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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.

Who Are All These People Cont.

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Feb 16 2010, 11:57 AM ET Comment

Apparently they're quite a few. From commenter Ange:

Here are just a few headlines that hint at an answer to your question:

"Is Joan on 'Mad Men' too plump for primetime?" (LA Times, SEP 08)

"Christina Hendricks: a fine figure of a woman" (Telegraph, JAN 08)

"NY Times Calls Christina Hendricks 'Fat'"

The last one, I suspect, is what most of the "controversy" is about. A blogger on NY Times posted a widened photoshop'd picture of her from the Golden Globes with the headlines "You don't put a big girl in a big dress" or some such.

You know when Google actually has suggestions like "Christine Hendricks Curves" and "Christine Hendricks Fat" there's been talk. I did some searches, and turned up quite a few bloggers, etc. talking about her body. The usual assholes who love this kind of gossip.

I'm not surprised to see an article like this at all. And I'm glad women are starting to respond to these kinds of questions more positively (which is how I take "it's boring"). Better to air things out than hold it in. We don't need anymore Karen Carpenters.

Wow. I guess I should google first. Which I just did on the Times story. Apparently they didn't call her fat, they approvingly quoted someone calling her "a big girl." I'm not convinced that that's much better, but I just wanted to make sure that we were being accurate.

I think that qualifies as a complaint. The piece was actually written by a woman, along with another published that same day which lamented that Courtney Cox (!) and Jennifer Aniston (!!) had "put on weight a little weight." To which the lionshare of American maledom responds, "Yeah, and?" Not the we should be the ultimate arbiters, but damn...

To cap it all off in the "big girl" story, The Times apparently altered the photo and inadvertently made her look bigger than she actually is. All of this puts the New York story in better context I think. They aren't just strawmanning it. I wish they had cited the Times dust-up, though.



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