The fat man—a cultural icon, a social enigma, a pressing medical issue—is the subject of this remarkably rich book. The figures that Sander L. Gilman considers, from the ugly fat man with the beautiful sylph trapped inside to the smart fat boy to the aging body desirous of rejuvenation, appear and reappear in different guises throughout Western culture. And as is often true, such marginal cases help define the shifting center of our dreams and beliefs. An exploration into the world of male body fantasies, Gilman’s book examines how the representation of the fat man alters with time and alters how men relate to their own bodies and the bodies of others, both male and female. His examples—ranging from Santa Claus to Sancho Panza, from Falstaff to Babe Ruth, from Nero Wolfe to Al Roker—illustrate the complexity perennially associated with fat men. From discourses about normality to the playing fields of baseball, from Greek male beauty to the fat detective, Gilman’s book examines and illuminates how cultures have imagined and portrayed the fat boy.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Today, many people tend to think of fat as a female (or, with a nod to Susie Orbach, "feminist") issue-or, in broader terms, as an American problem, or a class concern; there have been few considerations of the relationship between men and fat. Univ. of Illinois, Chicago professor Gilman (Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery) here attempts to "even the scales" by presenting a comprehensive exploration of the fat male body and its various incarnations, including "soldier" (Shakespeare's rotund Falstaff), "servant" (Fat Joe), "detective" (NYPD Blue's Andy Sipowicz) and "athlete" (Babe Ruth "The fat male body generates multiple meanings, many of which present a quite different set of images than do those of the fat, female body," notes Gilman in the book's introduction; he considers how these fat "types" influence our culture's perception-and expectations-of obese men. While Falstaff plays "the bragging soldier" in the Henry IV plays, he appears as a "pathetic and comic old man" in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Meanwhile, the "fat detective" has historically been portrayed as a cunning, intuitive character, whose fat "aids his mental processes, as his body size and shape seem to account for his different way of thinking." From a consideration of fat's equation with greed and carnal sin (in Augustine) to William Sheldon's classification of body types into ectomorphs and endomorphs, this is a substantial, and yes, weighty analysis of the cultural phenonemon affectionately and respectfully referred to here as the" fat man." Gilman tethers his observations to medical literature's considerations of obesity over the centuries, from the Greeks to today, as well as cultural signposts gleaned from popular culture, making this a somewhat academic but still enjoyable read.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“Gilman opens a valuable conversation about the cultural history of obesity that examines how we have come to understand—and misunderstand—the condition.”—New York Times Book Review
(New York Times Book Review )“Forcefully written and very well timed. . . . Entertaining.”—Elaine Showalter, Times Literary Supplement
(The Times Literary Supplement )“Gilman uncovers the surprising complexity associated with fat men in a clear and succinct manner.”—Library Journal
(Library Journal )“This amusing historical and literary review ranges widely, covering subjects such as Santa Claus, the Nutty Professor, and gastric bypass surgery.”—Choice
(Choice )“A welcome survey of representations of male obesity in western culture. Historian Sander Gilman uses character studies of what he terms ‘fat boys’ from antiquity to the present, to ‘negotiate the complexities of defining the healthy and the ill.’”—Carolyn Thomas de la Peña, American Studies
(Carolyn Thomas de la Pe�a American Studies )
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Oddly enough, I read this on my treadmill.,
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This review is from: Fat Boys: A Slim Book (Hardcover)
This is strong cultural studies. Gilman's purpose is to show that for centuries in the West, issues of obesity and masculinity have worked hand in hand. He looks at Greek philosophy, canonical authors, fictional detectives, baseball players, and modern male stomach staplers to spell out how fat men have been treated and portrayed. What Garber did for bisexuals and Halberstam did for masculine lesbians, Gilman now does for fat men.Constructionists will love this book. Gilman makes a point to show that the chubby are treated differently from the obese. He illustrates how Falstaff transformed from Shakespeare's comedies to Verdi's operas and how Sancho Panza changed over the course of Cervantes' work. In the baseball chapter, fat men are maligned; in the detective chapter, they are praised. Gilman had much more than one thing to say about fat men in Western cultural history. Gilman is juggling many balls here and I have mixed reviews about his results. On the one hand, it's intriguing how he can jump from plays to opera to the law to biography to current events. However, his principle interest is how medical theories affected cultural productions; you'd never guess this from reading the table of contents. And sometimes it just doesn't add up. For example, he states that at the same time that writers were inventing fat detectives that solved crimes with their guts, scientists were describing the importance of fat cells. Still, he never truly explains that or if the latter caused the former. The subtitle of this book is purposeful: Gilman is quite cognizant that he is only scratching the surface on fat men. He avoids Eurocentricity by restricting his analysis to "the West." I sincerely hope that this book will encourage other scholars to write on fat men in the Muslim world, Asia, or pre- and postcolonial Latin America. Still, there's so much that Gilman left out of the picture. Though I doubt he's homophobic, I disliked that he never once brought up the bear movement, especially when it would have been easy to do so in his last chapter. He makes scant mention of sumo wresters and Al Roker, but besides that you almost never hear about men of color (including those in the West). When I flipped through the index and saw "Fat Joe," I assumed he meant the chunky Latino rapper, not some Dickens character. Further, rap is the standout cultural arena where fat men (most of whom are of color) have made a positive name for themselves (examples include Biggie Smalls and Big Pun) yet Gilman hardly gives them a sentence. What up wit dat?! To his credit, he does a great job in being inclusive of fat Jewish men, however. This book can be depressing to "swallow" as a fat male reader. Is it any consolation to find that for centuries Westerners have considered fat men to be lazy, stupid, immoral, and shameful? When Gilman looks at how fat becomes a proxy of other traits, he mostly focuses on short lifespans. I think a better look at other dynamics would have been more interesting. Lastly, and of least important, fitness lovers may hate this book. Gilman does little to admit that obesity is a health hazard. His focus on representation does not touch valid issues that too much weight can be dangerous. I am so glad that Gilman wrote this book and that I found it. I'm just not all the way impressed after finishing it.
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