National Geographic will be airing an episode of it’s show Taboo about the “Taboo” of being fat. The show will premier on Jan 20 at 10PM. It looks fairly interesting.
Check out the previews below.
-Drew
Archive for the ‘TV’ Category
TV – Taboo – Fat on National Geographic
Friday, January 15th, 2010More to Stereotype?
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009If you read my previous article entitled More to Exploit, you know that I was skeptical about the Fox network’s motives when it comes to their new show More to Love. My initial fears were fully realized last night while within the first five minutes of the premier. The premier essentially consisted of the 20 ‘contestants’ meeting the “big” winner Zack (pun intended..) and Zack trying to figure out which girls he wanted to keep around and which ones he was going to get rid of.
Zack himself seems like an opportunist rather than someone who is looking for love. In one scene (which was most likely edited this way) he was discussing how hard it would be for him to choose the women who would be going home, and in the very next breath implied that if the girl sitting with him would make out with him it would really help her chances of staying.
Throughout the show the focus shifted rapidly between what was going on in the house and private interviews with the women. One thing is for sure, they intentionally edited the potentially hundreds of hours of interviews to maximize the pathetic and socially inept factor of the plus sized women. At least two of them admitted that they had never been on a single date before and several of the women were in tears while describing their past experience while trying to find love.
FOX doesn’t seem to be doing the image of plus sized women any favors here, and if anything More to Love will most likely work to reinforce the stereotypes of plus sized women as being desperate, emotionally damaged, inept, and destined to be perpetually lonely.
From a purely entertainment standpoint, so far the show is just passable. FOX most likely put this show in the off-season because they knew that it wasn’t interesting enough to debut during the primetime fall season. I hope the first episode is not a indication of what is to come, because if it gets any more negatively skewed I would expect to start hearing cartoon like sound effects.
Drew
More to Exploit?
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009When I first heard about the premise and saw the preview for the upcoming Fox show More To Love. My mind began immediately swimming with different thoughts and feelings. On the one hand, it could be inspiring and uplifting for people to see plus sized women treated like human beings on national television. On the other hand, I see a few problems with the overall premise of this show.
First, “plus sized” women are not a new trend, a fad, or a fashion accessory for the summer of 2009. They are people, just like all the other contestants on all of the other reality shows. They have been around for quite a long time. I have a problem with the “mission” of this show, according to Fox More To Love is all about loving yourself and self-worth, I disagree entirely.
If Fox wanted to uplift “plus sized” women, they would’ve made a clone of ABC’s The Bachelor and made half of the women “regular” and half of the women “plus sized” and let the best woman win based on all of their attributes. Instead, by choosing (In Fox’s own words) “a single average guy with a big waist and an even bigger heart” as the prospective bachelor and choosing all “plus sized women” as the contestants, the show (and Fox) imply that all ‘big people’ should break off from the rest of society, pair up, have ‘big people babies’, and move to the mountains where they won’t bother anybody.
I argue that if the women that Fox has selected to participate in More To Love are so well adjusted, confident, and self-loving that they would have no problem ‘competing’ against any woman for any man. All of the press I have seen for More To Love tries to paint it as this big ‘coming out party’ for “plus sized” women, that Fox just discovered this long lost tribe out in a cave somewhere like King Kong and are bringing them to the world for the first time.
Maybe that is the point here? After all, who’s fault is it that people are so hung up on their weight in this country? Why are there so many women (in general, not even “plus sized”) who have a poor self image? Who sets the standard for beauty in the United States? You guessed it, the media. The fact is that this show wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for the constant and unwavering amount of self-hatred that people feel when they turn on their TV, read magazines, or watch movies. So “plus sized women” are okay as long as you’re exploiting them in some ridiculous fashion but when it comes time to cast a show at primetime guess what?
Sorry, no plus sized women to be found.
This is part of a larger trend in our society. All companies (not just media companies) need to stop pretending like they are doing people a favor by exploiting them, For a completely unrelated example the mortgage bubble was “a great opportunity for low-income families to become home-owners” just like More To Love is “[…] a dating show that sends the right message about embracing and loving yourself no matter your shape or size," as long as the person you’re interested in has “a big waist and an even bigger heart” otherwise, you’re completely out of luck.
-Drew
The Biggest Loser on Larry King
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009Larry King Live (CNN) (Watch it) was focused on The Biggest Loser and the obesity problem in America in general. The trainers (Jillian and Bob) and contestants from various seasons were guests and offered insight into their struggle to lose weight. The most interesting guest was the winner of season four whom seemed to re-gain most of the weight he had lost which only proves that being healthy is not a destination it is a life long process which you can constantly shift in and out of.
I think most people would like to believe that when people leave The Biggest Loser ranch they are ‘fixed’. What ever be it emotions, learned behavior, or addiction that caused them to become obese is simply gone forever but that is just not true. Contestants (like everyone else) go back to their lives without the constant nurturing and support and are bombarded with all of the old temptations, emotions and environments which prompted them to gain weight in the first place.
