Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Is fat the new gay?




Luke is the featured bachelor on "More to Love" . Photo by Fox.com

Is it me, or are has Hollywood finally discovered that not everyone is meant to be a size 2?
We've had shows like "The Biggest Loser" on TV for a while, but this summer brings us two more entries in the big and beautiful category.

"Dance Your Ass Off" highlights big people dancing in a ballroom dance contest. Think "Dancing With the Stars" with unknowns and plus sized people.

"More to Love" is basically "The Bachelor" with overweight people.
The problem with this is this, Hollywood goes in cycles. A few years ago, gays were all the rage as shows like "Queer as Folk" and "Queer Eye" and then people got bored and we moved on.

Now, we seem to be embracing fat people as entertainment. And that, I think is wrong.

If the shows are trying to teach us that "Hey, fat people are people too" then they are going about it the wrong way.
You can totally hear the pitches for these shows "Hey! Let's do 'The Bachelor' with fat people!" or "Hey, let's do DWTS with fat people."

I'd be curious to see if America is embracing these shows or if they are bored. The next few weeks will tell.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

"16 and Pregnant" the finale



Meet Whitney and Owen. Whitney is one of the subjects of "16 and Pregnant" on MTV. Photo by MTV.com

For the past five weeks, I've had a date with MTV. I haven't watched MTV in a long time (you know, back when they actually played VIDEOS) but I digress. Then I stumbled on this show "16 and pregnant" and I haven't been able to turn away since!

I feel guilty because this are real life situation, but it's like crack. I can't take just one hit. Over the past few weeks we've watched the destruction of Maci and Ryan's relationship. We've watched Farrah duke it out with her mom. We've watched Amber and her older boyfriend Gary mature into loving parents. We watched Ebony's dreams about joining the Air Force come crashing down, only to watch her boyfriend (now husband) get to live his dream of entering the Air Force while she has to stay home with the baby.

And last week, we met Whitney, who is 16 but seemed like 12. I think her episode was the most tragic of all with her, her boyfriend Weston, her mom (who was pregnant too) and her mom's boyfriend all living in her Grandma's (affectionally called Meemaw) all living into a double wide. (cue music from "Deliverance" now).

While clearly MTV ripped of "Juno" I think they ARE doing a service to their audience. Pregnancy isn't cute. It isn't Hollywood and babies aren't magically quiet all the time. They need care. They need love. They need ADULTS to take care of them.

Tonight's episode had Catelynn and Tyler trying to do the adult thing by giving the baby up for adoption. However, their parents want the teens to KEEP the baby. C and T's situation is more complex because both of their parents have had hard times. Tyler's dad has been in jail and Catelynn's mom flakes (I'm betting it's meth) and so they are grappling with what to do. That being said, catch this on the reruns because it's worth it.

I'm hoping that some teens will think twice before having unsafe sex.