The Importance of Being Juanita Solis

I mentioned a while ago that I have a very unfeminist guilty pleasure.  I have been watching Desperate Housewives since it’s beginning.  The series is highly problematic in many ways, and sometimes I find myself watching to pick it apart.  

Some of the behavior of each of the principle characters is meant to be ironic.  They are almost caricatures of the traits they are meant to exploit.  Gabby’s selfishness, Bree’s creepy perfectionism, Lynette’s overbearingness are all meant to be so over the top that no one could possibly think these things are OK.  There is one thing though, new to this season, that has had me cringing at the pain from the vein in my forehead.

Gabby and her husband, Carlos, have two girls.  I couldn’t tell you the younger one’s name, b/c we are always hearing about the older Solis girl, Juanita.  Juanita is fat.  Juanita being fat is such an issue that we have yet to hear much about the other child that Gabby and Carlos have.  We are meant to believe that Juanita is only four, and there have been at least two story lines now around her weight and size, and what seems to be acceptable fat shaming.  There have been very few scenes involving the young girl portraying Juanita that have had nothing to do w/ her being fat.  The first time we see her, in last season’s finale, her face is covered in chocolate.  The next time we see her, Gabby is trying to cram her into a princess dress for a party, and is asking for a larger size, only to be told that they don’t make princess dresses for girls over seven (ha ha, get it, b/c she is too fat to be four!).  Gabby becomes concerned, and begins to concoct ways to trick Juanita into exercising, like making her chase the car home.  I can count on one hand the number of scenes where I haven’t seen Juanita w/ food or drink in her hand.  We are definitely supposed to know that Juanita is fat b/c she eats all the time and b/c her mother just “can’t say no”.

Even more disturbing and triggering to me is the dialogue that is used around her.  Conversations about Juanita usually refer to her size.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM4v2xyHhOo]

There are soooo very many things that are wrong going on here, but let’s focus, please.

Remember, we are not just talking about a character here.  There is a little girl, a child, a human being, who is having to hear that the character she is playing is the butt of so many jokes.  It’s OK to shame her, you know, b/c childhood obesity is such an epidemic that we must throw out feelings.  It is OK to make the actress playing Juanita (Madison Lovato) the butt of the jokes, b/c it will be funny and make us aware of how real obesity is.  To hell w/ the fact that a little girl, who should be learning to love herself, is having her appearance put into question.  Not only that, but let’s also remember that she is a child star.  Actors are constantly being pressured to look a certain way.  This girl is in a cut throat world that tells her that her feelings don’t matter b/c she is fat.  Everyone laugh at the fatty.  You can’t be a real and worthwhile person if you are fat!

Since becoming a feminist (well, realizing that I was one), I have viewed pop culture w/ a lens of skepticism.  Things I thought were funny before (Monica on Friends, in the fat suit playing “fat Monica”), I find sad and horrific now.  I didn’t realize how routine it had become to make a profit and get ratings based on the ability to shame a whole segment of the population.  I had always been sensitive to sexism and racism where I have seen it, but fat shaming is new to me, as I struggle to deal w/ my own body acceptance, and something that I was surprised to see that I had missed.

Madison Lovato is a human being, and for the purposes of television, so is the character she plays.  They are worthy of dignity and respect, and love.  We should not let her size and body prevent us from seeing that she is a real person w/ feelings, valid just the way she is.  Juanita Solis doesn’t have to be Gabby and Carlos’ fat kid.  She could simply just be their kid.  Surely, Marc Cherry and his writers are creative enough to think up better story lines for a family that recently lost it’s riches, turned out to not be infertile (earlier seasons had a story arc where after an attack, Gabby wasn’t able to become pregnant), and had tragic circumstances, like being stricken blind.  To turn jokes over the weight and body type of a child is disgusting in a way I can’t even begin to scratch the surface of.

The importance of being Juanita Solis is that ABC and Marc Cherry had a chance here to cast someone in a role who is outside of the acceptable beauty norm.  They had an opportunity to show that a person’s size doesn’t matter, and could have cast this girl w/o making her weight an issue.  But they fucked that up.  In a television world full of lollipop headed women who appear to be starving to death sometimes a portrayal of someone real could have been welcomed.

Fuck you, ABC, and Marc Cherry, for making Juanita Solis, and Madison Lovato, the butt of your jokes b/c of her size.  You have failed big on this one.

ETA:  When I was writing a rebuttal for a troll on a later post, I discovered that the actress’ name isn’t Lovato, that she is often confused as such b/c she has a half sister of that name, but her real name is actually Madison De La Garza.  Apologies for the confusion.