Dance Your Ass Off: Empowering? Embarrassing?

Dodai — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:00:00 EDT

Last night saw the premiere of weight-loss dance contest Dance Your Ass Off, hosted by Hairspray's Marissa Jaret Winokur. The contestants were varied: men, women, black, white, Latino, mothers, fathers, a virgin and a woman who "can't get boyfriends."

At the start of the show, contestants entered a house where filming took place and found two cabinets: One called "EAT" filled with nuts, fruits and vegetables and one called "CHEAT," filled with cookies and doughnuts. Most went right for the cookies, immediately.

While there will be a doctor, nutritionist and trainer on hand while the contestants are participating, the producers made sure to air plenty of footage of the contestants snacking, and even included home video of them eating.

But even weirder was the actual dancing. With strange cover versions of popular songs playing, the contestants were made to wear unflattering, skin exposing ensembles not that they should wear muumuus! but every dancer's outfit had cut-outs through the body; and one man's shirt was sheer. They were hideous. And a few of the routines were cringe-inducing in their cheesiness.

Though some of the contestants were energetic and enthusiastic (see: Trice, above), the overall experience of watching them have "forced fun" being trussed up and made to dance in a spotlight in front of an audience and judges left this viewer with a bad taste in her mouth. (And don't miss the part where a judge subtly tells this woman she'd make a good pole dancer.)

Dance Your Ass Off [Oxygen]

Fat Isn't Contagious, So Why Doesn't Anyone Want To Sit Next To This Woman?

Dodai — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:00:00 EST

Kim Brittingham appeared on the Today show this morning because she made a fake book called Fat Is Contagious: How Sitting Next To A Fat Person Can Make YOU Fat and "read" it on New York City subways and buses (see clip, above). Kim claims that reactions varied: "a lot of people appeared to be jotting down the title and author" of the faux tome, she says, and one guy "bolted for the back of the bus." Uh, really? A New Yorker fled because of a phony self-help book? Anyway, her point, though she doesn't really say it, seems to be that people treat her like she's got leprosy, since she's overweight. And when it comes to the F word fat just when is it "OK" to say it?

The Utne Reader reports that the summer issue of food and culture publication Gastronomica, a writer found that the more money you make, the less likely you are to be called fat: A Google search for "portly" resulted in descriptions of doctors, lawyers, and professors, but rarely for janitors and plumbers. Plus! Bonus race/gender discrepancies:

Although "white man," "white woman," "black man," and "black woman" all got around the same number of hits when the phrases stood alone, adding "fat" skewed the results. The phrase "fat black woman" got eight times as many hits as "fat white woman," while "fat white man" got 12 times as many hits as "fat black man." And black women were dubbed fat, obese, and overweight at far higher rates than the others.

Is there inherent disrespect in the word fat? Is it "better" to say rotund, Rubenesque, portly? Also: Did Ms. Brittingham have a good idea, or is she wallowing in negative attention? What would the reactions have been if she'd made a fake book called Fat Isn't Contagious, But Happy Is and "read" it with a wide smile on her face?

Your Momma's So Portly... [Utne]

Jezebel: getting heavy

Dance Your Ass Off: Empowering? Embarrassing?

Fat Isn't Contagious, So Why Doesn't Anyone Want To Sit Next To This Woman?