Tara trouble

A commentator over at another blog, making a note about the current ridiculousness surrounding Amanda Palmer, reminded me of a certain other completely ludicrous "fat crisis":

Above: Amber Benson at the 2003 BtVS wrap party (photo: Patrick Lee).

Yup, Amber "Tara" Benson, the woman who was 'too fat' to be on TV, according to some chowderheaded BtVS fans (not representative of the majority of BtVS fans, I can assure). 

Again, the most important thing to remember is that, regardless of her size, people shouldn't have been making idiotic and frankly insensitive comments about her anyway. The fact that she is not even a large woman only helps illuminate how totally absurd the whole issue was.

Still, we evidently live in a world where our media feeds us some pretty skewed values if the woman above is 'fat'. The sword does cut both ways, though, and I've honestly met some people who considered Benson an inspirational "role model" to the larger women out there, who weren't being represented on TV (and as far as I'm concerned, really still weren't, not by her anyway). I still see it as symptomatic of some pretty odd ideas about body size, but if you took something positive away from viewing Ms Benson in such a way, then good for you in that regard, I suppose.

*Sigh* Sometimes I long for the days before I discovered the dark side of online fandom, complete with all its infantile rantings and moronic delusions. Then I remember that it's merely the current price to be paid for the far more positive side of fandom (online and otherwise), which is ideally intelligent, community-based and ultimately fun and interesting. That helps to take the sting out just a little.