The Project

If you'll remember, I mentioned in my account of my Chicago trip that I had had an idea that COFRA was going to run with. Well, here is the writeup of the idea:

If you’ve watched any news segment about fat people, ever, you’ve undoubtedly seen the video that accompanies any such news segment: the parade of headless fatties. Fat people in public, shown from the neck down, voiceless, stripped of their humanity—most likely without their permission. It implies that it’s shameful to be fat, that we ought to be ashamed to show our faces in public.

COFRA, the Coalition of Fat Rights Activists, wants your help in turning this portrayal inside out. That’s why we’ve started a project called Dare to Show Your Face. The goal is to show the world that we are people, first and foremost, no matter what our shapes. Fat people have voices, they have stories, they have faces.

We’ll be putting together a series of promotional videos for COFRA spotlighting the everyday lives of fat people in all walks of life.

How can you help? It’s easy: just upload a 1 or 2 minute video of yourself to our YouTube group.

http://youtube.com/group/fatrights

Tell us about your life. Show us what you do. There’s no need to get fancy with video effects (but if you want to, go for it) – just your raw story is what we’d like to see.

For more information on COFRA and to join us in our campaigns for fat rights, sign up at fatrights.org.

I volunteered in the meeting to do the first video, and I'm finally finished!
You can view it here. I also did another video with my impressions of the project. It's definitely a scary thing, standing in front of a camera and showing yourself to the world. I can only hope that the project will serve to help other fat people look at themselves and realize that they are fine just as they are and that they should love the bodies they are in.

xo,
C

PS: This video is not part of the project but it is still pretty awesome :)