Holy Crap, That One Fat Chick Isn't Fat Anymore!

FUCK, SERIOUSLY?!  JESUS!!

I’ve ripped on fat people a lot in these last few years, and I’m not sorry.  I still rip on fat people, and I stand by that.  But as fun and hilarious as it is, just ripping on fat people is not enough.  It’s important to remember, in these difficult times, that we also need to praise thin people.  And in the case of a thin person who used to be fat and then worked really hard and stopped being fat, that person needs to be praised to the skies and beyond.  Sara Rue is such a person.  Well done, madam.

You know who Sara Rue is.  She’s that redhead who was fat and everybody said she’d be really hot if she lost weight.  She was on some show for a while about a redhead who was fat but would be really hot if she lost weight.  Then she played the fat redhead who said “It’s got what plants crave” in Idiocracy and would have been really hot if she lost weight.  Well, anyway, she lost weight, and now she’s really hot. 

So now she can play a woman who would be really hot if she did nothing but just stood there being really hot, because she lost weight and she is.

One of the things that keeps fat people from losing weight is that they think no amount of weight they lose will ever be enough, and they will still somehow always “count as” a fat person no matter what.  Some people are even beginning to argue that weight loss itself is simply impossible in principle, and that someone’s weight should be thought of no differently from their race or height (as you already know if you’ve ever read the comments below a Jezebel.com article that has anything to do with body image, unless you tried to argue with them, in which case you’re not reading this because they shot you in the face through your computer screen and you’re dead now). 

So I am pausing here to point out that this is not true.  Sara Rue is no longer a fat person.  She is a hot chick, like any other hot chick.  She is not in some special category of “hot if you like this” or “hot if you like that.”  She is a normal, mainstream, class-A, major-league, fully licensed and bonded hot chick with no qualifications, conditionals, or asterisks.

I know, I know, it’s not like she was hideous before.  Fine.  Even when she was bigger, I probably wouldn’t have turned her down if she was offering and I was drunk and none of my friends were in the bar.  She still had a pretty face, and she was still a redhead.

But arguing based on this is like arguing that half an Egg McMuffin you find behind a dumpster and kick a rat off of is just as good as a Peter Luger steak because you’d eat it if you were starving to death.  Pointing out that a heterosexual man would be willing to have sex with a woman if no effort were necessary and he never had to see her again doesn’t prove she’s attractive, it proves she has a pulse, and it barely proves that. 

So, for contrast, let me put it this way.  At this point, I would rather bang Sara Rue than the following people:  Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Beyonce, Olivia Wilde, all those girls on Gossip Girl, Elisha Cuthbert, Kelly Brook, that one other girl I keep thinking is on Gossip Girl but actually isn’t, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Megan Fox, any and all Kardashians, Katy Perry, Mila Kunis, and various other names that I saw in the most recent Maxim Hot 100 when I went looking for a list of mainstream hot girls so I could make this joke but then I had never heard of most of them because I’m 33 and I got kind of depressed.

And I don’t mean I would rather date Sara Rue than those people because she seems nicer or smarter or more approachable.  Those things may also be true, but that is not what I mean.  I mean a goddamn genie appears and says “I can make either Sara Rue or Jessica Alba appear right now and be your love slave for 24 hours, and this is purely a sex thing, based solely on what they look like, which one do you pick?” and I pick Sara Rue. 

And she was fat, like, fifteen minutes ago or something.

But she isn’t now, so there should be no stigma attached to saying she’s hot.  A lot of guys would be inclined to tease a guy over going for a girl who used to be fat, but that’s silly.  That’s like saying someone’s a pedophile because he likes a girl who used to be a kid. 

Of course, you can find any number of bitter bloggers complaining about how sad it is that Sara “had to” lose all this weight because of “society’s expectations.”  But seriously?  Shut the fuck up.  This woman worked hard and achieved something, so don’t try and taint it just because you’re pissed that you still suck.  If a kid who always got bad grades in school studied his ass off and finally got straight As, that is about “society’s expectations” too, but that doesn’t mean it’s not awesome and the kid shouldn’t be proud of himself.  What should he have done instead—continue to get bad grades, just to stick it to “society?”  Sometimes “society” expects something of you because it’s actually a good idea.  “Society” expects you to poop in the toilet instead of on the floor, too.

This woman went from being a Size 14 to a Size 4.  So, people keep who screaming on the internet that this is “impossible,” are you saying that Sara Rue is a fictional character?  Because she isn’t.  She totally exists.  Here’s a visual aid, to help you remember the difference. 

