Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Huge - Fat friendly TV???

Nowhere is our culture's insanity over weight more obvious than television. When I first saw ad's for the new TV series Huge (ABC Family, Monday nights). I felt my antennae go up. Would this be a show that celebrates diversity, or just a fictionalized version of The Biggest Loser?

The jury is still out on that one.

Watching the first episode, I loved Willamina's (Nikki Blonski) refusal to be bullied into self-hatred. Yet her young resolve to love the body she has seems more rooted in rebellion and anger than grounded in real self-love. I don't know if this is a bad thing. After all, the path to self-love and self-acceptance at any size is rarely a straight line. I know a few very mature adults, even some card-carrying members of NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance), who have struggled with self-acceptance.

The camp setting of the show provides a good microcosm of the pressures we face in this culture to conform - if not to thinness, then at least to self-contempt for failing to conform to that ideal. The "veterans" in the camp are quick to let Amber (Hayley Hasselhoff) know that she can have any guy at the camp, by virtue of the fact that she is not AS fat as some of the others.

This is a pressure that many of us know and feel, regardless of our age, our size, our sexual orientation, even our marital status. Looking "hot" or sexy (which in our culture means thin) is equated with having social status. Thinness promises a sense of belonging and value - among the most basic of human needs. Thinness promises a shield from humiliation - explored in this show when the seam in Amber's shorts split.

The question now is, will the show honor size diversity? Or will the campers (and our poor psyches along with theirs) succumb to the shame doled out by the Nazi exercise counselor?

I'd love to hear your feedback on this one. Have you seen the show? What are your thoughts?