Script only. Slides not available.
A long century of weight stigma: President William Taft in American popular culture.
By: Deborah Levine
Introduction—Cover Slide
First, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the organisers of this fantastic meeting,
who did a tremendous amount of work and brought together a group of scholars on such a
broad range of interconnected, important topics. Second, I would like to offer all of you
my sincerest apologies for being unable to be here in person today. I wish I could be here
to be an active part of the conversations, but as circumstances beyond my control have
prohibited it, I am particularly grateful to the organisers and to Professor Suzanna Rose
of Florida International University who has graciously agreed to read my talk to you all
today. Thank you!
Switch to Slide #1- Picture of taft
In the history of the United States, there has been just one person to serve as Secretary of
War, President, and Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court: William Howard Taft. He
had a very long and distinguished political career in the US. This impressive feat,
however, is not Taft’s popular legacy. Instead, Taft is remembered chiefly for having
been America’s heaviest President, and most Americans, if they have any idea who Taft
was, associate him with an apocryphal story about becoming stuck in the White House
bathtub. The history of public fascination and amusement with Taft’s size stretches back
to the beginning of his political career, where jokes and editorial cartoons regularly
appeared across the country, and it has continued unabated even to this day. In the last
several years alone, Taft’s weight has garnered frequent mentions by The Daily Show
with Jon Stewart’s on American television channel Comedy Central, social media is rife
with individuals on twitter and instagram who impersonate “Fat Taft” or similar, and
most recently, the publication of Mac Barnett’s 2014 children’s book from the, President
Taft Is Stuck in the Bath, a supposedly humorous book for young children, with
illustrations of Taft, nude in the bathtub, on every single page. In this talk, I pose the
following questions: Why do so many people discuss Taft’s weight? In short, why is Taft
still figuratively “stuck in the bath?”
Switch to Slide 2- Derisive Comments…
In this talk I will briefly outline and analyze these popular representations of Taft from
1900-2015, demonstrating a considerable and persistent bias against him because of his
size. I approach Taft as a kind of “patient zero” for weight stigma and ridicule in the US,
as he was the first American political leader to be openly ridiculed in his own time for his
weight, despite the fact that several of his most immediate predecessors, including Grover
Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt, of the late nineteenth century were nearly the same
weight as he was.
Slide 3 please—I argue that Taft Functions…
But, as I have argued elsewhere, by the start of the 20th century, the links between
morality, discipline, and weight that we see so strongly today, begin to rise to prominence
in American culture and society.
Now, over the course of Taft’s career, weight stigma did not stop him from holding high
office, but comments, jokes, and speculations dogged him throughout his lifetime.
For example, countless editorial cartoons, newspaper articles, and magazine pieces
created a public discourse about Taft’s weight.
Not only was Taft fiercely criticized and shamed for his weight in his own time, but
criticisms, jokes, and outright derision have persisted to the current day, growing even
stronger over the past decade.
In our brief time today, we will look at examples from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
and recent (2014) children’s book, President Taft is Stuck in the Bath
Slide 4 please- Taft’s weight stigma
As a historian who has studied the history of medicalized approaches to obesity in the
19th and early 20th centuries, including Taft’s own patient experience with diet and weight
loss, I have encountered hundreds of documents that make a disparaging comment, joke
or prediction about Taft’s leadership, intellect, or masculinity on the basis of his
weight.
First, Leadership Ability:
Throughout the time period I studied, Taft’s leadership abilities were repeatedly
questioned or mocked, using his weight as the driving reason
Second, Intellect/Diplomacy:
Taft is criticized and ridiculed for having insufficient aplomb and intelligence to navigate
complicated situations, again using his weight as the key reason
One typical example of this is listed on the slide, in my files I have dozens from the
Times alone: The New York Times reported that, "William Howard Taft is a very
phlegmatic man, from whom one is not accustomed to hear such talk. This [particular
outburst] may be attributed to his great weight”. The New York Times, 7 July 1918.
Third, Masculinity
Taft is persistently identified as insufficiently masculine, and even as feminine as a result
of his weight.
He was frequently chastised for looking insufficiently masculine on horseback. In his
own time, he was frequently depicted as a woman in cartoons and illustrations, and as
engaged in effete (for the time) activities such as golfing.
Today we continue to see references in popular culture to Taft’s lack of vigor, selfcontrol, decorum, all traditionally masculine traits.
Slide 6 please- “Among Many Modern Examples… “
For a modern example of this, consider The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, an American
political satire known for its liberal/progressive perspective. In the show’s 16 year run,
more than 70 “joking’ references to Taft and his weight, using his size as a punchline.
The show’s jokes trade in the same ideas about leadership, diplomacy, and masculinity
that earlier critics employed. In the example pictured here, Stewart jokes that Taft must
have been pregnant when he was president.
Switch to next Slide 7
Here, he jokes that Taft would have been deemed unfit to serve in the military he
commanded.
Switch to Slide 8
Here, a doctored image of Taft, supposedly eating chili, serves as a punchline to a long
list of images of American presidents.
Switch to Slide 9—daily show final
And of course, there were several references to the infamous bathtub story over the
course of the show’s run, one of which is pictured here.
Switch to Slide 10—Speaking of bathtub…
Speaking of that bathtub, 2014 saw the first addition I have seen of a piece of media
specifically for children centered around that story. The book, by popular children’s
author Mac Barnett and illustrator Chris Van Dusen, was published by Candlewick press
in 2014, allegedly designed for children from “preschool to age 3”
Switch to Slide 11—
On every page of the book, Taft’s body is depicted in the nude, attempting increasingly
degrading attempts to exit the bath tub. Until finally he flies out of the tub, out the
window, and lands on the lawn.
Switch to slide 12
The final image, on closing page of President Taft is Stuck in the Bath, depicts Taft,
naked in the grass, surrounded by his staffers and asking for a robe. According to the
publisher’s website, illustrator Chris Van Dusen stated that, "This is just the kind of outrageously silly story I love to illustrate. Plus, President Taft was a blast to paint!" Switch to Slide 13-­‐Conclusion and enduring questions But this persistent myth of the President and his bathtub is not simply an “outrageously silly” story. It is a story that reinforces ideas about body size, capability, professional and physical readiness that are harming and lasting influences on our society. The story only reads as “funny” because of the social and cultural stigmas around Taft’s size. A skinny President getting stuck in the bath would never provoke the chuckles that I get when I tell students or colleagues this story. Instead, the persistent jokes, derision, and mean-­‐spirited commentaries on Taft’s weight in his own time indicate the ways in which weight was coming to be seen as a moral, masculine, medical problem at the beginning of the 20th century. But what does the continued “comedic” staying power of Taft’s weight and especially the “Taft in the Bath” story tell us about the current prominence of weight stigma in the United States? President Taft, the American “patient zero” of weight stigma and professional derision, offers an excellent entry point for these essential enduring questions. Switch to slide 14—Thank you!