'Your Fat Friend' Aubrey Gordon Deserves the World
It's Time to Gush About a Star!
The new documentary Your Fat Friend, produced and directed by Jeanie Finlay, is finally being released into the world and its star began as the titular role.
If you have not yet heard of Aubrey Gordon, I am thrilled to introduce her to you. She began as the anonymous writer of the Your Fat Friend blog and social media accounts and later revealed herself to the world through her books What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat and “You Just Need to Lose Weight” and 19 Other Myths about Fat People, as well as her podcast Maintenance Phase co-hosted by superstar journalist Michael Hobbes. Though I originally found Aubrey through Maintenance Phase, I have since read her first book and am in awe of her writing and advocacy. When I got the PR email about her documentary, I jumped at the chance to cover it in any way that I could despite it not being a horror film. So here we are.
Aubrey is a fierce advocate for fat people everywhere and has dedicated her work to exposing the oppression that fat people face in every aspect in life—including the way people skirt around using the term fat. Jeanie’s documentary opens with Aubrey reading her blog post “Just Say Fat”—the same piece that she reads during her first author event showcased at the end of the film. This piece summarizes the film, as well as all of Aubrey’s work. Everything she has written or said is direct and intentional. She doesn’t just “say it like it is,” she clearly states her experience as a fat person and relays her interpretation of the underlying intention behind her experiences. She explains her process in the documentary—stating that people are more willing to change their behavior when they hear about the personal experiences of those close to them. Aubrey is able to instill this approach with her own family, an experience that we see on screen, as we see her do the same with her audience. She asks for what she needs and demands that these needs be met. If other people want to make her feel safe as a fat person, she explains exactly how to do that.
Because I was introduced to Aubrey through her podcast, I was not aware of her when she was still anonymous. I always knew her as Aubrey Gordon, but I know that’s not a universal experience of her following. Nonetheless, Your Fat Friend is a standalone experience from her other work in that it follows Aubrey throughout her career thus far, including the years she was anonymous. What Jeanie Finlay is able to do in her film is capture Aubrey’s personal feelings as seen through an outside perspective, something that we don’t get as much through her writing. And with there being limited visual media of Aubrey, it’s really refreshing to physically see her. Finlay captures how electric Aubrey is and what makes her so appealing as a public figure and activist. She’s not just doing important work moving towards a future of fat liberation—she is sharing her emotions and experiences in real time. She is also extremely charming. She walks us through her collection of vintage diet books (a reoccurring topic on Maintenance Phase) and shows off her stunning taste in fashion throughout the film. We see that she really loves her dog and has the best selection of glasses that I have ever seen. Though her personality really does shine through her other work, Your Fat Friend allows the audience to see her in action and allows us to fall even more in love with her.
Finlay is doing exactly what Aubrey has always been asking for—and that’s to see fat people as people.
The standout through line of Your Fat Friend is Aubrey’s relationship with her parents. Her mom and dad are divorced and her dad lives with a long term girlfriend. Both households have their own complicated relationships with Aubrey that we see develop over the course of the film—and thus her career. Aubrey’s mom wrestles with how she raised her daughter and put her through Weight Watchers. This is an experience that Aubrey addresses in most of her work, but seeing it on screen and hearing her mom reflect on those decisions changed my own perception. Your Fat Friend introduces the characters from Aubrey’s life to us, though we may have met them in writing or through podcast anecdote. It’s a completely different experience to hear her mother acknowledge why her actions were wrong, though she thought she was helping Aubrey.
The same is true with Aubrey’s father and his girlfriend. We see multiple troubling scenes of someone at a family dinner making off-handed comments about weight gain or loss in front of Aubrey. Her own dad notes that he ensured that a birthday cake he gets her are gluten and sugar free despite her not needing any of those accommodations. The most touching moment comes in the end of the film when we see Aubrey’s dad begin to cry at her first author event. We see a change in him and the acknowledgement that her work is bringing about change in the world. Seeing the change of heart of someone so close to her is a perspective that we have not gotten on Aubrey thus far in her work. Though we may know her impact now that her books and podcast have a huge platform, but we have yet to see the personal conflicts within her own life. These are the moments that really stand out and make Your Fat Friend a worthwhile watch, whether you are familiar with Aubrey’s work or not.
As a follower of Aubrey, I am so overjoyed for the release of Your Fat Friend. Finlay’s work brings an outsider into Aubrey’s world and gives us more of a perspective on the trajectory of her career rather than just an objective profile of her. We are able to put a face and physical presence to her work, one that is primarily full of joy and pride in her accomplishments. And there is nothing that fat people deserve more than to just revel in their joy.