But wait! People go home from the ranch and continue to lose weight right? Yes, but as Bob and Jillian pointed out, they are still in constant contact with them even after they leave the ranch. This poses the question then, can obesity ever really be “cured”? If the most popular trainers in the world still have to prod people after they leave the ranch, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Perhaps instead of treating the physical state of obesity which is caused by eating too much and exercising too little, Perhaps we should treat the reason people are eating too much and exercising too little in the first place. I would venture to say that at the core of 90% of most obese individuals there lies emotional problems which can be traced directly to their eating behaviors.
Telling someone who could already have emotional problems that they eat too much and are lazy doesn’t sound like a good plan to me. Maybe more research needs to be done in the psychology of obesity rather than the pharmacology. I am glad that Larry King decided to have the Biggest Loser winner who gained his weight back on. It shows both obese people and non-obese people alike that there is no quick route to becoming healthy and like with any virus one must be mindful that they still have the disease even if they aren’t showing symptoms at that moment.
Personally, I think The Biggest Loser does a lot to show people what is possible, but it gives people an unrealistic idea of what it is like once the cameras are off and Jillian and Bob aren’t there to scream at you anymore.
-Drew
True Beauty Episode 2 – recap, review
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009While I was unimpressed with the first episode of True Beauty, I found myself tremendously bored last night and it appeared to be the only thing on. The second episode, which seemed to center around how much everyone hates Chelsea, offered no real twists and turns and only proved to be mildly entertaining.
The show opens with reactions to Chelsea being sent to the “hall of beauty”, everyone seems hopeful that she will not return, and when she does people are as snarky as ever to her. “Drama” ensues when Julia (who will probably win) claims that Chelsea has stolen a pair of her Citizen jeans. The confrontation was pretty uneventful with Chelsea eventually giving up the jeans at the end.
The ‘challenge’ this week was to make the contestants buy an outfit, but the amazing twist was that they only had $100 for three peoples’ outfits, then the two people with the weakest outfit would be sent to the “hall of beauty” for possible elimination. Most of the people simply sweet-talked shop owners for the clothes they needed. C.J. and Ashley (and Chelsea but she didn’t participate) scammed hapless folks out of their clothes claiming it was for charity.
There was a ‘set-up’ challenge with an actor collecting money for children’s cancer research. Most of the contestants did end up donating. In the end, C.J. and Ashley were both sent to the “hall of beauty” and Ashley ended up going home. Controversy in sued when Ashley was sent home because she helped Chelsea put her outfit together. Everyone forgets that Ashley scammed people out of clothes by claiming it was for charity, and didn’t help the “bike messenger” up after his nasty spill during the “last straw” challenge.
Rife with petty confrontations, shallow people, and amusingly awful judges this episode didn’t really prove to be any more interesting than the last, but with the current “break” that most shows have taken I suppose it is better (slightly) than watching paint dry.
-Drew
True Beauty is truly beastly.
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009ABC’s show True Beauty poses the question: Can someone who is [supposedly] beautiful on the outside, be beautiful on the inside as well? Normally I wouldn’t watch something as completely silly as this but on a Monday night at 10PM what else are you going to do? The premise of the show is simple, take about a dozen people (who think they’re hot) and put them into ridiculous situations which would anger anyone, and see if they get angry. The idea is, if someone isn’t courteous, polite, patient, or intelligent enough, they aren’t a “True Beauty” but is that true?
Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, just because a woman has a perfectly symmetrical face (or lack thereof, depending on the circumstances) doesn’t mean that they are any more or less beautiful than the next woman. The folks from True Beauty were treated to a day at a SPA (which was basically a plastic surgeon’s office) where he claimed that he could scientifically assign them a beauty score between 1 – 100. The beauty score routine was basically a ploy to make the contestants feel bad about themselves so America could get a kick out of it. You know, bring them down a notch.
Before I go any further I would like to indicate that I personally believe the “doctor” that was on the show is a complete wack-job and that his scientific method is no more than his own opinion. The other problems I have with this show is, are they trying to say people who don’t have perfect bodies always have to be nice? and how exactly are they defining inner beauty? The three judges don’t look like they would know inner beauty if it came up and dropped a Xenical bomb in their laps.
A couple of scenes involving one of the male contestants “C.J.” seemed intent on trying to add a sense of realism to the surreal by having him expose (early on, no less) that he used to be the “fat kid”. “C.J.” also seems to have the biggest problem believing that the quack doctor can “scientifically” measure beauty but the “judges” were quick to silence one of the most interesting parts of the show.
The good news, friends is that 10 PM on a Monday night is just about the most buried time slot on TV, if ABC thought they had a hit on their hands True Beauty would’ve been ran at either 8 or 9 PM in the middle of the week. Also, don’t forget The Biggest Loser: Couples starts tonight on NBC.
-Drew