“Just say fat.” Aubrey Gordon is reading her 2020 blog post via voiceover in the new documentary Your Fat Friend. “Not ‘curvy’ or ‘chubby’ or ‘chunky’ or ‘fluffy’ or ‘more to love’.”
Gordon’s plea for the audience to simply let fat people describe their bodies in their own words is as compelling today as it was when it was first published on the blog Your Fat Friend. Back then the Portland-based writer was “writing on the internet for nobody-slash-everybody,” she tells Broadsheet. She was doing it anonymously.
Her writing caught the attention of UK filmmaker Jeanie Finlay (Seahorse), who reached out to ask if Gordon would write a voiceover for a film about fatness. Many months later, her request turned into a proposition to film Gordon for a documentary. “It was a slow burn,” Gordon tells Broadsheet. “Then the film took most of a decade.”
Filmed over six years, the documentary shows Gordon deliberating over whether or not she should waive her anonymity online, her terrifying ordeal of being doxxed, and what it’s like for her to be judged as a fat person every day: shopping, swimming, cooking and being with family.
“It’s straight up looking at a fat person’s life,” she says. “It felt like a huge risk at the time, and it also felt like a huge risk worth taking. How often does someone ask you if you want to be the subject of the documentary? And also your parents are on board, and you like and trust the person who is doing it, and it’s another fat person – which feels like a huge deal to me. It was an opportunity to do something genuinely different, rather than hearing what thin people imagine a fat person’s life to be.”
Filming began long before Gordon’s book deals (What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat came out in 2020 and “You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People in 2023). It started before her podcast Maintenance Phase, which she hosts with journalist Michael Hobbes. It also predates the rise of weight-loss drug Ozempic. But her critical takes in the film, on the wellness industry – which she says is worth US$26 billion a year – and anti-fat bias, are as relevant as ever.
“One thing that felt challenging, and not unique to the film, is there are occasionally questions or comments like ‘Well this film doesn’t really deal with the obesity epidemic’ or ‘It doesn’t really pose a solution to metabolic health issues’. It feels challenging to me because we tell stories of people in all kinds of bodies all the time, and only some of those people are asked to explain their bodies and account for their bodies as like a social contagion.’”
Your Fat Friend simply shows Gordon’s life as a fat person; her challenges, her daily conversations, her complex feelings about her body and her relationships. One of the joys of watching the film is hearing conversations the director has with Gordon’s mother, Pam, and father, Rusty.
“Jeanie knows what she’s doing when it comes to amplifying small moments,” says Gordon. “The most moving responses [about the film] have come from parents and from mums in particular. That’s the thing, I don’t know anyone – regardless of the size or shape of your body – who couldn’t use some kind of conversation like that with their parents.”
Rusty was on board from the beginning, but Pam took more time to convince. “I don’t think Jeanie filmed anything with my mum for the first three years,” she says. “I think it was getting to know Jeanie and developing a deep fondness for her. Both my parents now call Jeanie to catch up.”
The documentary doesn’t shy away from the stickier issues about fatness. Gordon is filmed talking about eating disorders, diet books (she collected vintage cookbooks) and how the medical profession treats fat people. “Part of it was – to say nothing of the stellar reputation that Jeanie has in her field – having someone with clout and resources wanting to do something honest and grounded about a fat person, and, boy, I’ve been waiting all my life to watch that.”
We see Gordon get a Covid vaccine and ask for a larger needle, as the standard needle size was proven as less effective for larger patients. We watch her shop and hear stories of strangers commenting on what she’s buying. We see her sit down to eat with family and hear the conversation pivot to dieting and exercise. We also see Gordon enjoy life – swimming, listening to music, cooking. “I mean, listen, I am a 40-year-old American woman: if I don’t own every Ottolenghi cookbook, what am I doing? Simply what am I doing?” says Gordon, laughing.
One of the most enjoyable insights into Gordon’s personality is when she shares a song about dieting by a 1960s girl group called the Fabulettes. “[It’s] a single about a diet and the diet is: get cheated on. What? This is bananas. I think what I find so delightful about it is the weird sunny tone to this incredibly dark story.”
Your Fat Friend is in Australian cinemas from October 5. Special Q&A screenings are taking place in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. Seat size information is available for participating cinemas.
