The list of “Fat TV” shows keeps on growing
A&E's "Heavy" is the latest show to join the Fat TV genre.
Reality TV is so passé.
Ladies and gentlemen, make room for Fat TV.
Granted, this post has been a long time coming, but as usual, the geniuses over at Jezebel finally prompted me to write it.
Yesterday, they blogged about the new A&E show, Heavy, which, unlike other shows, doesn’t involve competitions, makeovers, or the alarming brutality of Jillian Michaels. It’s simply a “docudrama” on people struggling with obesity.
As Dodai at Jezebel puts it, “Do we really need yet another show that reinforces the idea that the most important thing about fat people is not that they’re people, but that they’re fat?”
I don’t know — you tell me. Here is at least a partial list of the fat-centric shows that have recently filled up TV time slots: Huge, More To Love, The Biggest Loser, Mike & Molly, Ruby, Drop Dead Diva, I Used to Be Fat, Dance Your Ass Off, and of course, the upcoming plus-sized version of The Bad Girl’s Club.
In 2009, The F-Word.org cited a television study that found, “while some 60 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, only 24 percent of male characters and 13 percent of female characters were fat. And the roles are as token as the actors, especially for women and even more starkly, for black women. Fat characters are more likely to be in minor roles, less likely to be involved in romantic relationships, have fewer positive interactions than thin characters, and were often made the butt of jokes.” Continue reading
ABC Family’s “Huge” may surprise you
Don't let that embarrassed look fool you. Nikki Blonsky plays it fierce in "Huge."
As promised, I tuned into Monday night’s series premiere of “Huge.” And despite all my powers of positive thinking (It’s written by Winnie Holzman! It stars a Golden Globe-nominated actress! It couldn’t be worse than anything else aired on ABC Family!), I was skeptical.
I mean, seriously? Overweight teenagers don’t feel ostracized enough? Now they need to be specifically segregated in a prime-time melodrama that could potentially incite audiences to laugh at, not with, the central characters?
Okay, so maybe my snap judgments shouldn’t come from a place jaded by years of destructive media consumption.
“Huge” isn’t necessarily what I thought it would be. Sure, it centers on the lives of teens and staffers at a weight-loss camp. And yes, the opening scene does involve Nikki Blonsky in a grandiose burlesque, revealing her (gasp!) cellulite in all its swimsuit-clad glory. But whatever fears I had of the show poking fun at the plus-size characters were essentially eliminated by the end of the hour. Continue reading
ABC Family premieres weight-loss comedy/drama “Huge” next week
Nikki Blonsky stars in ABC Family's "Huge"
ABC Family will surely be stirring up controversy next week (this is nothing new to the network; have you seen “The Secret Life of the American Teenager“?!) when it premieres the new comedy/drama “Huge” starring Hairspray‘s Nikki Blonsky.
The show centers on Blonsky’s character, Willamena, a rebellious teen banished to weight-loss camp by her parents.
Based on Sasha Paley’s book of the same name, “Huge” follows the lives of the campers and staff as they (according to the official ABC web site), “look beneath the surface to discover their true selves and the truth about each other.”
Though my schmaltz detector tends to go off any time a show explores teens exploring themselves (in the spiritual sense, not in the American Pie sense), “Huge” has some great things going for it.