When I was a kid back before the Dawn of Time, Mother and I used to watch an afternoon show called “Queen for a Day.” Every weekday, a series of sad, doughy, exhausted women in worn-out shoes and faded house dresses vied for that coveted title by exposing to the American public the full contents of their grim, dreary lives.
Too many children, too many bills, major illnesses, absent husbands, broken cars, personal disasters — each story brought new gasps from the studio audience. These poor creatures were then judged, I recall, by some sort of applause-o-meter, and each day a new winner was crowned with a tiara and a velvet cape and given an assortment of new appliances and other trinkets to try to make up for their sad circumstances.
It was absolutely ghastly. The only thing worse than being a loser on “Queen for a Day” was being the winner. It was social voyeurism on a national scale, and I now recognize that the main emotion that I felt while watching that show was guilt. Their suffering was my entertainment. Whatever became of those poor souls and their grubby, underfed children?
I have the same uneasy-between-the-shoulder-blades feeling about The Biggest Loser. NBC — and a lot of networks with similar reality programs — have made millions of dollars exploiting the misery and longing for normalcy of the more-than-just-obese. These truly brave people put their egos, health and sometimes their personal safety on the line to satisfy the demands of producers who are after just a few more percentage points in the ratings.
I wince listening to them berate themselves and their former lives, and I’ve wondered how successful the winners have been at keeping off the weight once outside that hermetically sealed POW camp that masquerades as a health club.
The NYTimes over the weekend had a great article summing up the allure of TBL and its sister shows:
Before-and-after television needs a deep reserve of misery, and particularly on weight-loss shows the “before” returns in rhythmic waves of humiliation and self-loathing… The lows drop ever more excruciatingly downward before rising up in a frenzy of exertion, deprivation, extensive weight loss and a new life…
These fat-reduction spectacles are embedded in a mixed message that mirrors a broader cultural clash of appearance and appetite — and our obsession with both. Against a loop of talk shows and made-for-TV dramas about eating disorders, Americans are goaded into ever more drastic and extreme expectations of physical perfection on prime time, while their path is mined with Double Croissan’wich specials at Burger King and Olive Garden “Tour of Italy” triptychs (lasagna, chicken parmigiana and fettuccine Alfredo)…
These plus-size transformations are spellbinding, admirable and even enviable, but they are also teases, making impossible transformations seem just a commitment away. The lonely, self-hating journey of weight loss is turned into an exhilarating and emotionally fulfilling team sport. These programs also dismay advocates from [fat advocacy] groups … who complain that they frame obesity as a character issue or a public-health menace and further stigmatize those who do not conform.
As the Times puts it, TBL “selects alarmingly overweight people and puts them through a Herculean diet and exercise regimen” that few of us out here in the real world would be able — or even want — to duplicate. That some of them who are bounced from the show actually do continue to lose at that unhealthy rate and return to the show is proof of their desperation.
I even object to the ambiguity of the title. Are the biggest losers the winners, or the ones who get voted off? Who really wins in this kind of scenario?
NBC, I suppose. I just hope that, sometime in the not-so-distant future, we’ll look back at this kind of epic, high-definition voyeurism and cringe at the inhumanity of it.
August 25, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I remember Queen for a Day too. And though I have never seen The Biggest Losers I know the kind of program you are talking about. Unfortunately, reality TV is cheap TV, and no one at NBC cares if it is inhumane while there are contestants lining up to participate (this is their one big chance, right?), companies willing to buy ad space, and millions of voyeurs indulging their prurient interests by watching.
I’ve been trying to sell my house for two years and became addicted to UK property tele, and I know from personal experience that everyone who gets a chance to participate thinks they might just win the lottery. The advance crew for the most popular show suddenly arrived to look around my house. Alas, they decided not to film it, but I am in no doubt that I would be a lot richer now if they had, even though they certainly would have said on national television that I was bound to be desperate.
My addiction, however, couldn’t stomach Extreme Makeover Home Edition an American import aired night after night in the UK, right after the program I was almost on. If you don’t know it, the premise is that really needy people get housed. No doubt the people helped needed homes, but I didn’t want to get my pleasure from either their tales of misery or their tears of gratitude. And, like you, I can never stop wondering what happens when the film crew walks away,
Neverthesless, I think you are wrong in a fundamental way. The winner of Queen for the Day depresses you, because you find distasteful the idea that a life of curlers and pinny could be exalted by a washing machine. But I bet you would not find one winner (it any were alive, alas) who thought her lot was the worse for winning. If nothing else, she got the consumer durables. And believe me, on my show, I really, really wanted to be exploited.
I know that these days the shows are more intrusive and more personal, and I can see that there may be real losers in the interest of our titillation. Nevertheless I suspect most participants would say they have been given a special opportunity, now as well as then. What other chance do they have, and it is any wonder that they continue to compete for that opportunity to be our entertainment? When filming stops maybe they’ll blow it, but maybe not.
It’s the viewers I am worried about.
Apologies — it’s really impossible to construct a decent argument in a comment box, and I ought to stop trying. But your posts always make me think. Thank you for that, and please don’t stop.
August 26, 2008 at 11:29 am
Thank god for the Duchess. Merely agreeing with her will allow me to be pithy.
I particularly concur about Queen For A Day, which I remember fondly. The Queen I most recall was one whose wish was to have her bedroom soundproofed, because her snoring was so bad her family was making her sleep in the garage. She won…and I bet it made a real difference in her life.
I don’t mind these shows as long as the producers are clever at hiding their hands in the pie. I can’t stand Extreme Makeover Home Edition because it is so fucking manipulative. So, yes, it’s the viewers that I worry about as well, and why so many people enjoy being manipulated.
August 26, 2008 at 11:48 am
Oh, you two! I can always depend on you to keep me accountable!
My angst over this issue is really directed at how miserable and apologetic these contestants are over a metabolic malfunction that my doctor PROMISES me will be addressed by medical means within the next decade. I guess I’m just against personal humiliation on a national level, especially if it’s based on something that these poor souls have little control over.
I think I understand being willingly manipulated (ever been in love with the wrong guy?), but I think TBL contestants are being exploited. And, YES, the audience for these shows is certainly suspect, much like the thumbs-up, thumbs-down hordes in the Roman Colliseum!
Thanks for responding!
August 27, 2008 at 11:16 am
I mostly just hate “reality tv” because it’s anything but reality. I think people are willing to be humiliated and air all their soiled undies for a chance at their 15 minutes of fame which we create by watching the damn shows. I’m guilty. I admit. It’s like watching a train wreck and you can’t look away. I just get sick of these pseudo-celebrities thinking they are Queen for the Day because they were on a “reality” show. In fact, I make myself sick for aiding and abetting the mania by watching any of that crap. I should be stoned.