Jillian Michaels, Fat Shaming and Attitudes Around the "Obesity Epidemic"

Some of the women I work with are big fans of the reality T.V. competition "The Biggest Loser." The show, if you're unfamiliar with it, takes overweight contestants, generally with tragic personal tales of loss or abuse, and motivates them through competitions to lose weight for a cash prize. Their methods on the ranch are intense and based around rigorous diet and exercise and a lot of emotional purging and largely negative reinforcement.

Recently NBC gave Jillian Michaels, one of the shows' hosts and trainers, a show all of her own where she visits overweight families across America for a week and formulates action plans for them to live a more healthy lifestyle. At least, that's what the intention of the show is claimed to be. After sitting through an episode of the show, and having read many of the follow up horror story accounts of contestants on The Biggest Loser, I think that what Michaels does is more about size than health and is more about effective and profitable television than personal and familial growth.

Michaels's attitudes around the people that she works with on these shows is condescending and militant. She screams at them as they are working out, telling them they've been killing themselves for all this time and repeatedly asking them don't they want to be skinny, don't they want to be healthy. She repeatedly without problem equates health with thinness, an attitude that has manifested itself so deeply in contemporary American culture that many people don't see a problem with it at all. Her attitudes about fat and about the contestants have also been illustrated through press interviews.



The episode of the show that I watched is very effectively recapped in the AV Club post here. The episode ended with the family losing weight before the daughter's wedding, providing the producers with an opportunity to make a charitable gesture in financing this heteronormative ceremonious right of passage, and providing them with an accompanying institution to justify the success of the process that they've all gone through, and that viewers have witnessed. My heart is warmed.

Never mind the fact that the show promotes widely problematic attitudes of fast easy results and doesn't address the greater systemic issues of why our country is so fat, and doesn't address our relentless panic around that alleged epidemic. An issue the show does address, but perhaps inadequately, is the idea of our cultural attitudes about food being linked to our inability to communicate with one another within our sociological units, particularly the family. If you can't hold a conversation with a group of people, why not bring an element into play that will facilitate some kind of action and fill the time? Why not just eat? Though I honestly feel that this is an oversimplification of the problem.

What Jillian Michaels and her widespread success illustrate is the perversely unhealthy attitudes around food, weight and body image that we practice as a culture. Fatshionista wrote a piece (here) that expresses the idea of how Michaels, through this process, becomes a savior to these people, a savior who ultimately abandons them as to further her career and her brand and the brand of the show, and then they are left at risk of feeling more hopeless than they did to begin with. This makes sense to me. As does the fact that contestants on Biggest Loser have reported how the show's methods were so unhealthy that in certain instances they were so dehydrated they were peeing blood (here) or developing serious eating disorders (here).

We can't allow ourselves to justify the ineffective and destructive attitudes and methods of competition-based reality television shows and the personalities birthed through them because of deeply seeded panic we have as a culture around fat people. If you're worried about obesity, why not examine the way food is made, marketed and manufactured throughout this country? Why not look at how cities are designed furthering the car-centric layout we've thoughtlessly created and perpetuated? Why not examine how advertisers create unrealistic representations of people that leave us all hating our bodies and suffering from destructive feelings of inadequacy? Losing it with Jillian Michaels is not about solving the obesity crisis. It's about salvaging a false sense of control through force that is so tempting to us in a society that is driven on contempt for ourselves but faith in the systems that govern us and dictate our perceptions of reality.

Project Mayhem

This Thursday the finale of the initially controversial Season 6 of Project Runway will be on my TV on the Lifetime Network, but I will be watching it not with eager anticipation as I have runway shows in the past, but merely out of devotion to the concept of the show and the inspiration and art that I've seen it is capable of harnessing. This season though, has indisputably disappointed me and all runway viewers with whom I've discussed it, and I hope that, as promised by Nina Garcia, Season 7 will have rectified the errors that have made this season so dull and uninspiring.

