Film-maker Jeanie Finlay paints a warm and generous portrait of a sympathetic subject: the American fat activist, podcaster and bestselling author Aubrey Gordon who became a viral sensation for her blog Your Fat Friend, in which she railed against the cruelty – sometimes unintentional and sometimes not – of people who can’t help deriding people like her. Her sprightly, witty, unrepentant arias of complaint earned her a fanbase that included Roxane Gay, James Corden and Adele. But it also got her trolling and vicious abuse.
Gordon tells us of a lifetime enduring cringe-making euphemisms and condescension, as well as taking on the insidious diet industry, which has now rebranded itself the “wellness” industry; she makes a fierce and persuasive case that the diet/wellness racket is a corporate machine that promotes anxieties and self-hate among women and then converts that into money. She compares big diet to big tobacco – a boldly dissentient analysis, in fact, given that the cigarette comparison is what many reach for in talking about the processed food industry.
