Sheila is Ketch?

So, who are the unfortunate souls to be stuffed into an escape pod and spat toward the desert sands of Tatooine?

"I'm not afraid to blood on my hands."

or to set us up the bomb, it seems.

Please let scroll_lock get a pass. She's one of my favorites.

This monkey's gone to heaven.

And still, nobody has emailed me to tell me who bought it. You really are a well-behaved (discreet) bunch.

@SW-2: Scroll_lock's a dead woman?

@fiveinchtaint: I love Ewoks!

Oh, got it, just Doolittle. Damn that Ewok!

Doolittle was executed, and nobody else. (Hence my comment above - a joke that probably about 5 people will get.)

Anyway, that's how I interpreted Sheila's post. Am I missing something?

Doolittle did little but still got sent to the Fat Farm.

Is the laughing Skeletor banner there for bonus, or just mocking?

@MisterHippity: I am one of those five.

Just so I get it straight - there is free reign on joking about celebrities who look like they have "a touch of downs syndrome" but fat jokes cross the line. How selectively pc.

@MisterHippity: I also am a Pixies fan.

@LastCallSally: Somebody definitely got the chop for making a Banksy/downsy joke the other day.

@Mary Mouse: True.

@SW-2: I am touched! (And I mean that in both senses of the word) You made my day!

@Bell County: The body's still twitching.

read the (admittedly whatever) threat embedded in the previous post and followed the comments wondering if anyone was going to, in fact, ignore the elephant in the room - METAPHORICALLY.

would it be allowable to acknowledge the painting's place within its cultural context, a aesthetically sick, ouruboros society that literally vilifies fat people? to note that the woman herself, while no doubt beautiful outside of the painting, is hardly lovingly rendered by the artist, whose strokes seem a little angry (and certainly unflattering, from a traditional standpoint)?

the first thing i saw when i looked at this painting was A Fat Person. not mockingly, but just as point of fact. the rapport of the painting (for me), it's value as a non-static piece of art, is all a result of Freud's choice of subject. I think we're supposed to acknowledge that the woman is depicted as fat and ugly - her face is squished to the point of being hidden and even her palette is sort of fecal...

but then we reconsider that she's also beautiful, and maybe we recalibrate (or even problematize) our previously conceived aesthetics and notions of beauty.

the sort of devil-may-care pre-censorship from the original post - while understandable given The Internet - effectively criminalized this yin-yang dialogue instead of problematizing the painting and our obvious reactions to it (culturally and individually).

those are just my thoughts, as this chain of events sort of threw me for a loop.

@LastCallSally: I think we should all just live by the First Rule: There are no rules credo. It's probably safer that way.

@MisterHippity: Now it's stuck in my head. Thanks!

@MisterHippity: 6.

Sheila, I for one, am sorry you had to even warn us.

@MisterHippity: Yay Pixies.

Sheila is a far kinder arbiter than I.

For instance, I'm considering banning everyone who uses the word "problematize."

@MisterHippity: Riding a wave of mutilation.

@MisterHippity: I suspect more executions, from Ketch, are on their way. But Sheila did warn us yesterday that remarks on fat were a slippery slope.

While you're at it Sheila, you might disect the actual Times article for some very creepy anti-fat comments, starting with the blurb under the headline, but before the jump. I and at least one other commenter cited it yesterday.

@Jack Ketch: Fear of arbitrary death + time = comedy.

@debord at work: Really really interesting comment. Of course, Sheila was just trying to prevent a bombardment of non-insightful fat hate jokes but because of the subject of the painting, you're right, critique was probably limited as a result.

@MisterHippity: I'll get mine, too.

@fiveinchtaint: Now you're just fucking with me by being so cute. Stop it immediately.

how 'bout more executions for body fascism in general? it's kinda tiresome, kinda puerile, kinda pointless. beauty comes in a lot of forms. you wouldn't always know that with this crowd. do we really want to be perpetuating stereotypes? boring.

