When I first saw commercials for TLC’s new show “Big Sexy,” I was excited to see a reality show that didn’t focus on stereotypical beauties as the main characters (aka skinny women), and I remembered to tune in the night that it aired.
However, after watching the series premiere Aug. 30, I was highly disappointed in the program. Instead of being a show about big women who are enjoying their lives regardless of size (which does happen, by the way), the entire show’s focus was their large size. In fact, when I looked at the description of the first episode on TLC’s website, it said, “The ladies attend the New York Fashion Week and against the backdrop of fashion’s best and brightest, they realize that while they’re comfortable and proud of their size, the rest of the world may not yet agree.”
First of all, when the ladies are at New York Fashion Week, people are excited to see bigger women there, and secondly, the only people who seem to have a problem with their size is the cast itself (with the exception of some bouncers at a night club that charge them $30 to get in, while the pretty / skinny ladies get in for free). How does this offer more of a positive message than a show that follows impossibly skinny women around? It seems as if TLC thinks filming fat women talking about how fat they are is “accepting” of different body types, but it’s really just disgusting.
I won’t be watching the show anymore, and here are three reasons you shouldn’t either.
Dating
One of the first things the women talk about on the show is how difficult it is to find that “someone special” in the dating world. This is certainly a topic that most women (and men) can relate to. However, their dating situations are immediately related to their size — well of course they can’t find a good man; they’re fat!
What?
My favorite commercial for this show involved aspiring plus-sized model Tiffany Bank saying “Once you go thick, you never go twig.”
By the sound of this statement, I thought the woman who said it was not only comfortable in her own skin, but proud of her larger size. Once again, I was wrong. Instead of being the cool and confident person that she seems to be in the commercials, Bank is actually the most insecure of the bunch.
At a speed-dating party that the group of girls goes to, she spends the entire time asking men what they think of bigger women, and turning every conversation into a discussion about her weight. I know if I were a man that sat down with her, I wouldn’t rank her well — and no, it’s not for her weight; it’s for the constant obsession with it. In fact, later in the episode she meets with one of her ex-boyfriends to see if they broke up because she was bigger (seriously?) and of course, he tells her that it wasn’t her size that bothered him, but her crazy “stalkerish” mannerisms.
“BBW” Party
In an attempt to improve their chances in the dating game, the girls head to a “BBW” Party at a local bar — which they explain means “Big, Beautiful Women.” The idea of the party is that it is supposed to not only attract big women, but also the men who are interested in dating bigger women.
The entire party is awkward for the women, who stay seated at a table drinking the whole time, and you have to wonder if the producers forced them to go to it. (After all, where else are fat girls going to get some loving?) The most awkward moment, however, is when the bar starts the “Thunder Thighs” competition, in which big women in barely-there outfits shake their assets to the applause of the bar crowd.
Needless to say, the women leave after that event and promise to never come back. Was it really necessary to include this awkward scene in the show at all?
Plus-Sized Fashion Show
The first episode ends with the main event the women had prepared for throughout the episode — their very own plus-sized fashion show. The idea behind the show was actually quite inspiring. The girls had gone to Fashion Week and were disappointed in the lack of “real” women in the different shows that they watched, so they decided to host their own show.
Stylist Leslie Medlick made the arrangements for the fashion show, and she may just be the most confident person on the series.
Within the first couple minutes of the show, she says, “Not all fat girls want to be skinny. Did that just blow your mind?”
However, her models were not quite so confident. As expected, Bank had problems walking the runway in a bathing suit, and to begin with, she refused to do that portion of the show (she has a sudden change of heart after talking to her ex-boyfriend about her craziness). However, she wasn’t the only one with complaints.
Nikki Gomez, who had originally said that she didn’t have a problem walking the runway in a swim suit (and who has already established herself as a successful plus-sized model), got stage fright right before the show and decided to wear a cover-up over her swim wear, explaining that she just wasn’t ready to show off her body in a bathing suit yet. This reaction would be understandable except for the fact that she is already a successful plus-sized model. If anyone should be comfortable wearing anything, it should be a model.
Makeup artist Audrey Lea Curry, who is curiously the most eccentric of the bunch (you would think she would be more confident), worried the entire time about what her skinny ex-model mother would think about her walking in the runway show (after all, she is fat!). Her fears took up way too much of the show, and in the end her mother was of course proud of her, regardless of size.
Overall, I was very disappointed in this show. It had the potential to really change the reality TV formula, but sadly it only feeds into the idea that “Fat is bad.” Rather than a show about confident, curvy women succeeding in life, it appears to be a show about fat girls dealing with fat girl problems.
I am one person that will no longer be watching, and I hope you will consider changing the channel as well.
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