{"id":21210,"date":"2015-12-27T21:54:32","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T02:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=21210"},"modified":"2015-12-27T22:12:48","modified_gmt":"2015-12-28T03:12:48","slug":"in-which-a-go-go-girl-is-told-shes-too-fat-to-frug-or-is-she","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2015\/12\/27\/in-which-a-go-go-girl-is-told-shes-too-fat-to-frug-or-is-she\/","title":{"rendered":"In which a go-go girl is told she’s “Too Fat to Frug” (or is she?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve got yet another romance comic to share with you that deals with a woman whose size is judged by society to be less than acceptable, and this time around we finally enter the ’60s … while at the same time offering what turns out to be my favorite single panel from any story of this type.<\/p>\n

If you’d like to play catch-up before diving in, check out “Was I Too Fat to Be Loved?<\/a>” (June 1949), “Too Fat for Love<\/a>\u201d (Winter 1950), “I Was a Fat Girl<\/a>” (February 1951), and a second “Too Fat for Love<\/a>” (March 1952), which I present in chronological order of publication so you can follow the changing times, rather than the order in which I found and shared them with you.<\/p>\n

Completists might also want to check out a few other comics which, though not romances, offer a lesson on the subliminal and not-so-subliminal messages being sent to readers, such as My Little Margie<\/em>‘s \u201cChubby, But Oh My!<\/a>\u201d (Dec 1957), and two stories from the pages of Brenda Starr<\/em>, in which the reporter\u2019s cousin Abretha Breez, who in January 1949 is mocked<\/a> for not being able to fit into a kitchen to get cake, in July 1949 gets a boyfriend<\/a> who appears to appreciate her the just way she is.<\/p>\n

But on to the new!<\/p>\n

“Too Fat to Frug,” from the January 1967 issue of Love Diary<\/em> #47<\/a>, was written by Gary Friedrich—who would shortly thereafter write Marvel’s Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos<\/em> and go on to co-create Ghost Rider<\/em>—and reportedly drawn by Tony Tallarico. I’m as uncertain as are the reference sites as to whether this is truly by Tallarico, as to my eye it looks little like the work of his with which I’m most familiar from the pages of Creepy<\/em> and Eerie<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"TooFattoFrug1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In this 8-page story which leads off the issue, go-go girl Sharon Carr is the top dancer at The Bird Cage. And she immediately falls hard for the club’s new singer Bus Wayne. One thing’s for sure—it probably wasn’t because of his lyrics!<\/p>\n

\"TooFattoFrug2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bus asks Sharon out immediately after his first gig there, and later that night, after one kiss<\/em> …<\/p>\n

\"TooFattoFrug3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, that<\/em> was fast.<\/p>\n

After just a few weeks, Sharon is sure Bus is about to propose, but before the words can slip out of his mouth, new dancer Sheila Gordon arrives …<\/p>\n

\"TooFattoFrug4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

… and Bus becomes so discombobulated by Sharon’s wink (at least I think that’s a wink) and Southern accent that he completely forgets what he was about to say. <\/p>\n

So of course Sharon does this<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"TooFattoFrug5\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That slap sends Sharon into an immediate downward spiral of binging, which we know because of the obligatory scene of her sitting alone while eating a sundae.<\/p>\n

\"TooFattoFrug6\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Not only does this eventually lead to her getting fired, because “I guess I’ve finally become too fat for the job,” but her continued eating progresses until she becomes “engulfed in great rolls of fat tissue.” Because Sharon begins to “miss admiring stares when I walked down the street,” she’s driven to seek out professional help, but alas, it’s too late.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Well, here’s why, in the most nonsensical panel I’ve seen in stories of this type, as a doctor tells her that …<\/p>\n

\"TooFattoFrug7\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Don’t you just hate it when glands get disturbed?<\/p>\n

It’s only then that Sharon decides she was a fool to be so jealous over her boyfriend’s momentary distraction, and heads back to apologize. But it is, of course, too late, for Bus has already married Sheila, a realization which causes Sharon to wander the streets in tears.<\/p>\n

\"TooFattoFrug8\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With nowhere else to go, Sharon tortures herself by returning to The Bird Cage, where she stays to the shadows, weeping as she watches Bus sing and Sheila dance. But luckily, in the story’s last three panels, happiness awaits. Because admirer Ron Lowes, who admits he, too, is “a little on the heavy side,” asks the former go-go dancer to … well … dance …<\/p>\n

\"TooFattoFrug9\"<\/a><\/p>\n

… and she does, albeit reluctantly.<\/p>\n

\"TooFattoFrug10\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But once Sharon begins to move the way she used to, she realizes that as long as she can still dance—and dance with “a guy like Ron to care”—she has everything she needs.<\/p>\n

And the moral of the story is—a far better one than I expected going in, based on the usually flawed morals of stories past.<\/p>\n

Yes, Sharon loses her job as a go-go girl, but except for her employer, no one is shown to judge her for her size. And except for those anonymous admirers Sharon misses (who certainly sound creepy to this 2015 reader), no one changes a romantic or sexual opinion about her on the basis of her having gained weight. <\/p>\n

Plus (and most important of all), the plot engine doesn’t require her to lose weight to gain love, and<\/em> it allows her to in the end be comfortable with the body she has.<\/p>\n

When it comes to this sub-genre of comic book story, I call that a win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve got yet another romance comic to share with you that deals with a woman whose size is judged by society to be less than acceptable, and this time around we finally enter the ’60s … while at the same time offering what turns out to be my favorite single panel from any story of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[189,18,167,723],"class_list":["post-21210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-charlton-comics","tag-comics","tag-gary-friedrich","tag-tony-tallarico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21210"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21243,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21210\/revisions\/21243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}