So, Fox always pushes it (or so they think)… and now they have More To Love.
It’s the Bachelor, only average waist size.
Blah.
Not so strangely, the show is just as sexist as other reality competition shows. The stereotypes are fast at work within the first 10 minutes of this show.
A) The main guy is BORING. he’s out of shape, a real estate dude and BORING.
B) The main guy is boring and UNATTRACTIVE.
C) The main guy is boring and unattractive and yet in a POSITION OF POWER (keys to fame and fortune for the contestants).
So, the dynamic of competition (American social+reality TV competition) is in place.
Will this be successful?
No. There are some obvious advertising relationships….. but….. the cliche set up + less marketable people makes sure this is nothing more than a novelty.
Oh, and by the way boring and unattractive people, regardless of size, are BORING and UNATTRACTIVE.
What’s more fun to consider is how this was sold into management. Who pitched this? How did they pitch this?
This is very different than Biggest Loser. Biggest Loser has obvious advertisers that are aspirational and it is not condescending.
Face it, as much as reality TV is supposedly about real people, it’s not about real people. Real people have warts, sweat on camera, hate, snort, fart, snore…. basically they make bad television. We all want HEROES and LOVERS and MYTH and ASPIRATION… coming through our TV sets…. or do we?
So anything that claims to be Real People when it clearly isn’t and it doesn’t present a better myth is going to fail sooner…….. rather than later.
Hey Russ,
I agree. While it’s nice to see women on TV that aren’t an average of a size 2 (not that there’s anything wrong with being a size 2, it’s just that the size 2s are waaaay proportionally overrespresented in TVs, movies, musics, etc), from a female perspective, the desperation of this crew was frankly eyerolling.
As a woman who is decidedly bigger than a size 2, I know for a fact that while there *are* many arses out there that treat my kind of woman like we’re invisible, or a desperate animal to be preyed on and discarded, *these aren’t the men we should be going out with in the first place*. There are plenty of guys who like women who are larger than a size 2 (even, sarcastic gasp, larger than a size 20!).
And they don’t have to be cheesy, boring, and unattractive, either. Or necessarily fat people themselves (though they could be, whatever). Or kind of frankly creepy and manipulative, like the d00d from this More To Love show (he “reminded” one girl that he would “need to cut” five girls, then asked her for a kiss. She was obviously not ready to kiss this d00d, but *did it anyway*).
I know many fat women who have had wonderfully fulfilling, sexy, sparkling, passionate, etc relationships with people who found them interesting and attractive. I think it’s more a function of not using your body type, which is currently unpopular but for a long time was much closer to the definition of female beauty than our current definition, as a crutch. So some d00d thinks you fugly? How does that matter if you know it isn’t true? Personal preferences don’t always match up. I’ve heard nasty things said by d00ds about women they think are “too skinny” and “need some meat on their bones” (usually by this they mean ‘bigger breasts’). So if you are a thin girl without ginormous knockers? Don’t try to date the guys who are just about ginormous knockers on thin women. It will end in heartache, I guarundumtee you.
While it is true that our current culture pushes the idea that female beauty comes in necessarily smaller packages, it’s just a current definition that will change. And usually when a definition goes in one direction to the extreme, it tends to swing back a bit. Though “More to Love” is a cheesy show in the traditional of unrealistic reality TV, to me it’s a very early sign of the swingback. Hey, fat women are actually getting on TV in a way where the *reducing* of their fat isn’t the main topic of the show.
It might be a small win, but I’ll take it.