Skinny Love

Its that time of year again, the time of the season when the leaves start turning and network television turns out the same stale pablum of recycled ideas (Hawaii 5-0) and edgy excrement (Shit My Dad Says) that failed in the previous viewing cycle. Heading the empty promise that comprises CBS's feckless fall schedule, is Mike & Molly, a sitcom about the struggles of an obese couple in the nascency of a budding relationship. The commercials previewing this show portray as it non-stop fat joke with one tasteless punchline after another. It unabashedly touts itself as a "weighty comedy serving up plus sized laughs" while simultaneously trying to appeal to "real" Americans who fail to see their body type portrayed in the media. Think Roseanne, except this time completely devoid of pathos or John Goodman and newly revamped with snappy dialogue that comes at the expense of the protagonists. While the show's website panders toward the bible belt-blue collar-brainless baby boomer with a belly demographic through empathy and relatability (they are a cop and a teacher respectively), CBS's own 30 second teaser commercials revive the aesthetic of fat as grotesque humor, an aesthetic lost in the annals of American comedy since the days of Barnum and Bailey, vaudeville, and Fatty Arbuckle. This humor has been kept alive on YouTube as well as on animated shows like Southpark, Family Guy, and the Simpsons, but previously the networks had been keen enough to recognize that to have audiences actually laughing at real obesity would illustrate a tangible cruelty and crassness that would open up considerable backlash. Which is exactly why CBS's website for Mike & Molly tries to paint it as a comedy for the everyday Joe with a double chin and gut working a 9-5 as a civil servant for nominal wages. But this is in stark contrast to those 30 second spots I mentioned earlier, which go for cheap laughs, the highlight of which is Mike leaning on a table ill equipped to support his girth which then collapses as the viewers collapse into laughter. So why the contradiction? Why would CBS invite in a viewership only to then make jokes at their expense? Well here's the skinny:

The rate of childhood obesity has tripled over the last three decades

1/3 of all American children are at risk of Obesity

A little over ten years ago, the fattest state in the union, Mississippi, had rates of Obesity at just under 20%. Now the leanest state in the nation, Colorado has the same rate. Let that sink in. I can't make it any simpler than to show this map I got from the CDC:

And its only getting worse. 9 states now have obesity rates over 30%. With such a ballooning populace it seems even more curious that CBS is so busy contradicting itself, engaging in such blatant doublespeak, but I think the answer is astonishingly simple: we are still in denial over our bugeoning waistlines, holding onto our vanity poorly - like an aging starlet still convinced we look just as trim as we did in our prime. We perpetuate a body image increasingly incongruous with our reality. As we grow ever fatter our collective image of beauty becomes increasingly thinner as a proportionate reaction to our disproportionate selves.

Yes we need television shows to empathize with, but since we still can't accept ourselves in that role, since we can't identify with who that is in the mirror, it is essential to mock - to laugh at ourselves while not admitting that it is indeed ourselves we are laughing at. Classic projection. We enjoy shows like The Biggest Loser because we feel comforted by comparison, (well, at least i'm not that fat) and the thinly veiled double entendre in the title speaks volumes. We have a culturally pervasive body dimorphic disorder, a pathological adherence to an ideal that is farther and farther away from the norm, and I fear as we become more physically unhealthy we will become more mentally unhealthy as well, something already too evinced in the memes of popular culture.

Hopefully, we can turn the corner of awareness in order to begin to address the systemic problems of how we eat and how we view ourselves.

Fat chance.

- DJV