Being Fat, Female & Successful with Emma Thompson, by Niall O’Conghaile
I think we can all agree that 2020 has been a right shitstorm, But amidst all the chaos, the loss and despair, there have been occasional glimmers of sunlight.
For me personally. one of the highlights in an otherwise bleak year has been participating in, and viewing as a punter, Salford’s incredible FAT OUT FEST 2020. FOF is an annual alternative music festival that highlights a diverse mixture of live music and performance artists from both home and abroad, but this year’s FOF had the added dimension of being a series of streamed events recorded without a live audience, as per UK lockdown regulations. And while live streams are nothing new (in fact, they seem to be coming into their own in these times) FAT OUT FEST 2020 - in close collaboration with the awesome IMPA TV - managed that rare feat of being a live stream that felt like a true celebration as opposed to a wake. And for once, fat people were right at the heart of it! A glorious variety of different body sizes and shapes (as well as gender expressions) were represented by the front-of-camera performers, not to mention those behind the scenes too.
EMMA THOMPSON is the brains behind Fat Out Productions, the organisers of FAT OUT FEST. From humble beginnings in Milton Keynes to a 2 year residency at Salford’s legendary Islington Mill venue/arts space, Fat Out has become one of the most successful independent music promoters in the UK. Now more than ever, it’s time to give some of those whose hard graft behind the scenes keeps culture going the shine they deserve, and I couldn’t think of a better platform for that shine then right here on Fat Zine. I sat down with Emma to talk about the success of FOF 2020 and what it means for the future, where the name “Fat Out” came from, and what it’s like to be fat, female, fabulous and, let’s face it, bloody successful.
NIALL: Now that it’s over, how did you find FAT OUT FEST 2020?
EMMA: The end product I was incredibly happy with. But it has been a journey and a mind fuck. It was great working with artists again but it took contingency planning to another level!
The quality of the work that was made [for this year’s festival] reflected lockdown. It reflected the space people haven’t had, the politics, the anger that is in the air, that was put into that weekend, and it was a release for everyone. The comedown I have had from this festival has been worse than anything I’ve had before, and I think that was because it had got to the point where we were working again, we were collaborating again, we were making noise again, and then bang! We were back to lockdown and back to square one. It felt quite hopeless.
I’ve never really experienced bad mental health before but this has pushed me to places I haven’t been in before in terms of putting an event on. But I’m really glad we did it and it’s been a huge learning curve. We were planning the biggest FOF for this Halloween, we were working with 5 different venues across Salford, we had 12 different international partners we were working with, we had got the funding in and we were literally about to put the tickets on sale and then Covid happened. For the events industry, and for everyone in general, it’s been an awful 8 months. Which is why working on this was so important to me because yes, we are in a pandemic, but we need that space, that creative output. This is not going away so we need to find ways of working within this new normal because if we don’t, people’s mental health and suicide rates and all those kinds of things are going to rival what we have lost with Covid. Just seeing and hearing the output from the group of artists we worked with, shows that the events industry needs to be brave and needs to keep trying these things. I mean, we have, but I just wish were getting the support and recognition from the government.
N: I must admit, having been involved with a lot of different event organisations and promotions over the years, FAT OUT FEST 2020 - through absolutely no fault of its own I must add - was perhaps the single-most anxiety and stress-inducing event I have been involved in. And I wasn’t even doing that much! But seeing you keep a such clear head and stay so amazingly calm despite everything that was thrown at you, was really incredible. Things were literally changing week-to-week-
E: Day to day! My flat mate told me the other day “You thrive on chaos” and I think she’s right. Problem solving is my bag!
N: You’re damn good at it! So how did name “Fat Out” come about?
E: The name “Fat Out” is a bit of an in joke, as a lot of the things I name are! My sister, when she was about 13/14 went on a friends holiday, and my version of that holiday was getting trashed and staying out all night, causing my parents al sorts of hell. But my sister’s version of that was staying in and playing a game called “Fat Out ’Til You Pass Out” where you get a lot of food and basically pig out til you have passed out. I just thought that was really funny. The “Til You Pass Out” has been dropped now, to try and make it something that was a bit more fundable. When we had the Islington Mill residency it got shortened to Fat Out’s Burrow and when that closed it just made sense to call it Fat Out.
It’s interesting to me how the name has developed, from being something funny with my sister to it meaning something more, and me being more visible as a fat person. It’s become a positive thing like “get your fat out!” Initially it didn’t have a connection to my body but it’s nice now that there’s a pride in that and it works on that double meaning.
N: As a fat person who grew up in the 90s listening to alternative rock, I look back on that scene now and I realised it was deeply fatphobic, even if it wasn’t intentional. There just wasn’t many, if any, fat artists in that world I could look up to. So how has your own body image progressed through the years, as someone who has also come up through the world of alt rock?
E: In the early days of Fat Out shows I didn’t have any body confidence, I had internalised fat phobia, like I only had one fat friend in school. But for me the big swap in how I see myself, in learning to love my body and being confident sexually beyond just being fat, was closing the venue and starting Godspeed You! Peter Andre, my band, and touring more. Our niche is the underground queer noise scene, and playing those spaces allowed me to build up my persona on stage as the pinnacle of fierceness I wanted to be. Wearing lingerie and more revealing clothing on stage and being inspired by drag, dancing half naked with all kinds of different bodies in those spaces and people telling me I look great, that is something that helps build confidence. And that filters down to having this conversation with you now - five years ago I would have shied away from even saying I was a fat person. So yeah, being around people that tended to not just be straight white men and even starting to fancy fat people as well, because I had so internalised my own fat phobia and projected that onto other fat people and now I think fat people are beautiful! I’ve been this weight for a long time and I’m not lazy, I’m healthy. I can work on my feet for 24 hours and so all of that helped me address these preconceptions of what a fat person is.
N: And beyond just being fat, how has it been working as a woman in a traditionally very male-dominated industry?
E: I think I have come up to more road blocks along the way in this line of work because of my gender more than my body. But then I don’t know, because had I been what the media perceives as being an “attractive” body, in my position, would I have got to where I am? Had I had a normally attractive and acceptable body, would I have been sexualised to the point that I wouldn’t have got to where I am?
What Fat Out is, it’s niche. It’s not this vast, mainstream music thing. If I had gone the mainstream music way, I think I would have felt a lot more that my body was restricting me. But because of Fat Out and my work with Islington Mill and Sounds Form The Other City, it has all come very organically and I felt accepted very early on. I feel supported by my peers and the people I have collaborated with, and I think I have been very lucky to have been supported in this bubble because of what I do as opposed to what I look like.
One undeniable truth the pandemic is showing us is that it’s the people who are already working outside of the mainstream and who can adapt to different, trying circumstances, that are the ones that have the capacity to flourish in these trying times. Maybe it’s time for the fatties to take over? Roll on FAT OUT FEST 2021!
Words by Niall O’Conghaile, you can follow him on Instagram here.
Images provided by Emma Thompson, you can follow her on Instagram here.
