Recently, on one of the dating sites, a potential match’s opening question was “What the title of your biography be ?” I replied straight away, the guy wasn’t my type and I didn’t really want to go out with him but I needed to tell someone and the need became urgent. “Oh, oh, I have an answer for this Too Fat to be Italian!”
This is the origin story of that phrase and like most origin stories, you have to go back a ways.
Year: 2004
Place: Syracuse University, Shaffer Art Building, Shemin Hall
Class: Roman History in Cinema
The class was packed with people sitting on the stairs just to get in to the lecture hall. I didn’t understand it, the class being required for my major and one I hadn’t voluntarily signed up for. Why would anyone willingly sit through 90+ minutes of talk about chariot chases in movies like Lawrence of Arabia? We didn’t cover that film because it’s Arabia and not Rome, but you catch my drift. “Didn’t you hear, the professor is Blah Blah Blah from Blah Blah!” I was still clueless because the name nor the movie he had starred in meant anything to me. Then there was a titter as the professor walked in with an electric blue scarf and round yellow sunglasses, I think he even had on a beret- really going all out for the film aesthetic. I’m not positive on the beret but whatever he wore, the crowd liked it and it began to sink in this was not the norm.
“Sorry folks, just got off the Red-Eye from LA,” the professor apologized, and launched right in to what the class would entail, warning us that there would be well over 600 pages of reading material and it was not a joke. You shouldn’t be taking his class if you were merely there because he’d played the lead in a cult classic because you wouldn’t be seeing him do any robotic movements, ever. Period. End of discussion.
The following week the class was more than halved and by the second week it dwindled to about 60 because it didn’t take long for one to realize this was not going to be a class you just slid through without doing any work. He’d call on people at random and you’d burn in shame if you hadn’t read the 70+ pages on Tiberius that he’d assigned (who am I kidding, we all read that packet because Tiberius was a perv!) It turned out to be a rather difficult class, but rewarding for those of us who actually paid attention. The professor clearly loved his subject and in his fervor to spread that love he put together a trip for students to travel with him to Italy to see the sites that appeared in all those films we’d watched.
About 25 of us went on this trip to Italy at the end of the Spring semester and toured Rome, Pompeii, Capri and Positano. He’d arranged for us to have a black tie dinner at a Michelin star restaurant, bought us cappuccinos and espressos daily and invited us into his home. We climbed Mt. Vesuvius and talked a lot about his girlfriend’s Juicy Couture jumpsuits ( yes plural! she looked amazing in them and it was 2004). It was a decadent trip to say the least, I’m amazed no arrests were made during it because things got rowdy.
On the day we went to the isle of Capri my film partner and I decided to try to pass for Italians. We wore our best clothes and both being curly haired brunettes tried to look exotic as possible for two white kids to look, just enough to not be thought of as American. We succeeded with the majority of tourists, many asking for directions as well as with locals speaking to us in Italian; I’m unsure what he wore but I had a periwinkle paisley blouse on with gray slacks and NOT gym sneakers. I don’t get how many Americans haven’t realized this is one of the main ways they identify us when abroad!
On the ferry back to the mainland we tried to keep the experiment going by sitting separate from our class when we overheard a conversation between an American couple. There could be no denying they were Americans with their bleach white sneakers and bunched up socks, with polo shirts, khaki shorts and tanning bed tans. The ferry was great people watching and they’d started a game guessing where the other passengers were from based on appearance. I’m sure you see where this is going. My friend and I kept our sunglasses on and waited patiently, confident we would pass for natives because Hell, the natives thought we were native!
“What about those two?” the husband asked, gesturing in our direction.
“Ehhhh. Maybe him. Not her,” the wife replied, tightening her bleach blonde ponytail.
“Oh come on, she’s definitely Italian, just look at her hair.”
“The one in the paisley?”
“Yes. She’s clearly Italian. Look at how she’s dressed, just look at her!” Let it be known the husband had lost a majority of the game by this point and he really wanted a win.
“Nah, she’s too fat to be Italian.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks and I didn’t hear the rest of what was said but I’m pretty sure it was some defense of my appearance because her husband looked baffled at her reply, upset even and she crossed her arms. True, I’d eaten my fair share of pasta on that trip but I was by no means obese. Soon the entire group knew what had been said and flocked to comfort me. I’m sure the couple doesn’t remember that particular moment or even the game they were playing but the phrase crystalized in my mind. I stored it away to tell when exchanging body shaming stories with others and it usually gets a gasp, but I know there are plenty of people with worse things said about them, many directly to their face.
The thing is, I’m sick of this being a story that continues to makes me cringe when I think about it so I had to take ownership of that phrase. Like many countries, Italy is an energy as much as it is a physical place and to be Italian is about so much more than blood. Most of the Italians we met that day accepted me as their own and those who have met me since welcome me with open arms and that welcome has nothing to do with my body. To be Italian is to have a certain essence for living your life as loud and as big as possible and loving every minute of it, even the shitty ones and I gotta admit, I’m really good at that.
But really lady, I am in no way too fat to be Italian, on the other hand if you’d said I was too fat to be French you’d be right.
too fat to be italian 