To start, the most commonly noted shortcomings of this season have been the inconsistency of the judging panels and the lackluster results from challenges coming from the lackluster nature of the challenges themselves. Sensible explanations have been given for the issue of the judges but mostly the problem was the show's relocation to Los Angeles made it difficult for Michael Kors and Nina Garcia to regularly attend judging panels, as their primary businesses are located in New York. Frankly, I'm not sure why they moved the show in the first place. If we learned anything from the snooze-fest that was the 2008 VMA's, it's that things are always better in NY than in LA, and that goes for reality television both competition based and otherwise. Season 7's in NY, so check on that problem.

In terms of the challenges, to me, the only ones that demanded the exceptional creativity demonstrated in seasons past were the newspaper challenge and (MAYBE) the divorcee wedding dress challenge. Literally every other challenge could have been shortened to be, "Make a pretty dress," and then you through the Bob Mackie at them and tell them it has to be sequined and fabulously tacky, and you get that slick feathered black number that Carrol Hannah made, like, come on, to use the lexicon of the show, it felt a little safe for the challenge.

But that seemed to be what the producers and the judges were going for throughout the season. The designers who seemed to have a particularly innovative or experimental aesthetic were very quickly auf'ed and we were left with a bunch of vanilla collections you could most successfully market at Target.

Irina, Althea and Carol Hannah, what do they have in common? They're all designers who are going to Bryant Park who if cast in a different season never would have stood a chance. Irina at least gave the editors a storyline to work with by positioning her as the bitch. But that really got tired when you realized her bitchiness was generally harmless and reserved for the interview room. This feels a good place to transition from the mass market stylings of this season to the personalities and the judges' and editors' reactions to them.

Did anyone for a minute believe that there was any potential romance between Carol Hannah and "man's man" Logan? No. Didn't think so. Go out and change the tires on your pick-up man's man and stop making monstrously tasteless or inexpressibly bland looks that you somehow get away with even over more talented designers. Plus the fact that they played that up so much while having ignored homo-relationships in past seasons demonstrates the show's latent and perhaps unexpected heteronormativity.

Next thing, WHAT THE FUCK IS HEIDI'S BEEF WITH GORDANA?! Yeah, okay, what she made for the Christina Aguilera/Bob Mackie challenge was a bit of an embarrassment construction wise, but it was hardly the most mortifying of the season and did not warrant the berating she received from Frau Klum, plus the undercutting Gordana got when she was announced the winner of the divorcee challenge. Is it an ageism that makes Heidi harbor such resentment for Gordana? I don't know. But I enjoyed her perspective and appreciated her not beating us over the head with her humble upbringings a la Cry-stopher. Tom and Lorenzo at Project Rungay did a great interview with her you can read here. The episode where the judges' vendetta against Gordana was most apparent was in the final episode where they didn't even name a winner of the Getty Museum challenge, pretty clearly, because it would have been her but they couldn't justify awarding her with that and not sending her to Bryant Park. Whatever.

Their auf'ing of Gordana was one of several auf'ings that I was more than a little perturbed about. My fury has actually grown incrementally since their dismissal of Malvin, the soft-spoken, admittedly pretentious, but into conceptual andorogony New Yorker whose chicken egg was, truthfully, bizarre ad unflattering. But it only annoyed me so much because it was very evident at that point that Mitchell lacked the technical skill to succeed in the PR setting and was not watchable enough of a personality to justify their keeping him. I was also angered and saddened by their auf'ing of Epperson over pretty-boy man's man Logan, which was a poor decision I feel like, and perhaps again resultant from an ageist attitude, and I was really annoyed by their auf'ing of Ra'mon over Louise.

A lot of these annoyed me so much because of the aforementioned issue of the inconsistency on the judging panel. It puts the players at a clear disadvantage because it doesn't give them sufficient time to tailor their individual aesthetics to the judges' tastes, since those tastes are constantly changing, and it doesn't give them the benefit of the judges seeing week by week what the contestants are cumulatively capable of. Many of the blogs I read on the show are saying that these problems swayed the results towards a Real World demograph amongst the three finalists and I'd say that's an accurate assessment. You have three attractive, young girls who don't seem to push the envelope in their designs or their personalities but are generally likable but probably forgettable.

