Audiences unfamiliar with author Kimberly Dark and her performance, “Things I Learned from Fat People on a Plane,” might think by the title she is anything but voluptuous. Indeed, she stood before Franklin & Marshall College’s crowded Oct. 19 Common Hour wearing two airplane seatbelt extenders around her waist to show the difficulty fat people face in small, confined areas (they may not eat or drink before or during a flight to avoid the plane’s cramped bathroom).
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“I’m not interested in being ignored," says author and performer Kimberly Dark."I’m interested in being adored.”
Image Credit: Deb Grove
Dark’s talk, laced with humor, sex, and readings about her life experiences in a world that hates fat, addressed changing the narrative on the word “fat” from negative to neutral. She touched on themes about accepting yourself and realizing that “you can change you. Imagine that,” Dark said. “Here’s one of the things that happens when you change you is that you might find out that some of your assumptions about what will happen if you behave a certain way are wrong or you might find out you’re right, and you learn more about what happens as you change you.”