—maybe those should be the “bad habits” we’re telling kids to fight against. But given the way many of these issues have been portrayed, I don’t know if I trust them to treat issues surrounding discrimination with respect either.

By the way, totally pledging myself to the service of Control Freak and buying all of Ice Cappuccino’s albums.