Almost 10 years ago, I was thrown into a production of “silence!” I played Catherine Martin, the kidnapped daughter of an American senator, whom Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb kept in a hole and hungry in the hope that the rapid weight loss was relaxing her skin enough to make a woman’s costume from her. Gumb asks: “Are you on a size 14?” While kidnapping, and the musical has a whole hoedown style song with this question like the choir.
When I played the role, I was of the same size as I am now, a 26, almost double the size of a woman’s dress deemed so fatty that her excess skin could be used as a fabric. In the tradition of double cast musical theater, I also played the corpse of Fredrica Bimmel, the Woman Gumb identifies herself happily with Agent Clarice Starling as “a big big person”.
I provide this anecdote because it is important to understand my point of view as a journalist who did not come to the new Netflix documentary “Fit for TV: the reality of the biggest loser” as an unknown person with the Macabonding NBC reality TV show that dangerous pedal, the biggest loser “provided public entertainment for permission, but as someone who has survived” Provided a shift in public permission for Vicy.
“Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser” has long been a long -term calculation for one of the most evil reality TV shows in television history. But for large people, there is no bombs revolution because the ruthless treatment and methods contrary to ethics are exposed those rooted in a system of anti-fat belief that society continues to perpetuate today.
The biggest competitors losing for failure
For those who have missed “the biggest loser” (and who have never lived in a house where the only soft thing available was that of Snackwell), it was a reality competition program that made its capital on the unlikely treatment of large people that people clashed in an extreme weight loss battle for a price of $ 250,000. Some competitors only consumed 800 calories per day and no longer tried more than 8 hours to the point of vomiting, because coaches Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels (the last of which did not participate in docuseries) bark “motivation sentences”, “I don’t care if people die on this floor, that you would make better die”.
As producer JD Roth explained, “the biggest loser” did not look for competitors who were fat and satisfied with their lives and their bodies, but people who were in a place of despair and considered the spectacle as their last hope. Those Who Defend Their Work on the Show Genuinely Believe They Were “Saving Lives,” Even Though there Were multiple contestant Hospitalizations, Reports of Permanent Damage To Their Metabolisms, Zero Guidance Once Leaving The Show, and, in the Case of Season 8 Contests Tracy Yukich joined the show in the hopes that weight loss could fix her marriage or Fix it – Almost dying due to rhabdomyolysis.
What part of asking people to spoil or build structures out of food using only their mouths to gain the chance to call their loved ones at home increases life expectancy? How does the treatment of large people as a parallel attraction by pressing them in the clothes for the deadly vision of millions of people help the results for the health of anyone? In what universe will the camera shake while a large person falls from a treadmill to imply that he “shakes the room” improves the cholesterol level of anyone?
“Is that what America thinks they are healthy and safe?” Questioned season 2 candidate, Suzanne Mendonca, who said that she would have been invited to gain weight before the show’s start in the hope that her transformation would be more dramatic for television. “The producers loved this S ***,” said Bob Harper’s screen coach. “They were like,” we want them to steal! We want the madness of all this! ” “”
Losing weight in complete safety is something that must be done gradually over time, which does not make a “good TV”. This alone should have been a sign so that the show never exists in the first place. “People love to make fun of big people,” said the competitor of season 7 Joelle Gwynn rightly so. “The biggest loser” was never health or well-being; It was an empire of $ 1 billion built on the basis of a ritual of humiliation.
The influence of the greatest loser persists today
A Savior appears in docuseries in the form of Aubrey Gordon, author, co-host of the maintenance phase of the popular podcast, and the subject of the fantastic documentary “your big friend”. She regularly called the way in which the spectacle not only harmed competitors, but also irreparably damaged the relationship of society with large people. “Nothing you do in your whole life will be celebrated as much as becoming thin,” she told the camera, a fact that I can attest to be worrying as a person who has had dramatic weight fluctuations And Pancreatic cancer survived. “The biggest loser” did not invent fatphobia, but it validated and amplified a state of mind already existing in our society: that big people are a fair game for ridicule, and ill -treatment is something that we “deserve” so as not to be thin. This is a practice that continues today, as shown in any section of comments from any video featuring a big person – including clips and the trailer for this documentation.
Ironically, as long as the spectacle and those who made sure that many Factors that determine a person’s health, not just weight. But that doesn’t matter. The damage is caused. It is not only that “the biggest loser” taught big people to feel bad about their equality, to consider the abusive treatment that we receive by a fatphobic society as a karmic remuneration, to engage in a disorderly diet or to use extreme methods if it means taking up less space in the world. He also taught millions of viewers at home to degrade big people and enjoy our dehumanization. And the most heartbreaking part of all this is that millions of people, including those who competed in the series or who made a fortune by working, still not recognizing how much damage the show caused.
“Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser” is available to broadcast on Netflix.
