I sobbed for ten minutes straight at the end of I Like Me, the new John Candy documentary. And again when I watched it a second time. I cried for him, for my dad, and for every person who learned to carry their pain quietly. And it wasn’t just because he died so young (he was 43- the age I turned today), but because of everything he represented- tenderness, generosity, humor- and how much of it felt familiar.
I grew up on his movies: Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Spaceballs, The Great Outdoors. He was the kind of funny that didn’t need to punch down, the kind that made you feel safe to laugh. Watching him now, as an adult and as someone who works with and thinks a lot about body image and healing, I see something deeper.
Candy was, in so many ways, an unintentional fat liberationist. He set boundaries in an industry that loved to make the fat guy the punchline. He refused to play characters who existed only to be laughed at. He pushed back against interviewers who asked about his weight, often visibly uncomfortable but still clear: that’s not what we’re here to talk about. “Does anybody ever pressure you about your weight and say, ‘Why don’t you slim down’? Is it ever a concern of yours at all?” one interviewer asked him. Candy responded, “No, no, not really. I think it bothers other people more than it does me. Does it bother you?”
An act of quiet resistance, he handled questions like these while still maintaining his friendly persona. He didn’t have all the language we have now, but he didn’t need to call himself an activist to take a stand or model dignity in a fatphobic world. And he paid the price for how that world treats fat people.
The film included painful echoes of his story: his older brother had a heart attack before him, and their father died of a heart attack at age 35, on Candy’s 5th birthday. According to those who knew him, he avoided medical care because every doctor’s visit became a conversation about weight loss. Not a clear genetic link to heart issues in his bloodline. Not the crippling anxiety and panic attacks that friends and family regularly witnessed. Not the fear of dying young that haunted him. Not his grief. Just his size.
People in larger bodies are frequently displayed as cautionary tales. But when fat people don’t seek medical care, it isn’t neglect- it’s self protection from medical fatphobia. That is the real cautionary tale: Fat people don’t avoid treatment because we don’t care about our health; we avoid it because we have been taught that care is conditional, that our bodies are problems to be solved, and that we’re not worthy of respect unless we shrink first.
This made me wonder: What might Candy’s career and health have looked like if he’d known that fat acceptance existed- even then- as a cultural movement? If he’d had a provider who showed him that learning to trust our bodies also means tending to grief, to intergenerational pain, and to all the ways we’ve been taught to distrust ourselves? If he’d had reason to believe that he could ask for help without being judged or jeopardizing his career? If he’d received unconditional care and love?
Watching Candy’s story, I thought about my own father and losing him too soon. I thought about the ache that lingers even when you’ve done years of grief and healing work. About mortality and how much more real it becomes as I age and as I experience losses. About all the changes my body is experiencing as it gets older- and how that sometimes makes it harder and harder to love it. About how easy it is to keep moving, to make people laugh, to take care of others, to put off your own care- until it’s too late. About how 43 doesn’t sound that young- until you’ve learned that someone your age has died.
Candy himself- with perhaps his most famous line, from Planes, Trains and Automobiles- said it best: “You think what you want about me. I’m not changing. I like me.” That’s what body liberation is, at its core: a subtle, radical act of believing we deserve to live, and to be loved, just as we are. Because life really is too short, and none of us are truly alone.
