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| Pictured: Not someone too heavy for anything Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com |
Taeler Hendrix shared details of her recent release from TNA Wrestling with the Greg De Marco Show. The highlights are contained within the link, so if you want to read a site that still thinks the only people who can be sexy in wrestling are women, go right ahead. But here's the main thrust of what's got my blood boiling today:
On Dixie Carter: I do have my qualms. Don't tell me on my birthday that I'm "heavy" to be on TV. ... I'm a size 3, that's not fat at all! ... I'm a role model for young girls, there's nothing plastic about me. ... (On her size a year prior) I was too skinny! ... I got really skinny just to get on television. ... Someone said I looked like a skeleton, and then I started looking at my pictures and I was like "Oh my God, I really do!"... I'm taller than [most female wrestlers] but I'm not bigger than them.Good God. As I do with any interview snippet, my caveat to you, the reader, is that this is only one side of the story. Carter has not given a response to my knowledge yet, although if she even deigns to reply, it will probably be a stock denial.
ETA: According to @xLegendaryDivax, Dixie Carter responded with a stock denial.
ETA 2: Dixie Carter was apparently not the one who said it to her. That changes very little to me, because someone within TNA told her she was too "heavy" to be on television, and if it's Carter's company, she bears some responsibility for it until the person who said that is either brought to light and thus made to pay the piper for his/her extremely irresponsible and misogynist comments or Hendrix is proven as a fibber. You'll have to pardon my cynicism on whether either event will happen though.
FINAL ETA: I listened to the part of the podcast in question here, and when DeMarco asks Hendrix about whether Carter deserves the heat she's getting, that's when she says that she didn't appreciate being called "too heavy for TV" on her birthday with no pause in between. Our friends over at WrestleChat actually got the story from Hendrix herself that the message came from someone else within the company from Carter herself. So not only does she continue the culture of impossible body image that leads to eating disorders, she can't even be assed to tell Hendrix herself. Burn. TNA. To. The. Ground.
With that being put out there, I can believe these allegations without second thought. TNA is the same company where sexual harassmentruns rampant, where you don't get your medical bills paid for if you're a woman, and my favorite story, where you can win the Knockouts Championship but still not get paid enough to forgo your weekend job at the Sunglass Hut. Professional wrestling is an awful business to participate in if you are a woman, but in TNA, that stress doesn't even come with the perk of being paid a livable wage like it does in WWE. Money doesn't make up for poor treatment, but one fleeting positive is better than nothing, I suppose.
Body-shaming is the most insidious form of misogyny because there are so many stigmas associated with rapid weight loss or gain. I don't know what Carter's dress size is, but she could be a size -1 and it still wouldn't give her the right to tell Hendrix that she was "too heavy to be on TV." The societal norm of healthy body weight is insane and absurd, and it works both ways. I've seen it with backlash against Daizee Haze for being too skinny as well.
The God's honest truth is that there is no real ideal healthy body size. I am overweight, but other than my high cholesterol, which is partially genetic, I am actually healthy. To use wrestling examples, Kevin Steen and Amazing Kong are both not what one might call "skinny," but I bet both of them have excellent cardio and don't have greater than average probability of weight-related illnesses to my knowledge. In fact, unless they disclose their medical charts themselves, I will never know because of this great thing we have in America called "doctor-patient confidentiality."
This concept of "ideal body weight" is even more awful with women because institutional misogyny has placed the spectrum for "acceptable" body mass in an impossibly thin sliver. Every time someone bashes Kate Upton for being "fat" or Kiera Knightly for being too "thin," the impossible reality becomes that much more reinforced in my mind. Yes, anorexia is a horrible problem, but even if one could diagnose it just from looking at a woman, is yelling "GO EAT A SANDWICH" a constructive way of going about it? Furthermore, if Hendrix or Upton are fat, then what is an acceptable body size? Women cannot win, since I don't see anyone pouring ignorant derision on Jon Hamm for being too heavy or Michael Cera for being too thin.
The idea that appearance is even on the table for judging how good or bad a human being is needs to die like New Coke. Each individual and their circle of family and friends are the ones who should care about a person's appearance, and hey, if someone wants to carry around a spare tire? This is America; it is their right to do so. Sure, Carter also has the right to decide what body types she wants on her television program, but I also have the right to criticize whether her reasoning is misogynistic, body-shaming, gross, and cold-hearted. With all else being equal, I think the idea that everyone ought to get over body image as a deciding factor in personhood wins out in this round of social calculus.
(Side note: for parents who complain "Well, I don't wanna see fatness promoted as a positive trait to my kids!," first, why the fuck are you letting your kids watch TNA, and two, maybe you should be a good parent and not let TV decide what's best for your offspring.)
If Carter told Hendrix that she was too fat to be on her show, especially when she had someone else do it for her, then to me it's more evidence that TNA needs to be burnt to the ground after evacuating the wrestlers who work for them into gainful employment elsewhere. Wrestling may be a shitty business, but when you set the paradigm for being shitty in every facet of the game, then closing time maybe should have happened years ago.