There is no way to soft-pedal it (nor would I try, anyway): Last night's episode of Parks and Recreation was terrible.
It was terrible because it was fat-hating; because it erroneously treated taxes on soda as a public health issue, which is wrong for all the reasons about which I've written previously; because it actually oh my god included images of headless fatties right in the episode.
It was terrible because the heart of Parks and Recreation, what makes it great, is its kindness. And last night's episode was profoundly unkind.
It was terrible because, in this episode that took aim at fat people, that promoted eliminationist and dehumanizing fat hatred underlying Othering narratives that kill, the fat female character Donna and the fat male character Jerry each appeared exactly once, briefly, as hidden in the episode as they could be short of not appearing at all, lest viewers accidentally be reminded that fat people are human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity.
I am very sad.
It's too bad Chris Traeger's moving epiphany that he needs to stop chasing external perfection was buried in such a garbage episode. Because that was really sweet. It was LITERALLY the best part of the episode.
Discuss.
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