By now you've probably heard that Kevin Smith got kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for being overweight. He has 1.5 million followers on Twitter and immediately started to tweet about the ill treatment he was receiving from Southwest. Soon the story appeared on the news (both trashy and respectable) including TMZ and The Boston Globe. Southwest had a PR representative, someone with experience talking to people and calming them down, call Kevin Smith. She apologized to him and even wrote a blog on the Southwest Airlines website publicly apologizing to Kevin Smith.
If you want more info on the story -- here are some links.
If not, here's a link to Kevin's blog:
The BOSTON GLOBE uses this incident to create the headline, "Kevin Smith: Too fat to fly?"
http://www.boston.com/travel/blog/2010/02/kevin_smith_too.html
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE asks the question... "Is Kevin Smith Two People?"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=57282
This whole thing makes me say....YUCK!
This story broke while I was on the elliptical Sunday night. (Completely true.) My first thought was -- wow, if celebrities are getting kicked of a SOUTHWEST flight for being too fat, the rest of us are in deep, deep shit. Businesses typically go very far out of their way to get celebrities to patronize them. If they are willing to shame a famous person, I'd hate to think how they're treating the rest of us.
Yet, it swiftly comes to light that the reason Kevin Smith was treated in this way? He was mistaken for a fat nobody rather than the fat somebody he is.
Let's face it, everybody - fat, thin and in between - has had some crapy experience flying. How many of us have ever received a CALL from the airline to apologize? A call from someone above worker bee level at the airline? Someone with the authority to write a personal blog of apology?
I'm outraged Kevin Smith was treated in a way he found shaming. And more outraged that there are many other people who have been shamed by corporate America who receive no apology.
And a word to the reporters creating headlines -- a little dignity please, we all know Kevin Smith isn't two people.
Personally, I'm rallying in support for Kevin Smith. The reason being, I don't want it to be okay for the Airlines to shame fat people. It's a sensitive arena for the obese, as having to buy two seats or get a seat belt extender are rights of passage on the way up and also the way down on the journey of weight gain/loss. It's not hard to understand that no matter what size you are. So, I would think that any steward could act compassionately and in a non-shaming way with any customer. If not, perhaps some sort of sensitivity training should be mandatory for the flight staff.
And I mean with all of their famous AND non-famous passengers.
