Thursday, November 09, 2006
Oprah, You’re Stressing My Fat Ass Out!
Oprah makes me eat. Obviously she doesn’t come into my house and force me to unwrap my kid’s Halloween candy – ramming down Mounds mini after Snickers snack-sized. But some of her shows actually make me feel worse about fatness – and that makes me eat. This week, she had an updates show. Those shows are the evil cousins of the sitcom memory shows. In sitcom land the writers make the Cunninghams reminisce over every Aaaayyy the Fonz ever groaned. In TV journalism, it’s when producers reach back into old ratings-draw stories because they can’t think of shit-else to cover.
This week, one of the updates was about a girl who had been 300 pounds and had come on Oprah with her father, who at the time admitted that while he loved his daughter, he was deeply ashamed of her weight.
“So if your daughter never loses a pound, and maybe even gains ten, would she ever be good enough for you?” Oprah asked.
“No,” he answered.
Then the girl, wrapped in shame, admitted how angry she was at her father. And though she resisted tears, they rolled violently down her well-rouged, fat cheeks. The Oprah producers were good planners. They chose the perfect “You’d-be-so-beautiful-if …” girl. Those are the fatgirls with the stunning faces that people like to remind how fabulous they could be if only they weren’t whales.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what happens next.
We switch from the old clip to Oprah sitting in her studio now.
“It’s been a-year-and-a-half seen we’ve met Fatgirl and her father Asshole. Since then, Fatgirl has made the very brave decision to undergo gastric bypass surgery. LET’S SEE FATGIIIIIRRRRRL!” Oprah does her signature, rolling intro. Out comes Fatgirl in her new skinny body, blonde hair bouncing and, quite frankly, an infinitely more confident gait. She is powerful. And her face looks like its been chiseled out of a wall of flesh. In fact, her features are nothing like they were.
“Now how much weight have you lost?” Oprah asks.
“I’ve lost about 170 pounds,” Fatgirl answers proudly.
“And what made you decide to do it?” Oprah continues.
Uh, hello, maybe because I couldn’t take the disgrace and pain of being abandoned by my own blood. Nope, that’s not what Fatgirl says at all.
“I just knew I had to do it for health reasons,” she says looking deeply into Oprah’s eyes.
Liar!
“And are you still angry at your dad?” Oprah asks.
“No, not at all,” Fatgirl says looking sympathetically at her Dad in the audience. “I understand that he was worried about my health.”
Now girl, please. Let’s recap. This is an update show after all. What he said was he thought you were an embarrassing fat cow and that he didn’t think you would ever be good enough for him. Now what does that have to do with your cardiovascular system?
Next Fatgirl goes on to tell us how much better her life is now.
“You have no idea how differently people treat you when you are fat,” she says. “People are horrible to fat people.”
“It’s true,” Oprah says. “It even happens when you’re known like me. People treated me totally differently.”
And now I am thinking about the time I carried my 250-pound, post-partum ass into a job interview for a health magazine. I had on a fabulous Lauren suit and my eyebrows were perfectly arched. I met the woman at a health food restaurant in Stamford, Connecticut for lunch. We had had three long conversations on the phone (I had been out of the TriState area). Out conversations has ranged well past editing skills and right into pregnancy experiences and our shared love for Reiki. When I walked in for the 2:30 p.m. lunch, there was no one in else in the place except her sitting at a table in the cozy, wooded room. She actually looked right past me. She knew it couldn’t be me. And when it became clear that it was me, she gave me a half-smile and looked at her watch. I didn’t get the job after our 25-minute lunch. I did however harass her ass until she hired me as a freelancer.
Oprah ends her conversation with the girl by admitting that discrimination against fat people is that “last accepted ‘ism” and that the girl should be so proud of herself.
I conclude from the conversation that instead of changing that “last accepted ‘ism”, we should all get gastric bypass and move on with our lives – except for the one in 200 of us who will die from it. My friend’s cousin Joan, who died swollen and septic in an ICU room not long after gastric bypass surgery is spinning in her grave now.
This week, one of the updates was about a girl who had been 300 pounds and had come on Oprah with her father, who at the time admitted that while he loved his daughter, he was deeply ashamed of her weight.
“So if your daughter never loses a pound, and maybe even gains ten, would she ever be good enough for you?” Oprah asked.
“No,” he answered.
Then the girl, wrapped in shame, admitted how angry she was at her father. And though she resisted tears, they rolled violently down her well-rouged, fat cheeks. The Oprah producers were good planners. They chose the perfect “You’d-be-so-beautiful-if …” girl. Those are the fatgirls with the stunning faces that people like to remind how fabulous they could be if only they weren’t whales.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what happens next.
We switch from the old clip to Oprah sitting in her studio now.
“It’s been a-year-and-a-half seen we’ve met Fatgirl and her father Asshole. Since then, Fatgirl has made the very brave decision to undergo gastric bypass surgery. LET’S SEE FATGIIIIIRRRRRL!” Oprah does her signature, rolling intro. Out comes Fatgirl in her new skinny body, blonde hair bouncing and, quite frankly, an infinitely more confident gait. She is powerful. And her face looks like its been chiseled out of a wall of flesh. In fact, her features are nothing like they were.
“Now how much weight have you lost?” Oprah asks.
“I’ve lost about 170 pounds,” Fatgirl answers proudly.
“And what made you decide to do it?” Oprah continues.
Uh, hello, maybe because I couldn’t take the disgrace and pain of being abandoned by my own blood. Nope, that’s not what Fatgirl says at all.
“I just knew I had to do it for health reasons,” she says looking deeply into Oprah’s eyes.
Liar!
“And are you still angry at your dad?” Oprah asks.
“No, not at all,” Fatgirl says looking sympathetically at her Dad in the audience. “I understand that he was worried about my health.”
Now girl, please. Let’s recap. This is an update show after all. What he said was he thought you were an embarrassing fat cow and that he didn’t think you would ever be good enough for him. Now what does that have to do with your cardiovascular system?
Next Fatgirl goes on to tell us how much better her life is now.
“You have no idea how differently people treat you when you are fat,” she says. “People are horrible to fat people.”
“It’s true,” Oprah says. “It even happens when you’re known like me. People treated me totally differently.”
And now I am thinking about the time I carried my 250-pound, post-partum ass into a job interview for a health magazine. I had on a fabulous Lauren suit and my eyebrows were perfectly arched. I met the woman at a health food restaurant in Stamford, Connecticut for lunch. We had had three long conversations on the phone (I had been out of the TriState area). Out conversations has ranged well past editing skills and right into pregnancy experiences and our shared love for Reiki. When I walked in for the 2:30 p.m. lunch, there was no one in else in the place except her sitting at a table in the cozy, wooded room. She actually looked right past me. She knew it couldn’t be me. And when it became clear that it was me, she gave me a half-smile and looked at her watch. I didn’t get the job after our 25-minute lunch. I did however harass her ass until she hired me as a freelancer.
Oprah ends her conversation with the girl by admitting that discrimination against fat people is that “last accepted ‘ism” and that the girl should be so proud of herself.
I conclude from the conversation that instead of changing that “last accepted ‘ism”, we should all get gastric bypass and move on with our lives – except for the one in 200 of us who will die from it. My friend’s cousin Joan, who died swollen and septic in an ICU room not long after gastric bypass surgery is spinning in her grave now.
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