Avengers: Endgame and THAT Moment

WARNING: Slight spoilers for events in Avengers: Endgame. If you haven’t seen it, go no further.

Endgame Poster

I’ve been ride or die for the MCU since pretty much Day 1. Over 10 years and 22 movies I have lived and died with the characters, acknowledging the problematic content along the way. The lack of women in lead roles (until Captain Marvel). The lack of people of color ANYWHERE much less in a lead role (until Black Panther). But there’s one area where Marvel, and really all storytellers, have to do better. Showing people of size.

Fatness is a hard one. Everyone who blogs about or posts about body positivity has, at some point, been critiqued with the same chestnut: You’re glorifying obesity! How dare you!

I am far too used to jokes made at the expense of bodies like mine. I barely blinked when Peter Quill was ribbed for having put on weight during Avengers: Infinity War.

And then Marvel put Chris Hemsworth in a fat suit. **shakes head** Don’t get me wrong, I loved Endgame. As a fan, it was everything I wanted the 22nd movie to be. But REALLY? I cringed when most of the theater laughed at the reveal of Thor’s newly fat body and I cringed again at every (admittedly pretty mild) jab at his weight and what he should do about it.

My feelings on the matter have been pretty complex, and since I’m new at this, I’m not going to try to sort them out any better than Your Fat Friend has in her latest post.

Fat shaming is never okay, in any context, and people telling stories that include fat bodies have to do better. We can start by normalizing fatness in the narrative and acknowledging fat fans.

Housekeeping

Since it was a bit of a surprise (to me as well) that this blog launched yesterday, I thought I’d do a little housekeeping.

My aim is going to be to publish twice a week on Mondays and Wednesdays. Stay tuned for my regular Wednesday post! Monday posts will likely be a little more robust just because I’ll have more time to work on them.

My podcast, whenever it launches, will mostly likely drop on Mondays, but I’ll have to see what makes the most sense with my schedule.

Of course, if something super relevant and timely happens that I don’t want to save for a scheduled post, I’ll post about it right away.

Finally, I do have a Patreon page set up: https://www.patreon.com/inmysize

The reward levels are fairly basic at the moment, but I’d be grateful if you’d consider donating. I’m not doing this to make money. I’m doing this mostly because I’m turning 40 soon and I decided not to wait any longer to say what I have to say.

THANK YOU to everyone who has liked and shared and commented on this little project already. I am so, so grateful.

How This All Started →

This blog is the first step in a much, much larger project that will eventually become a podcast and hopefully something even bigger somewhere down the line. But before I get there, I had to start somewhere. And where I started was with intense frustration.

Maybe the best Black Panther t-shirt ever…

See, fans have a language all our own. And part of that language, and one of the ways we signal our fandom to others, is by wearing a t-shirt of that fandom. It can be straight forward or referential or an inside joke. It can be official merchandise or it can be fan made. Whatever it is, it’s a huge flag that says, “I LOVE THIS THING. IF YOU GET THIS T-SHIRT, THEN YOU LOVE THIS THING TOO. COME TALK TO ME ABOUT IT.”

Unfortunately, for people of size (like me) access to the fan made shirts is limited and access to the official merchandise is almost non-existent. For most franchises, if a larger size of official merchandise is offered, it is no larger than a 2XL. When it comes to sites like TeePublic or Redbubble, where some truly creative designs are happening, their “plus size” stops at a 3X. Even when sites do have sizes that go up as high as a 5X, the color selection is limited (usually black, grey, or navy if there is a color selection at all), and they are only cut for men. Not for women.

I can’t even tell you how many boxy, black t-shirts I own that are too wide in the shoulders and too narrow in the waist because it is cut for a man’s body. It’s a lot. I mean SO MANY.

There is some hope. Her Universe has partnered with Torrid to provide some larger size fan merchandise. Still, their coolest things, like the cosplay dresses and coats, are not sized for the largest bodies. TeeRico (Lin-Manuel Miranda’s official merchandise shop) is really receptive to listening to their customers’ demand for larger sizes, but even they struggle to provide anything larger than a 4X and not in a women’s cut.

Also, plus size doesn’t stop at a 3X. It goes to 5X, 6X, 7X and beyond. And all of us have things we love that we want to share with others.

The bottom line is my tag line: Fat fans deserve merch.

So, we’re gonna talk about that. I’m going to blog about it and I’m going to have a podcast where I talk to fellow fat fangirls about cosplay, representation, and everything in between. Welcome to In My Size.