Television and the Reemergence of the ‘Nimble Fat Man’: Exploring Depictions of Athleticism in Popular Culture from Jackie Gleason to Peter Griffin

Activity: Talk or presentationOral presentation

Description

Abstract:
By the mid-1950s, Fat Men’s Clubs, prolific across the United States as recently
as the 1910s, all but ceased to exist. In their place, a new candidate emerged as the outlet which inadvertently ushered in a new generation of the ‘nimble fat man.’ Despite their half-century of cultural relevance as social and sporting institutions, Fat Men’s Clubs have received limited scholarly attention (Mackert, 2014; Morris, 2003). In addition, recent scholarship on media portrayals of obesity highlight the sedentary and incompetent aspects of overweight male leads
(Himes, 2007; Stanford, 2019). As such, this presentation seeks not only to connect the emergence of the dynamic, athletic “fat man” of the televised era with the
porting prowess of the Fat Man’s Clubs of the prior century, but also to explore the kinesthetic grace, joy, and power as demonstrated through several of television’s most celebrated corpulent stars. To facilitate this study, this work will
employ both critical media studies and masculinity studies frameworks to properly situate the depictions of leading men in popular televised sitcoms from the 1950s through the early 2000s.
Case studies of Jackie Gleason’s dancing prowess as the Honeymooner’s bellowing Ralph Kramden, John Goodman’s surprising everyday athleticism portraying Dan Conner on Roseanne, and the unrestrained corporeal mastery of Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin upend the existing stationary and ineffectual narrative. As such, this presentation connects the physical culture legacies of the ‘televised fat man’ with his 19 th -century predecessors to reveal a long, uninterrupted, and spirited history of the ‘nimble fat man.’
Period16 Jan 2025
Event titlePhysical Cultures of the Body V
Event typeConference
LocationTexas, United StatesShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • popular media
  • sport history
  • obesiety
  • 19th century
  • television