I hate sexism and racism. Why?

You can't help what gender you were born (more or less, I know) and you can't help or change was race you were born into.

But you can lose weight if you're too fat.

I don't call it being Fat-tist. I believe it's motivational constructive criticism.

@MisterHippity: @Sargasm: Totally in my head too now...except I just keep cycling between "Then the devil is 6, then the devil is 6, then the devil is 6" and "This monkey's gone to heaven, this monkey's gone to heaven."

@scroll_lock: You're a girl? This is blowing my fucking mind.

@debord at work: I agree. Culturally speaking, at first glance I saw a grossly fat person and i instantly went morbidly obese = unattractive.

Of course I didn't comment as such cause that wouldn't be polite. So I guess it's not executing as the thought police but just in regards to the lack of politeness about the matter.

@Bell County: If Scroll gets the ax I will have to play subway frogger.

@Unfun: Oh sure, I've said so many times. I guess I don't give off a girly vibe in comments, though. I've been told people thought I was a gay man. (Which I am, figuratively if not literally.)

After all we've been through can we still have a chaste fondness for one other? And talk about guys and stuff?

@The Real JR: I see your point. But I think the shock of the flesh is what the painting is all about (and much of Freud's work). And I worry about the trivialization of the fat problem. But it's a complicated issue (the morbidly obese aren't just like the merely rumpy - chubby your's truly here included). But it's a human experience, and a human being, not an ad for Pringles.

I don't know if that made sense, so before y'all jump on me, let's all think a bit.

@Jack Ketch:
what about if one is unable to get the Pokemon theme song out of their head every time they see your name.

or if one continues to push the catchphrase of "Gotta Ketch'Em All" ?

@The Real JR: "I don't call it being Fat-tist. I believe it's motivational constructive criticism."

Yeah, well, since the world is so much run based on what YOU believe, I'm so relieved we're not the droids you're looking for.

@BalknChain: Can I hide behind you? (that is not a fat comment, you know I celebrate your huge, um, talent)

Besides, all I said was she looks like Roseanne. In the face, you know? Did you think I meant something else? : )

(if this double posts- sorry, first comment didn't show up and caused me extreme paranoid anxiety)

@scroll_lock: I thought you were behind me. Dammit, who's there? Stop knocking on my ass, ya aint coming in.

@debord at work: Freud's just not a flattering painter. Check out his painting of Kate Moss or any other of his nudes - he makes everyone look hideous.

Hate on fat people if you want, but I love Freud's paintings of Sue because he treats her no differently than any other of his sitters.

@BalknChain: Oh, fine. Let Spitzer in the back door but no one else. Fickle.

@debord at work: By the way, step carefully or you might deleuze everything.

@The Real JR: @CodePink: sort of as an addendum to my previous typo-ridden comment - i feel like gawker is important societally (to the people who come here) because it's an equalizer. because it's okay to look at a famous artist as an aspiring artist who's working a soul-shackling day job in publishing and say "oh yea, he looks a little weird with that forehead." from there you've at least got one up on him, or at least you have something in common, you know? I'm not saying that I think the majority of these comments are classy, and i understand that the Gawker editors - feeling more implicated in the nastiness than anonymous commenters - are anxious to bring the level of discourse up a notch... but this has always been a place where idols are dethroned and normalized.

by banning someone for making off color remarks about physical appearance (when they feed into the general discourse, NOT when they're written with ill intent), the editors are feeding into the dark place within us - collectively - that renounces anything but the beautiful and quotidian PC norm. i realize that there are a lot of counter arguments to this, and that no one wants to spend all their time in the terrible brightness of self-critique (where we are, in a fashion, the media idols we heartlessly pick apart) - but that's what i always thought gawker was about.

@The Real JR: Thanks for the reminder that I can (and need to) lose the extra 15 pounds.

@Bell County: i've actually published on d&g! 1000plateaus4life!