A generous reader of this blog, who may or may not wish to be named, shared a digitised copy of the video with me. With her consent I have uploaded it to YouTube for others to see. Watch the Fat Underground video from 1979.
I haven't had time yet to see the whole thing, the first time I will have seen it in six years. Conversations about the video's content will have to wait for another time. But I am thrilled to notice in the credits that Kathy Fire is one of the chorus. Her album, Songs of Fire, is a classic of protest music, a favourite of Homosexual Death Drive, and still available through the Smithsonian Institution. It makes sense that she was also a part of early fat feminism.
There are some things to bear in mind:
- The video might not stay there for very long. I have done a brief search for Marge Dean, the copyright holder. I haven't been able to find her, but she may get in touch and she may want the video taken down, which I will do.
- YouTube identified some copyrighted material in the film in the form of a song. I don't know if the film-makers cleared the right to use that song. The song owners have allowed its use on YouTube but it does mean that there may be ads, and also that other people can't embed the video on their websites. This is beyond my control. If the ads turn out to be weight-loss related or in any way fatphobic or offensive, I will remove the song and therefore the restrictions, and add some notes about that to the video's page.
- I have turned off comments on the video because they are usually crap.
- I have set it to unlisted to try and avoid random fatphobes.
- It's a little glitchy because it was made from an old VHS tape.
I can't believe other fat activists are gong to get to see this video now, after all these years. What will it spark?
Dean, M. and Buss, S. (1979). Fat Underground [video]. Available https://youtu.be/UPYRZCXjoRo
via Obesity Timebomb http://ift.tt/2aNJdNq
