Stacy Bias is an absolute badass. You may remember her from her Cards Against Humanity expansion pack – Fats Against Humanity, and her amazing Rad Fatty Merit Badges. Well she is back with a documentary animation that perfectly captures the difficulty faced by fat people who are trying to access air travel.
Stacy explains:
Flying is uncomfortable for many people, but when the physical infrastructure of the plane doesn’t accommodate your body and/or the social attitudes of other passengers make the plane environment a hostile space, flying can be a particularly anxious thing to do. News stories about fat passengers often present them as unreasonably taking up space that is not their own, as a problem for others, dehumanising fat people akin to ‘excess baggage’. To challenge these narratives, this animation presents the voices of fat passengers as they explain the challenges of fitting into spaces that exclude them both socially and materially. The animation encourages people to empathise with fat people as fellow passengers and human beings, and to think about the political and economic relations that contribute to this exclusion.
For more reading about flying fat you can check out:
Stacy’s site: www.flyingwhilefat.com
Flying Fat: But It’s Not Fair to Thin People
Flying Fat: You’re Right, It’s Not Fat Shaming
I will admit that I have some envy of people for whom the hassles of flying are limited to flight delays and lost luggage, and not whether they’ll be left clinging to the last shreds of their dignity by their connecting flight. Still, I feel like we’re making progress and the more the airlines know that fat flyers are here and not going away, and the more our fellow passengers can see us as living breathing human beings, the more progress we will make and the faster we will make it.
Announcing the 2017 Body Love Obstacle Course!
Last year 30 people participated in the first ever Body Love Obstacle Course. Some joined on the live calls, and some used the recordings on their own time. Based on their feedback, we’ve created two separate options – the BLOC Power Circle – an intense course that includes a series of live calls and is limited to only 10 people, and the BLOC e-Course which is self-paced and utilizes recordings. Both include the same curriculum and are coached by me, Jeanette DePatie, and amazing guest coaches.
I got everything I hoped and more from this course. I now have an alternative inside of myself – of love and realness – and it keeps getting stronger. This love and realness is pushing out the oppression, and the pain, and body cruelty in my thinking and being. It’s getting so much more fun, interesting and beautiful inside of here! I’m in a growth and stretching phase now, and I’m starting to see the beauty and power and goodness in all bodies, including this one. From my heart and from my body – Thank you thank you thank you.
Super Early Bird pricing is available during the pre-sale until December 15 so
get the details and register here!
Note: if you are a Danceswithfat member be sure to check your e-mail and/or the member page to get your $50 and $30 discount.
Like this blog? Here’s more cool stuff:
Become a Member! For ten bucks a month you can support fat activism and get deals from size positive businesses as a thank you. Click here for details
Book and Dance Class Sale! I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!
Book Me! I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!
I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com
If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.
Dances With Fat 
Stacy is an amazing, fantastic, brilliant, talented human being, very much like someone else whose name rhymes with Pagan. 😉
I recently flew a bunch of flights to get somewhere relatively nearby (to save a lot of $, I flew indirectly all over creation), and I realized just how privileged I am to be a short-legged, relatively small sized person on a plane. I wish airlines would either have larger seats that accommodate all bodies, or have a range of seat sizes to accommodate all bodies. I hope this video gets to Ellen, Oprah, Huffington, Upworthy and Buzzfeed!!
That is super powerful.
Stacy Bias is awesome (and not just because her name is Stacy too lol)! She’s been on my radar for years and I love her activism. I’m really glad she made the video.
The seriously bad treatment I’ve gotten while flying has been so awful that I’m now scared to fly. I now HAVE to buy two seats (which is hugely expensive) just to keep from having to sit next to someone who would treat me the way the last person I sat next to on a plane treated me. The lady was so terrible and mean the entire flight that by the end of the flight I was nearly in tears. I now buy two seats when I fly, which really has cut down on my ability to visit family, as it’s just too expensive. It really angers me that the airlines are so greedy that they continue to make smaller seats to try and squeeze more and more seats on the planes, regardless of the needs of their customers.
And even with the two seats, so you know you are not in any way inconveniencing the other person (beside the whole issue of someone maybe having to temporarily shift, in order to let the person in the inside get to the aisle for a trip to the restroom), they will STILL look at you with obvious hatred and anger, and even complain to the flight attendants about your very existence on the flight, breathing the same air, and daring to exist in public.
You know how after your video plays, you get options for other videos that have some sort of connection (real or imagined) to the subject matter of the original? I just clicked the first option, which is some woman named Whitney talking about her experience she had, flying while fat.
What I found most “interesting” (read: rage-inducing) about it was how she says that she always buys two seats. When she travels for business, her company buys two tickets. When she travels for personal reasons, she buys her own two tickets. She bought two tickets for this particular flight. She went to the gate, and said, “Why did you assign me seats 2A and 2C? I need them to be together, because they are both for me.” The gate agent said “It’s fine. They’re together. Sure, there’s an aisle between them, but they’re together.” She continued to argue her case, that she bought two tickets, for two seats together, for herself, and she needs them to be together, and it all went downhill from there.
It was ALL about having two seats, for which she voluntarily paid, in advance.
But the comments? So many people talking about how she can avoid all her problems if she A) “just lost the weight,” and B) sucked it up and bought two seats.
If any fat person could “just” lose weight in order to fit into the shrinking seats, 99 out of a hundred would do it. I dieted for 30 years, and “just” got bigger.
Secondly, SHE BOUGHT TWO SEATS, VOLUNTARILY, IN ADVANCE, SO STOP TELLING HER THAT SHE HAS NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN AND THAT SHE OUGHT TO BUY TWO SEATS!!!!
Argh.
It’s as if these people see a fat person, and just look at the title (Flying While Fat), and immediately stop watching and go straight to commenting hate and blame.
I really did like the original video, though. Thanks for that, Ragen.
I am going to be “flying while fat” in the next 10 days and am worried about seatbelt extenders now. The last time I flew, I could not get the seatbelt buckled over my belly, so the buckle had to go under it.
Is it likely that the airline (I am taking Delta or JB) will run out of extenders?
Is there a way to request an extender in advance?