I just don't get why so many people are so invested in the idea that this cannot be done.  In addition to being defeatist and sad, it's scientifically unsupportable.  If you burn more calories than you take in on a given day, then you lose weight on that day, period.  Do that for a bunch of days, and you lose a bunch of weight.  Don't freaking tell me “oh, my body doesn't work that way.”  The human body works that way.  You might as well be telling me that you don't inhale ozygen and exhale carbon dioxide.

And don't make this about me and give me that Oh, you think everybody has to be a Size Zero either. No, I don’t.  Sara Rue isn’t a Size Zero.  She is a Size 4.  I just said that.  Weren’t you paying attention?  I don’t think everybody has to be a Size Zero.  I think everybody has to be a Size 4.  That is 4 more than zero.  There are three whole numbers in between them.

I realize I’m not making any earth-shatteringly advanced point in this essay, but sometimes the best thing is to make a simple point.  And the simple point I’m reinforcing here is that—even for someone like me whose stock in trade is making fun of people—it’s not enough just to make fun of people.  Every once in a while, you have to congratulate someone on the other side who does the right thing; otherwise there’s no incentive for anyone to change.  So I’m leading by example and devoting an entire article solely to saying over and over that this minor celebrity who used to be fat lost a bunch of weight and is smoking hot now.

And while I’m on the subject, thanks to James Alesi, Mark Grisanti, Roy McDonald, and Stephen Saland, the four Republican NY state senators who did the right thing and voted for gay marriage. 

Sara, you are not just acceptable now.  You are one of the hottest women I have ever seen now.  Congratulations again.

Just to hammer this home even more, here is a clip of Sara Rue's brief appearance in the largely forgettable 1998 teen comedy Can't Hardly Wait.  She plays a loser girl who calls Jennifer Love Hewitt's popular girl a sheep and then makes a "Baaa" sound (if you spend a lot of time in meme-mills, you may have seen this referenced on a demotivational poster).  As you watch the clip, I'd like you to concentrate on the fact that the fat loser girl you are seeing get all bitter about sexy Jennifer Love Hewitt is now significantly hotter than Jennifer Love Hewitt has ever been.

So, yeah.  You can put on a stupid knit cap and baaa at hot chicks, or you can shut the fuck up and go to the gym and become hotter than them.  Up to you.  I just work here.

Those “Fat Acceptance” people are probably experiencing a lot of cognitive dissonance right now wondering how to spin this.  On the one hand, they’re probably happy for Sara and want to congratulate her on how amazing she looks.  On the other hand, they realize that doing so would involve tacitly admitting that she didn’t look great before, when their whole stupid movement is built around pretending that she did.  Well, you know what?  Cognitive dissonance is what happens when you have a stupid movement in the first place.  That is their problem, not Sara’s.  Sara doesn’t have to worry about it any more than a kid who finally learns how to tie his shoes needs to worry about Velcro.  She can just go right ahead and forget that shit even exists. 

They are probably going to go for some “Now everyone is realizing how beautiful she was all along” bullshit.  But here’s the thing about that: no, she wasn’t.  She was fat before, remember?  But now she’s not.  And the rest of you still are.  That’s like saying if a midget was suddenly six feet tall people would realize “how tall he was all along.”  No he wasn’t—he was a freaking midget before.  Weren’t you paying attention? 

I really couldn’t get over what a rhetorical challenge this presents for some people.  I found lots of clips of Sara on talk shows and whatnot while researching this article, and sometimes the doublethink gets legitimately comic.  Just look at this clip of Sara on ABC News. 

 
They have her on the show purely because she lost a bunch of weight, and then they introduce her by playing that “amazing just the way you are” song.  Um…  yeah, she’s amazing just the way she is...  now, because she’s not fat anymore, which is why you’re having her on your damn show in the first place.

You didn’t think she was amazing just the way she was before, because she was fat before.  So why even play the “amazing just the way you are” song at all?  You could just as easily play “Girls, Girls, Girls.”  Considering you’re having her on solely because she became sexually attractive, that would make a lot more sense.  Plus it’s a much better song.     

But this both-sides-of-your-mouth bullshit is the media’s problem now, Sara Rue, not yours.  Sara, if you’re reading, believe me when I tell you that you no longer need to worry about any of that shit.  This is your moment, you’ve earned it, go nuts.  Do Maxim.  Do Playboy.  Hell, do a porno.  If you don’t want to bang some strange dude, that’s fine—it can just be you sitting on one of those weird machines.  You know what I’m talking about.  That would be more than cool.  And I wouldn’t just surf the web until I found it for free, either.  I would pay for it.  I would walk into a porno store, look the counterperson in the eye, and say “I would like to purchase this porno of Sara Rue sitting on one of those weird machines, please, because she is so fucking hot.”

Not special hot. 

Not conditional hot.

Not hot if. 

Normal hot.

Congratulations.