Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Don't get mad, get skinny

Finally a show with an important message: It's not okay to be fat.
My reality shows are back. Listen to me, I'm like an old lady with soap operas. I can't help it, I get great enjoyment from a few reality shows. With Real World and Road Rules sucking ass for the past 3 years, I've moved on to a couple others. Wife Swap is one of my favorites, for obvious reasons, but The Biggest Loser is even better. Last year was unbelievable. Extremely obese individuals on two teams competing against each other to lose weight amidst grueling challenges and dietary temptations. The 3 finalists lost like 100 pounds each. I always say I hate fat people but thats a generalization. Fat people who try hard to get skinny are great.

Namesake
Okay, the show is called "The Biggest Loser." Yes we've heard it so much now that it might not sink in just what that means. It was obviously chosen for its double meaning. The people at NBC will hide behind the fact that it means the person who loses the most weight. But if that were simply the case then they could have named it anything that didn't have two meanings. Alas, it does have two meanings, and NBC knows full well what that other meaning is: the BIGGEST.....LOSER....biggest alluding to fattest....loser alluding to loseriest. The fact that they chose this title for both meanings is evident throughout the show. Caroline Rhea, the host, insists that before the voting off process team members confer to decide "who is weighing you down." Cmon! They're fat! I know it, you know it. Are all the double entendres necessary? Is it necessary that when someone gets voted off a refrigerator filled with pastries with their name on it is shut-off? They're fat but at least they're trying!

Speaking of fat...
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Caroline Rhea, get your fat ass on that scale. Within the last few years she's really packed on some winter weight yet shes the one delivering all the thinly veiled fat jokes. Does she host this show to make herself feel better about her own weight gain? Next to them shes hot, I guess....well not really, she still looks like Miss Piggy to me.

Camera work
Spliced throughout the show are brief shots of parts of the contestants' bodies. It's just funny to me to imagine the cameraman's job. There he is filming a dialogue or exercise, and then something catches his eye and zooms in on some excessive backfat or an unusually large sweat stain. Even better must be when the editor is going over hundreds of hours of footage and says, "In between the dinner and the weigh-in, let's use the close-up ass shot of the Chinese girl."

A fat Chinese girl?
Yep, one of the contestants is an obese Chinese girl...or Asian, or something. And she was not shy during the last meal pig-out before the show started, eating everything in sight. I didn't think Asian women got fat, though, its really a strange image. The best part is her audition tape: "I'm a 23 year old med student and I really want to be on the show because between my work and my kids I really don't have any time for myself." Haha, really? Sure looks like you've indulged in yourself plenty. I'd say it takes plenty of time to oneself to get over 250 pounds. I'm pretty sure those Big Macs didn't eat themselves.

And you think you procrastinate
It's a way of life for anyone under 25, and I don't want to know anyone who gets right down to work. Those of us who went to college are used to the usual distractions: solitare, snood, compulsively checking fantasy stats, etc. But you know you're in trouble when you're not even enjoying your distraction. Like the 6th game of solitare and the 2nd episode of the Golden Girls. Well a good friend of mine has blown that out of the water. She claimed she wasn't getting her work done because she was watching Mannequin...on DVD! Not half-watching on comedy central, no, this girl actually went out of her way to put this movie on. And how did she even own it? It's not like its a tape and she can claim she had it after it came out. I can't even keep thinking about it, its giving me a headache. But I guess it gives you a good way to quantify your level of aversion to the work: "would you say you're playing-solitare procrastinating or you're watching-Mannequin-on-DVD procrastinating?"

Kids, kids, kids.
Everyone has a different relationship with their parents. Some of you tell your parents every detail of your life like they're your best friends, and some of you are straight. If you want your mom and dad knowing all your intimate secrets, I think its a little creepy, but its your life. But you have to realize that you're not the only one who is affected when you choose to make your parents your personal diary. Everytime you go to them with a sob story about a cheating girlfriend or your latest pregnancy scare, you're selling someone else out. Just because it works for you to tell your parents how wasted you get does not mean that it works for me for you to tell your parents how wasted I get. I know we're 23 but just because we can drink with our parents doesn't mean they really think we can handle it. So do us all a favor and don't gossip with your parents, just get friends.

AC revisited
One last thing about Atlantic City. I heard a very quick and histerical story about my friend Kristen's last trip to AC. I think she has a phobia about posting so she IMed it to me and it went something like this: "Last time I was in AC there was a 'Playboy' slot machine and an 80 year old man was kissing and humping the pictures of the girls on it." I should let this genius speak for itself, but I can't! I have so many questions! How do you hump a slot machine? Was it like thrusting or more like grinding? How did this get broken up? I can't even imagine the kissing... I wish I ran into this old guy when I was down there, he sounds like fun.

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