As part of ArtsLab: Collide’s collaboration with 107 Redfern, Leah Herbert’s Fat Girl uncovers the all-too-hidden experience of growing up in mid-2000s Australia as a fat person. The one-woman show proclaimed body neutrality and acceptance as pivotal teachings for fat adults, formerly recognised as fat girls.
Herbert crafted the performance piece with support from her mentor, Rachel Roberts. In her artist’s note, Herbert discusses the childlike comfort in her fatness before the onslaught of diet culture and fatphobia informed her opinions on her body, Poignantly, Herbert states that Fat Girl is about “finding your way back”.
As audience members entered the upstairs theatre, soft pink and blue lighting welcomed them into the intimate space. Projected onto the stage is a game of Nintendo Wii Fit, and as Herbert wraps up her passionately played game, Wii excitedly advises us of all of the calories lost during her workout.
Herbert satirically examines fat experiences such as chub rub, unwelcoming airplane seating, sweat, fears of chubby chasers, and the benefits of the funny fat friend. As Herbert jokingly named and shamed Jan, her scarring fitness instructor, I thought of Hilary, my parent-appointed personal trainer as a tween. Herbert delves into fat girl, a metaphorical second character in the performance and a crucial part of Herbert’s childhood. Born from a traumatic fitness program experience, fat girl covers herself in tape and Spanx, consumes dieting tips, and partakes in disordered eating and thinking, doing her best to achieve smallness in every form.
Herbert makes an interesting distinction between herself and fat girl, recognising the creation of fat girl as a necessary survival technique, whilst also illustrating the desperate desire for fat girl to die so Herbert could regain control of her body.
The set design is minimalistic; the only props visible are a mop, scale, Spanx, tape, a jar of Nutella, and a spoon, ominously balanced on a stool at the stage’s edge. Each of these is utilised at different points within the play; Herbert urges the audience to sit in the discomfort of watching her dress, undress, tape up, and tape down.
At the climax of the show, Herbert removes her clothes and bares her stomach while she discusses how her experiences of shame shaped her as a teenager, and then, as an adult. It is here that she begins to move her stomach, an act which felt violent at times, continuing the attempt to shrink her stomach and dig into it. Other times, it felt loving; a caressing and comforting gesture. At every point, this act felt powerful.
Herbert reminisces on her sixteen-year-old self, who, after living with an eating disorder, finally lost weight. She professes her love for this person, empathy for what she experienced, as well as the hatred that her teenage self would feel for the way that Herbert has since grown back into her body — and how Herbert loves her anyway.
Herbert does an incredible job of merging comedy and vulnerability, poking fun at her parents’ unsubtle and awkward attempts to encourage weight loss, and shamelessly sweating in true fat fashion as the performance description states, “watch her sweat on stage and decide if she’s good enough”. In the more serious moments, Herbert opens herself up to the audience, discussing her distrust in the love and attraction expressed by people around her, and relating it to the message she was given as a child: no one could or would genuinely love a fat body.
The radiant lighting is skillfully used to build and relieve tension, and assists in the flow as my well-meaning, straight-sized, plus-one remarked that it “made the play feel less chunky”. The lighting aids in the delivery of every fat person’s nightmare sequence: The Body Positivity Movement.
As the lights flashed red, and alarms went off, Herbert was forced to proclaim her undying and unshifting love for her body. Herbert subtly jabs at the harmful nature of the body positivity movement, geared to the unrealistic and untrue ideal that a fat person must enthusiastically and loudly embrace their body, with these sequences demonstrating how the movement rarely recognises the importance of body neutrality and acceptance as integral to fat liberation. Fat liberation activist Demon Derriere echoes this move towards body neutrality and acceptance stating “body acceptance holds more range.. I can feel all different ways about my body and accept it.”
As a fat person, I felt immense solidarity with Herbert and fat girl, having had those experiences myself. I felt akin to fat girl’s struggle for belonging and Herbert’s fight for neutrality. As Herbert grieved for the child unaware of the world’s predispositions, I too grieved for mine. Herbert centres fat joy, discovery, and vulnerability in Fat Girl, inviting us to confront our inner fat girls, listen to them, love them, and finally, lay them to rest.
