Lynne Murray says:
On the NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) mailing list, I learned from Esther Filderman about how filmmaker/director Kevin Smith was thrown off a Southwest Airlines plane in which he was already seated, with armrests down. The Flight Captain deemed him a “safety risk.”
“Thank God I don’t embarrass easily (bless you, Jersey Girl training),” he continued. “But I don’t sulk off either …” So he promised more tweets zinging the airline in the coming days for telling him “I’m too wide for the sky.”
Smith said he refused a $100 voucher offered by Southwest and eventually got on another Southwest flight. He then tweeted a photo of himself on the plane with his cheeks puffed out, writing, “Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off!”
One thing I love about Twitter (speaking as a novice) is the breaking-news quality of some tweets. I love that Kevin Smith was getting the word out AS he was in the process of being thrown off the plane.
Meredith Galman, also on the NAAFA mailing list, pointed out an excellent report on the event from Kate Harding at Shapely Prose.
I am really happy that Kevin Smith, human being, is on his way home, but I also hope Kevin Smith, Famous Person With 1.6 Million Twitter Followers keeps up the righteous indignation on behalf of all the fat people who aren’t in a position to say, “WELCOME TO YOUR PR NIGHTMARE, ASSHOLES.” And even though he is, and he did, and he doesn’t embarrass easily, and a whole lot of us thank him for all of that, his last tweet tonight says it all:
The @SouthwestAir Diet. How it works: you’re publicly shamed into a slimmer figure. Crying the weight right off has never been easier!
I confess to being a hopeless fan of Clerks and Clerks 2, so I enjoyed listening to Kevin Smith ramble on in his Smodcast #106
I was also interested that he happened to be returning to Southern California from a San Francisco Bear Nation event.
I couldn’t help but imagine a contingent of big, take-no-nonsense Bears surrounding the ticket counter!