Love Quote by Camryn Manheim

Camryn Manheim names a cultural bargain that feels ugly because it’s accurate: prejudice doesn’t disappear, it just gets rerouted around fame. The line lands because it refuses the comforting narrative of “progress” and replaces it with a more transactional truth. Fatphobia, she argues, isn’t declining; it’s being selectively suspended when the person in question becomes useful to the culture’s entertainment machine.

The intent is blunt: to expose how “kindness” often functions as a status perk rather than a moral shift. Her phrasing is doing double work. “In this country” widens the indictment beyond Hollywood, then “our culture” tightens it back to the system that manufactures celebrities and teaches audiences how to feel about bodies. The repetition of “we” is a quiet trap, implicating the listener. No one gets to stand outside the problem as a neutral observer; we’re all participating in the hierarchy.

The subtext is especially sharp in the contrast between “fat people” and “our celebrities.” The possessive “our” signals ownership: celebrities are treated like communal property, defended and forgiven because they’re sources of pleasure, fantasy, and identity. Ordinary fat people don’t get that protective aura; they remain acceptable targets for moralizing and disgust. Manheim’s “even though” flips what should be contradictory into something perfectly coherent in a celebrity economy: bigotry can coexist with adoration as long as the adored person is exceptionalized.

Context matters here: Manheim rose to prominence in the late 1990s, when “body positivity” wasn’t a mainstream brand and fat jokes were default late-night currency. Her point isn’t that celebrity saves you; it’s that celebrity lets the culture pretend it’s evolved without having to change its baseline contempt.