Put a bunch of over weight people on the
screen and display them to the world like animals in a zoo. Okay so I know
that’s what reality television is about anyway. voyeurism with permission.
But what makes this show completely
inappropriate is the way it is insensitive to the participants. They are
portrayed as nothing but animals.
The Show*
The show is about a bunch of over weight
people who are divided into two teams and made to compete in the ultimate
challenge of losing weight.
The host is Suneil Shetty and each team has
their own fitness expert who is meant to lead the team.
As is the norm with most reality shows,
there are eliminations in this one too. So the regular doses of crying and
hugging occur and tug at your heart strings.
Why I hate the show
Yes I hate the show. I think it’s
absolutely insensitive. Stupid. And forces melodrama on you. Unlike Big Boss
where the players were celebrities just there for the money and fame, these are
regular people. All suffering. Wanting a way out. Looking to transform their
lives.
So what does the channel do? It puts them al tether and mocks them. There isn’t the sensitive
production one would expect.
Let me illustrate by example.
The very first episode showed them being
led to their new home where they are all informed that they will get to eat
mouth-watering delicacies for the last time, because their diet would begin the
following day.
Of course these people are not from Rwanda, and
include chicken tikka’s and desserts in there daily diet at home (which is why
they are over-weight). So what I don’t understand is why they were shown
running to the food and eating it not with their hands but with their mouths.
Faces immersed in puffy vanilla cream on
cherry topped cakes, tandoori chicken being mauled while still on the skewers.
Food being thrust into mouths with remains drooling down chins.
I refuse
I refuse to believe that this is how these
people eat.
I refuse to believe that they normally just
dig into cake with claws and use no knife to cut it.
I refuse to believe that they are
poverty-stricken and therefore could not hold back at the sight of tables
covered in delicacies.
It was all a massive set-up.
Clearly
Clearly they had been told to ‘toot pado’
on the food.
Clearly they had not been provided with spoons.
Clearly they had been told to just provide
good footage.
I’m sorry
I’m sorry but I hate to watch grown men and
women eat with food spilling left right and centre.
I’m sorry but I hate the sight of people
acting like barbarians.
I’m sorry, I refuse to believe that the
show is trying to transform people’s lives. Sure, people will lose weight, but
that is hardly the aim of the show.
I’m sorry. I refuse to watch such crap.
Where is the sensitivity?
A show such as this, needs to talk
responsibly about the physical and psychological troubles one faces because of
obesity. It needs to treat the issue with sensitivity.
Sure you can have your melodrama and high
TRPs but let’s not make a mockery of it all.
Let’s not make it just
entertainment but help spread a positive message too.