Kevin Smith - A Body Positive Role Model For Men

It's no secret that women aren't the only ones that feel self-conscious about themselves at times.  Men are just as insecure as our female counterparts, whether we would like to admit it or not.  We worry about going bald.  We think about our skin, and most of all, we worry about our weight.  For quite some time now, women have had a number of body positive advocates on their side, with the Operation Beautiful project, websites like The Body Positive, and numerous amateur blogs and forums.

 Men...seems like we're on our own.  Today, we're inundated with ads for weight loss pills, Bowflex, and P90X.  The fat guys in the movies are relegated to either the slapstick jackasses or the comedic sidekick that never gets the girl.  And Seth Rogan doesn't count.  He's not fat anymore.  Besides, he's sort of a douche.

Our only hope is a quiet, bearded man standing in front of a convenience store in New Jersey.  This guy:

This is Kevin Smith, director of such classics as 'Clerks', 'Mallrats', 'Chasing Amy', and my personal favorite, 'Dogma'.  This picture of him was taken with his cellphone on 02/13/2010, while he was being kicked off of a Southwest Airlines flight for being "too fat".  He was able to fit between the armrests and buckle his seat belt, but the flight crew determined that he posed a "safety risk" due to his size.  At the time, he weighed over 300 pounds.  Needless to say, he was not happy that afternoon.  He was continuously tweeting as the ordeal was developing.  Here are a couple of those tweets:

The @SouthwestAir Diet.   How it works: you’re publicly shamed into a slimmer figure. Crying the weight right off has never been easier!

Hey @SouthwestAir! I’ve landed in Burbank.  Don’t worry:  wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised.

Needless to say, it was a humiliating ordeal.  Newspapers, websites, and magazines around the world carried the story showing his picture with the word "fat" sprawled across the title.  The Philadelphia Inquirer even went so far as to call him a "blimp".  Since then, Smith has lost 65 pounds.  He refuses to disclose how much he weighs now, or how he lost the weight.  He spoke with Joy Behar on Wednesday night, telling her that in 2008, "I broke a toilet.  That's how heavy I am."  He also said,

"I feel mixed feelings about losing the weight.  I sympathize far more with heavier people than I ever will with thin. I'll never be thin. Let's be honest, I've lost 65 pounds, but nobody's going, 'I wanna sleep with you!' They're just like, 'Keep going, you look better.'"

One thing that really makes Smith stand out was his final statement of the interview, "Sometimes a fat dude has a lot to offer, if [you] can just get past the blubber."  If more women realized that...hell, if Hollywood realized that, I think it would make for a lot of happier men in the world.  And a lot of happier women.  Take a look at the interview: