Uterus-Control Issues On Huge

The second episode of fat-camp show Huge — created by My So Called Life‘s Winnie Holzman and her daughter, Savannah Dooley — included a scene right after our women’s mag-mocking hearts.

In the episode, Will — played by Nikki Blonsky — cuts up a fellow camper’s fashion magazine. Why? “When I see propaganda that I know is destroying girls’ brains, It’s my duty as an angry feminist to destroy it,” she explains. Will also decorates her bunk with images of Rubenesque nudes, which she calls “fatspiration.”

One of the great things about the show is how it makes no attempt to create a blanket way in which all overweight people are the same. There are campers who are only children, campers with big families, campers with doting parents, campers whose parents fight all the time. One chubby guy is friendly and flirty; another is super shy and awkward. A few kids are enthusiastic about sports and working out; others loathe the idea.

In addition, the writers seem intent on exploring what it’s like to be young and finding yourself. When we find out that Will has cut model limbs from the fashion mag in order to spell out “SCREW BODY FASCISM,” her bunkmate’s mom says, very earnestly, “Your parents must be so proud of you… to have that kind of imagination at that age.” Will responds: “We’re really not that kind of family.” Could it be that her rabble-rousing comes not only from being misunderstood, but not being encouraged in the right way?

Anyway, the best line of the ep (which you can watch here) was when Will tried to get out of playing basketball by claiming she had cramps. Her scary, high-energy, Jillian Michaels-ish camp counselor shouted, “YOU GONNA LET YOUR UTERUS CONTROL YOU?”