Lastly, and, maybe this should have been sooner because, this element was so endlessly irritating, was the overstatement of the models' significance throughout this season. The models' role in Project Runway was always an important one, but it's importance was anecdotal, circumstantial and tended to be arbitrary, just like the function of models in high fashion on a runway. To say that viewers and contestants did not take the models into consideration is certainly a fallacy but this season it was as if they were nearly as important as the designers themselves, having a challenge catered entirely towards their taste and a companion series following every episode. Maybe it was Lifetime trying to squeeze every second of lucrative ad time from the highly watched series, but I have yet to meet someone who is actually attached to any of the models or their personalities.

I do hope that Season 7 is less dissapointing because Project Runway does have an extremely entertaining formula that makes viewers feel like a part of an industrial sphere that has historically been regarded as distant and elite, but I think that if the show continues to cater towards the aesthetic tastes of the average American it'll lose a core of its viewership. Then again I'm no entertainment shaman. So I'll just say that if nothing else, I'd quit watching it!

She's Bringing Smizing Back

Tyra’s got a few more tricks up her sleeve, doing the same shit over and over again, cycle after cycle, but always finding innovative presentations for the same tired formula. And you know what? I love it. So I know I haven’t been super on top of my posting and for that I apologize. But I have been diligently following this cycle and did enjoy last Wednesday the deconstructive presentation of the brilliance of Tyra’s SMIZE! Look, she even taught Larry King to do it!



Early in last week’s episode the girls were shocked and appalled to find out that one of them would be eliminated after meeting with Nigel and the head of Wilhelmina Models, with whom they will be awarded a contract if they become America’s Next Top Model. So already, less than ten-minutes into the episode, Bambi-eyed Rachel got the ax for not being charismatic enough and was sent home without the standard shallow and cliché words of wisdom adieu bid from Tyra, their model mommy.

The remaining girls quickly got over the loss and were brought to their next challenge where they were introduced to Super Smize (which was really just Tyra in a silvery jumpsuit and cape glaring into the camera and calling it smiling of sorts.) They then were put into unflattering neon jumpsuits, reminiscent of those oompa loompa outfits from the Mike TV song, and challenged in Tyra’s Fortress of Fierceness in pairs over who had the best Smize. Of course that designation was determined by Tyra and was perceived by me to mostly be arbitrary, but really you don’t watch the show for the authenticity factor.

The winners of said challenge were treated to a fancy dinner with the CEO of Wilhelmina and the losers were their dishwashers, perhaps a reminder of the painful possibilities if they continue to fail in this competition, GASP, real people labor!

The next day they were told that their challenge would be posing nude on a horse with a jockey. Some of them, notably the sweetly southern simpleton Laura, were adorably delighted by this prospect, “I just like nudity!” (LOVE HER!!!). Bianca, who has been edited to play the role of the token bitch, was put into a blonde wig, obviously as an instigator for her volatile nature, and my sister compared her masculine bone-structure and full lips juxtaposed with the flowing blonde hair to Ru Paul, which apparently Jay realized to, as he referentially called her a tranny, comparing her photo to Isis, the trans contestant from Cycle 11.

Whatever though, at the end of the episode, Bianca was again in the bottom two with the gimpy Courtney who was sent home for having given up during her shoot but still given Tyra’s good blessing, “You have a lot of fight in you.” Other good things included LC as a guest judge, which I really didn’t hate, mostly because she really liked LuLu, who happens to be my fav (she referred to her photo as “sweet and natural”), we learned that Jennifer suffers from a ptosis of the eye, basically a lazy eye, which I anticipate will lead to her inevitable demise, and we learned that when models are told to think of something that gives them a strong emotional response and can motivate them to smize, answers are likely to include beef noodles, sheet cake, and pepperoni pizza. Way to shatter those preconceived notions Tyra.

It's Been Awhile

Recently been behind on my posting but I think that the wait is all worthwhile with big things having recently happened like, oh, I don't know, THE TWO FUCKIN HOUR PREMIERE OF ANTM CYCLE 13!



Tyra Tyra, you've gone and done it again, manipulated feminist discourse to appear to be pushing the envelope and redefining what conventional beauty is when really you just are investing in smaller envelopes by only letting girls 5'7 and under audition (le petit cycle). Oh, and eliminating any already limited space for plus sized contestants (cause are you really gonna want a 2x4 waddling down the runway--let's be real).

