Growing up there comes a time when
someone is gonna refer to you as a cartoon character. Most times it
is a nice name like
Pooh or
Sugar Bear. Those are nice things to be
called. Other times you get called by a name and the shit sticks with
you for the rest of your life. As an adult people start talking about
how much they love a certain cartoon and suddenly your ass flashbacks
and once again you're on the playground surrounded by asshole
children laughing at you. “Leave my teeth alone, Rachar! You're
fat! I hate you!” Oh, sorry. Just had a flashback.
When I was little I knew a kid called
Gizmo from the Gremlins movie. I can't tell you his actual name for
shit. Until I die that kid is known as Gizmo. Know why? Because he
looked exactly like Gizmo in human form. Hell, I have two uncles
whose real names I don't know.
Baby Huey is what kids that are just
too goddamned big for their age. They are the kids that when a class
photo is taken are forced to stand in the back with the other
mutants. I wished I was this kid growing up. I was always in the row
with all the other tiny girls. Just 'cause you were big didn't get
you the Baby Huey name all the time. It was usually the big kid that
was also overweight which means that school was twice as fun for
them. There was also the fact that they tended to hurt others with
their strength that they at that age had no way of controlling.
Asking for a boost onto playground equipment was the fastest way to
end up in the nurses' office. This kid was either picked on or used
as protection from other kids.
Dumbo was the name given to those kids
that had big ears. I can just imagine when this movie came out and
some bastard kid looked to his left and saw another kid in the
theater just have their head drop because they knew what was coming
for the rest of their lives. No one ever calls a kid Dumbo in a nice
or cute way. It is just a way of acknowledging that someone's ears
are a bit too goddamn big for their existence. Even though Dumbo was
seen and known as cute and a character that you felt sympathy towards
the opposite was true when applied to real life. If you knew a girl
with big ears as a child chances are she grew up into a hot ass
woman. Oh, look. Her hair is longer and she looks like a completely
different human being. Who knew?
Barney came out and threw salt in the
game of every fat person wearing purple. It does not help that a lot
of Black people wear purple. It also doesn't help that almost every
Black cartoon character is given purple as their color. Barney came
out 22 years ago and till this day if I see an angry fat person
wearing purple Barney is the first thing that comes to mind. “Calm
down, Barney...” Not friendship. Not fun. Not learning. Just a
large object that is purple. I guess
Grimace used to be the thing to
call fat folks in purple but Barney cornered that market.
Big Bird was not a name used on fat
kids. Just the ones that were really tall and lanky. The kids that
looked like teachers aides in class pictures. These kids I wasn't too
jealous of because they moved like they had only 30% of their bodies.
They walked like the world was a treadmill going at full speed and
knocked shit over all the time because their limbs were growing at a
rate their depth perception couldn't keep up with. I went through
this phase and whenever someone tells me that they wish that they
were taller I will quickly explain why having a taller height sucks.
There is nothing like the look on someone's face when I explain that
all my hobbies include sitting still or laying down.
Kool Aid Man is another one that is
applied to fat people. Particularly fat, destructive people wearing
red. This is the White people equivalent to Barney because on
makeover shows I'll be damned if they don't give big White women this
color to wear. Its like “Her confidence still kinda exists so let's
give her a color that even blind people can see and judge her for
wearing.” Sometimes it happens when you don't even want it to. If I
see a chubby kid wearing red my brain goes “Oh, yeah!!!” and I
have to call myself an asshole. God forbid they fall down doing
something. Oh, somebody in the room is gonna scream like Kool Aid
Man.
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