Slim evidence of fat fortunes: towards a gendered history of fat acceptance

In a disquieting artist’s book called The Watchers, the American photographer Haley Morris-Cafiero walks in public places, applying sunscreen at the beach, talking on the phone in the street or consulting a map; we see her standing in a piazza with a board advertising ‘large sandwich + draught beer’; and sometimes she is eating something. 1 Wherever she goes, she is a spectacle. Her assistant tails her, photographing the reactions of the passersby. In every image, she is scrutinized, judged, scorned, ridiculed. The reason for their derision is Morris-Cafiero’s figure. She is physically large and would commonly be described as obese.