Last night's premiere was, well, two hours of Tyra, so I'm mostly gonna talk about the competition as it stands and mostly the second half of the premiere, because honestly aside for Jaslene no girls ever called for casting and sent home without living in the house goes on to do much of anything with the show or the biz, which Tyra made particularly clear sending them off basically telling them, "Well this sucks 'cause next cycle were going back to the leggy ladies and no agency will bother with you, so, I don't know, go try and be in a commercial or something, SEE YA!"

I think that the element of their height will add significantly to ther perceived sense of agony come all of their elimination because like TLC famed Matt and Amy will tell you, they're little people in a big world (as a side note this short thing could yield some hilarious guest judges--I'm gonna think of that more)!

Tyra pissed me off when cutting down to the final 14 by casting Amber, straw-hatted Jesus freak, but who then mysteriously had to go home after a commercial break (bummer). I'm not sure about that girl, either she was a conspicuous plant who just couldn't make that bit funny, or she was a complete psychopath. Regardless, her departure gave Queens girl Lisa (who is too underwhelming to represent any burrough, even Queens--hell, especially Queens) a second chance.

The house itself, like the first photo shoot, plays up the idea of their petit-statures, looking like its designers drew inspiration from Candy Land, the set of Care Bears and Gymboree. The dynamic within the house seems a little premature to judge, though some girls have steaked types for themselves.

Bloody eye-ball chick, aka Nicole, is a heady outsider with a quiet edge on the competition with her sharp facial angles and confidence in front of the camera. But her pseudo Emersonian demeanor comes across as unjustifiable elitism and apathy. I reasonably forsee a "You have got to make us know you want this" moment with Tyra at panel.

Bianca is a contestant who I initially loved and actually made me tear up during her initial panel with Tyra, Jay and J, talking about reclaiming her identity from an abusive relationship by cutting her hair off and being more true to herself. Loves it. Obvi. But then when they moved in and throughout their Ty-overs (what make overs are now called) and their first shoot she came across as arrogant and ungrateful. Her being in the bottom two with the personality-less Lisa I imagine shot her back into shape and let her know just how much it'd fucking suck to peace.

I was pissed when Lisa went home strictly because I didn't consider her a legitimate contestant to begin with. When the men i white coats came for Amber they snatched Lisa back in and Tyra's acting all as if she was the first one on her mind. Whatever. She sucked, she's gone now.

Girls I love, Laura, a real freagin country girl with the twang and to match and tales of her Grandma sewing her clothes and her days of castrating cows, bah, such a type this one, I love it, so endearing and I can't even stand it, plus she's got waterworks, she cries everytime Tyra opens her mouth, I donno, I like that, it's like a testament to her simplicity.

I also way into Kara for some eason, I do tend to favor the androgynous types and that might be it, but there's totally something about her not all who wander are lost, but I totally know that I can afford that attitude attitude is drawing me to her, who knows.

Then my obvious favorite LuLu, Brooklynite lesbian of color, an ANTM first, I seriously felt a little embarassed, though mostly a little delighted, when I had the same queened-out reaction as Miss J to her coming-out to the panel.

I could go on for more but the important things to take home from the premiere are as follows: shorty fire burning on the runway, recurring conversations about elongating your body, the usual talk of having overcome obstacles, a note absence of a supermodel judge aside from Tyra, and the usual lunacy that is ANTM---just with a few inches shaved off (we ARE in a RECESSION people!).

"She's a Muppet Baby..."

I have a total confession that, honestly, I'm not even a little embarassed about making. I think that The Rachel Zoe Project is both entertaining and quality television. Rachel gallivanting around saying so much, while not really saying anything at all, and petrifying everyone that encounters her with her unintelligible barks of commands, it's quality, bananas, I'm telling you.

I totally admit though that Zoe as a media cultural driving force has questionable approaches and viewpoints, particularly dealing with the issue of weight, but really, it's reality tv, it's not like Tyra is as progressive and sensitive as she pretends to be. They're television characters. They're a reflection of the dominant values of the manstream media and its audience.

Most importantly, everyone knows, the best low brow reality television, births the best parodies:



She is shutting it down...like a rave.