"They Are Weighted with Authority": Fat Female Professors in Academic and Popular Cultures

by Christina Fisanick


Near the end of Act One of The Crucible, Arthur Miller's 1953 play about the Salem witch trials, the Reverend John Hale arrives from nearby Beverly to root out witches and witchcraft that seem to have a hold on the female children of Salem. As he disembarks from his carriage, he asks for help with the half dozen heavy books he is carrying. The Salem minister, Samuel Parris, takes some of the tomes from Hale, remarking, "My, they're heavy!" To which the Reverend Hale retorts matter-of-factly, "They must be; they are weighted with authority" (44). Beyond laughter from the audience, Hale's response also invokes a kind of duplicity in which heft is depicted as a sign of ability, suggesting that the size of an object alone can indicate its authority. These two pithy lines, which begin Miller's quest for the weight of truth in the play, raise in my mind questions about the relationship between the two: heavy books might equal authority, but heavy professors certainly do not imply the same. In contemporary American culture, fat bodies do not equal authority, truth, or much in the way of positive attributes. In fact, the reality is quite the opposite: fat, weight, represents laziness, greed, and moral slackness, among other negative epithets.