Jennifer Livingston: Criticism or Bullying? Where’s the line?
by pinkagendist
I haven’t made my mind up on this one yet… any thoughts? I get critical emails daily, sometimes crazy mail, sometimes even crude hate mail. I rarely feel the need to acknowledge such messages. I’m not sure I’d classify them as bullying.
She makes a really great point. And I’m not sure where you found this video but the source I saw also directed me to this site, which was inredibly informative http://www.fatnutritionist.com/ check it out.
Thanks for the link. I do believe she’s right
I thought her comments were appropriate because the emailer made no reference to the story she was reporting, only on her appearance. Was it bullying? That goes more to impact than intent, and if that’s how she took it, then yes. I think the biggest issue is that individuals can hide through electronic media, and this reporter called the emailer out. The identity remains hidden, but he knows who he is and he may think twice about sniping in the future.
I think I have to agree with her response. There was no value in what the person making the comments said and by saying what she did about bullying, maybe it will make an impact in someone’s life.
What? You get hate mail? I never get any.
Really? I get it regularly. Every time I mention religion I’m flooded. There’s a whack job called Dylan Terreri who’s particularly insistent on making his opinions known to me… There’s another one called Keefer. Most I just delete without reading in full.
Maybe I’m just not trying hard enough. I’ve just posted something distasteful on twitter though, so I’m hopeful.
Of course it is an attempt at bullying. Other people’s appearance are not anyone else’s business.
I would have found where the email came from and put that person on the spot.
I wonder how she know’s it was a male sender?
I noticed a commenter on a post you wrote recently told of laughing at the fat people on talent shows as if it was okay.
Let’s judge people on what they do and say, rather than appearance, sexual orientation, race and other irrelevant characteristics…
I agree, it’s certainly an attempt at bullying, and thoroughly unnecessary.
I made a mental note of the comment you mention too. I think it’s good that it’s out there because it forces us to think about it. It reflects the big point I was hoping to make. Somehow, because it’s on television and there’s a degree of separation, suddenly Cowell makes it okay to degrade living, breathing, feeling human beings. It’s a very bad model which then gets emulated in people’s day to day. How many children have repeated his put-downs in the playground? Unlike the word blackamoor, for example, which hasn’t been used to offend an individual since 1625
BTW is that twenty-five past four in the afternoon?
I can see it now: Damned blackamoor stealing our jobs! Don’t you have to go back to the Nasrid Dynasty? Al-Andalus is waiting for you!
I saw this last evening ane wow, her response was dead on the money.
Interesting. Not sure where to start.
Yeah she’s fat as apparently is a large percentage of the western world. So she’s hardly unique. I wonder if said emailer would have sent the same message to fat male journalist though?
Because let’s remember it’s always acceptable to criticise the appearance of women while men are beyond that, being naturally perfect. (not as perfect as you I quickly add). Just thought I would add the daily dose of feminisim in there.
But any critique should seriously be directed at her journalistic/news management/handling ability not her appearance – hence my irritated feminist comment.
I wouldn’t call it bullying so much as blatant a) sexism and b) fatism. Calling it bullying is getting away from the discrimination that is going on here. And a way to turn the story round to appeal to kids. Pro-journalism in a way. Inaccurate though.
Is it me or did she look quite wound up fiddling with that bit of paper? Or was that for effect?
One of the probs with wordpress is the email disclosure. Racks me right off. I’ve had one nice correspondence, a couple of others that were blog related business and one unpleasant one. Like you, I don’t reply to anything that doesn’t merit a response. I don’t forget who they are though.
I got some abusive comments back on blogger when I wrote some nicely OTT feminist posts. I must have calmed down too much since then as it hasn’t happened for years. Now I just get thinking people who occasionally try to wind me up
Only occasionally? I’ll get right on that…
The feminist angle is interesting. I doubt Eamonn Holmes gets emails complaining about his weight.
Thought you already had done
But there is a difference between ignorant
and unthinking– oops that was tautological – abuse, and people who have a valid point of view to make from a different perspective, however much tongue in cheek it may be.I’ll have to write a post especially for you….
I’ve no idea who he is. And I am the worst person in the world for losing patience with fat people taking up all the street/bus/train (this probably won’t bother you as I can’t envisage you using transport or walking down busy streets) and as Clare says, it can be a health problem.
But this isn’t about health, that’s a smokescreen. It is the same old boring story attacking a a woman for her physical appearance which I would honestly label misogyny. Not that I do labels
Obesity is a problem. It ruins people’s knees and hips, it puts strain on the heart. And- ranting at fat people does no good at all. They know they are fat.
I like the email disclosure. I have had some lovely email exchanges with people.
Ah. That is it.
What the emailer says to Jennifer is, of the many problems in your life which you deal with, I know better than you what your priorities should be. And- to her employers- I know better than you good reasons to employ people for this role. To which the only possible answer is GFAM, or, to be less polite, FOAD.
That’s an interesting point. In the end that sort of criticism is really about compensation isn’t it? Making one’s self feel better at the expense of another.
Very few bullies target people just cuz they are fat, or black, or gay, or weird. Typically they target someone who is fat or black or gay or weird and getting on with their lives in a way that the bully doesn’t have the guts, the nerve, or the talent to do. “I may be a fear-driven failure, but at least I’m not fat, black, gay, and weird.”
Given the drive-by nature of his e-mail — he admits he doesn’t watch the show, and is only criticizing her looks based on his flipping-through-the-channels impression — and its Won’t Somebody Think of the Children?! overtone, I think she made a gutsy choice to use it as a teaching point. I think her two main points — Hey adults, try to lead by example, and if you’re home talking smack about people, your kids are probably going to school and talking smack about people; and Hey kids, you’re better than the kids who are bullying you want you to think you are — are both appropriate responses to this e-mail, whether the guy was actually “bullying” her or not.
By the time she addressed it on the air, the e-mail had been made public, and she had to decide what she wanted her own children to see her do in response, on which level I gotta say, You go, Girl.
I think to qualify as “bullying” it has to occur over a period of time. Though, I have met people I consider to have bullying personality traits, that the emailer apparently had. I liked the way she handled it.
Where is this from? In my part of the world, no one would recognize her body type as out of place. She looks normal. Maybe we’re all fat in the south?
Not sure, but there is a LaCrosse in Wisconsin. Being a Wisconsin native I can say there are plenty of people with her body type, and much bigger, there.
I heard about this days ago, but I was traveling and just now watched the video. I disagree with the email, but I don’t really consider it to be bullying. Public figures like news anchors are going to get this kind of thing. I’m not saying she deserves it, but it’s part of the package you get when you go on TV. And classifying simple criticism, even when it’s in poor taste like this, diminishes what the victims of real bullying go through on a daily basis. That being said, even if I think this is an over reaction, I agree with her overall message (though we prefer “sexual orientation” … A sexual preference is “doggy style” or “in the morning”).
While she presented some valid points, I think there was a better way to respond to the email. She could have said, “Hi. I appreciate your feedback but I don’t think it’s appropriate to … (insert her words here).
There’s no difficulty in being pleasant, even if one thinks the other person is not. It’s a matter of composure. After all, as Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.”