Magda Szubanski has been attacked by online trolls after calling for overweight people to be protected from abuse on Twitter.
The Australian actress and comedian sparked a storm with a tweet on Sunday calling out the social media platform for not doing more to protect overweight people – in the same way it prohibits users from expressing racist, religious and other radical views.
“It’s interesting to me that you’re banned from attacking pretty much any identity on Twitter except being fat,” Szubanski tweeted.
“Why are we not protected from vilification?”
Szubanksi, most recently seen on Australian TV in the Nine drama After the Verdict, drew an immediate avalanche of abuse. She faced accusations of everything from glorifying obesity to vilifying anti-vaxxers.
“Nobody is vilifying you. You do, however, need to stop glorifying obesity. And don’t dare lecture anyone on their health when yours is so obviously in dire straights,” one user wrote.
But Szubanski didn’t take the abuse lying down.
Tweet from @magdaszubanski
“It’s pretty clear from the response to my tweet that some people hate fat people because their own hearts are so full of hate that they need to dump all their toxic self-loathing onto someone who they think won’t fight back,” she wrote.
“Well, not this little fat duck. She got teeth.”
Hitting back at accusations her public profile allowed her to promote obesity and ignore associated health risks, Szubanski asked if being fat meant she should be banned from TV.
“Simply daring to be on TV, making people laugh = glorifying fat? Hmm,” she tweeted.
Szubanski also went into some detail about her own health. She said an angiogram she underwent for her upcoming ABC series Magda’s Big National Health Check showed her heart was “fine”, despite issues with her cholesterol and blood sugar levels.
Fans weighed in too, with support for the star from author and journalist Benjamin Law, and journalists Jane Caro and Louise Milligan.
“There are too many haters on social media, but so many more people love you in real life. Me included,” Caro wrote.
This isn’t the first time Szubanski has been the target of Twitter trolls; the Kath and Kim favourite regularly cops flak online, particularly if she takes a stance on a high-profile issue.
Following Will Smith’s infamous slapping of Chris Rock at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, Szubanski tweeted that she had never resorted to violence when she had been “humiliated, abused & discriminated against” for being fat.
Commenters immediately zoned in, saying she was “playing a victim” – and should go on a diet.
More recently, in September Szubanski was accused of seeking “obese” Marvel superheroes, after she applauded Timothy Chalamet for not conforming to “jacked” Marvel star body standards following his appearance at the Venice Film Festival.
In 2020, she was slammed by COVID deniers after starring in an ad aimed at quelling Victoria’s deadly outbreak.
