Fattitude The Movie: Theory and Praxis of Creating a Documentary that Examines Fat Representation and Fat Social Justice

This dissertation explores the making of and research for the film, Fattitude, a
social justice based documentary that looks to awaken viewers to the reality of weight
bias in media representation. This dissertation reviews the filmmaking process and then
engages with the nature of stereotypes about fat bodies. Deeply tied to feminist and fat
studies theory, the work here seeks to categorize and shape the understanding of weight
bias in the media by linking fat tropes to clearly understood images of oppression, for
example the monstrous, the fool, they hypersexual and the asexual. The work also seeks
to present theory on the nature of creating media representations of fatness that are not
oppressive – making note of current media created by grassroots movements for body
acceptance and fat positivity.