Q&A Friday!

There’s only one question this week, which doesn’t really surprise me (you know, the economy). But it’s an important one – one I have asked myself very recently and one that I presume many of you will be asking yourselves in the coming months. And it is this:

Did you see the commercial for “More to Love”? If so, WTF?

- Michelle

For those of you who weren’t fortunate enough to catch it, here you go:

(Insert sound of me trying to tip-toe away from the computer while everyone was distracted.)

Oh, hey. I was just going to grab something from the kitchen. Totally not trying to dodge this sociological IED. Not me. In fact, everyone’s in luck because I’m wearing my Yikes protective panty liner today. So here we go.

First of all, who’s the blabbermouth that clued in upper management to the fact that reality TV shows skew their casting towards skinny people? Clearly someone dropped the ball, because I don’t know about you but I was happy to let sleeping dogs lie, like when a baby is born in a movie and they hand the mom a baby covered in birth goo and you know it’s not a real newborn baby because of the casting process (sonogram headshots?) plus the fact that SAG would be all like, “But he hasn’t even filled out the paperwork yet!” Point being, I thought this was just one of those things we all turned a blind eye to. Guess not.

Where to go from here? Well first let’s get one thing straight: The show markets itself as a plus-sized dating game. So yes, perhaps the politically correct way to discuss this would be “normal weight people” or “people right in the meaty (yikes) part of the curve in terms of the average weight of Americans aged 20-34.” And for what it’s worth, I personally believe that people come in all shapes and sizes and that some are too big and some are too small and that some are just right. But the show proclaims it has found twenty “curvy” women to vie for the affection of a "single guy with a big waist and an even bigger heart.” (Whoops! Time to change that Yikes panty liner.)

I, for one, am happy to skip the righteous indignation part of being like, “Are they allowed to drink from the same water fountains as the skinny people?” If I’m not mistaken, a pretty big chunk of the entertainment industry has been set aside for “skinny, pretty people doing skinny, pretty things” for the past 80 years, give or take. And it seems to have worked out well, if by well you mean that every year one of the most watched shows on television is the one where we give them awards for all those pretty, skinny things they’ve been doing for the past year.

So is it a little weird (morally speaking) that we need a whole separate show for overweight people to find love? Yes. Shouldn’t we just be able to have one show full of overweight and underweight and dumb and smart and successful and homeless people so we can peel away these layers of artificiality and hang out by the pool showing off out AWESOME PERSONALITIES? Sure. Would it work?

Honestly, what I’m most worried about is the show’s supposed “inspirational” factor. I don’t watch The Bachelor to be inspired. I watch it to be amazed by man’s potential for absurdity. In fact, if you polled every single person who watches The Bachelor, I’m pretty sure none of them (save the guy in Jersey who is flirting with survey taker) would say that watching The Bachelor inspires them to be a better person. So here’s a question: What’s so much more inspiring about watching fat people fall in love? Are they inherently unlovable? Are they like Sisyphus, rolling a giant ball of unrequited love up the side of a mountain, only to be foiled every time? And most important, when someone on the show says something stupid, will it be hidden from the camera to preserve the “inspirational” character of the show? You know, because they already have so much on their plate? (Yikes! I can’t help it.)

Unfortunately, I may never find out. When Brooke and I saw the commercial together the other night, she immediately noticed that diabetes glaze in my eye and immediately yelled, “NO!” like I was a dog with my head in the trash. So in all likelihood, I won’t be around to find out how the whole “fat people deserve love, too” theme plays out.

Although one thing’s for sure – there won’t be nearly as much “running and jumping into the guy’s arms and spinning around.”

Yikes! Went there.

(Think you’ve got what it takes to have a question? Email me at redactedblog@gmail.com.)