They are fed up with prejudice. To refrain from exercising out of fear. From wondering if the life jacket will be big enough, if there will be a harness of the right size or if the paddle board will hold up. So they went looking for answers. They created Toutoune jour, a miniseries that will be broadcast on Tou.tv in 2024.
Host and writer Guylaine Guay remembers physical education classes that “stunned” her. Comedian Mélanie Couture remembers the look a ski instructor gave her when, as a teenager, she had to tell him her weight to get the right bindings. Singer and actress Mélissa Bédard remembers those days at the carnival with her children, where “you never know if the ride is going to be for [you]”.
So they decided to break down the barriers. To try. To play sports without having the objective of losing weight. Without thinking about others. For pleasure.
As part of a series of eight episodes that will be broadcast on Tou.tv in the winter of 2024, the three acolytes have tried a variety of sports, from boxing to climbing, including yoga, pole dancing… even cheerleading, notes Mélissa Bédard.
“Look, I was at the top of the pyramid! It’s possible ! exclaims the singer. I bawled my life. »
“When I was a little girl, all we showed on TV was bitch sport, beautiful bodies. The fat one, if there was one, always played the role of the one who was going to be fat and lose weight at the end when she was going to eat… I was enormously surprised. »
During their sporting discoveries, the three women asked all their questions to the organizers and coaches; the goal being to know if the sport in question is adapted or adaptable to different bodies.
“I was scared in all the activities,” admits Guylaine Guay. The water slides, I had the female dog like never before. I’m not used to letting myself go. My big body, as I get older, it’s less flexible. Menopause, all that… I’m stiffer than I was, but just to do it makes me happy. It fills me with joy, this project. It is to rediscover the pleasure of moving for oneself and not to lose weight. »
La Presse was able to attend the filming of an episode of Toutoune Journée, on July 17, at the Milan Pole Dance Studio. Within the walls of the studio, there is neither competition nor comparison. Only fun, learning… and giggles!
You had to see Mélissa Bédard leave the field of the camera, unable to stop laughing after a joke from one of her colleagues. Joke that is more or less written in a newspaper, forgive us.
When one or the other of the participants manages to make a movement on their vertical bar, they are congratulated and applauded enthusiastically. “Bravo, Guylou! exclaims Mélissa after Guylaine, pink headband on her head and long pink stockings on her legs, has successfully completed an exercise.
“We all come for ourselves, for fun, to celebrate each other,” says Professor Annie Roy. I don’t feel judgment from other people. Me, it really liberated me. »
With Toutoune jour, an original idea by Mélanie Couture and Christine Morency – we will only hear the voice of the latter in the series –, different messages are launched.
“People who are fat, what I want them to remember is that you can move without having the objective of losing weight, explains Mélanie Couture. You can get moving for fun, because it just tempts you to try something new. We have to get out of our heads that we are doing it to change our body. »
“It’s to show that we can go and do it in fun, as a gang and that we don’t want to change our body,” continues the comedian.
“It’s fair to say to people with big bodies: do it. Try it,” says Guylaine Guay.
Mélanie Couture, Mélissa Bédard and Guylaine Guay agree that a long way has already been covered in the fight against grossophobia, in particular thanks to social networks which have given access to “more girls who, they too, no longer wanted to hide”, according to Couture.
“Sadly, I am aware that there are still far too many young girls who have eating disorders in the hope of being able to keep their teenage bodies for a long time”, nevertheless laments the comedian.
“I would like that in the future, we stop making the amalgam that big does not equal healthy. That fat equals undesirable. Fat equals not happy. Because that’s what they’re trying to stick to us. All these labels do not exist. »
With Toutoune jour, the three accomplices are trying to move things in this direction.
“I know it may be a small grain of sand in a beautiful sandbox, but I tell myself that it is by dint of putting grains of sand that at some point, we will have a picture”, sums up Mélanie Couture.
“We wanted to put a kind of grain of sunshine in the title, explains Mélanie Couture. Toutoune, this is neither negative nor positive. […] We are very aware that all possible names are used to call us, not to say the word fat, because it is even worse in people’s heads. We call ourselves plump, chubby, curvy, plus size, you name it. But saying the word big is like the forbidden word, when it’s just an adjective. You have decided that being a fat person is negative. No matter what title I take, you’re still going to have a negative idea of who I am. As long as that, we will reclaim the title. We’ll take it, the big word. We’re going to use it. After that, no one will be able to attack us with a word that we ourselves have decided to reclaim. »
