Dance, Dance, Dance Your Ass Off!
One of the truly beautiful things about my life is that my commute home from work takes me right under Times Square. On any given evening, if I want to I can rise up out of the ground, walk half a block, and partake of a smorgasbord of first-run movies ranging from summer blockbusters to a surprising range of indie films.
Take tonight for example. Earlier today, it suddenly occurred to me why I can’t stop watching the new Star Trek film. It’s this: Eric Bana is the most delicious space villain ever. The moment when he makes contact with the Enterprise and says, “Hello Christopher, I’m Nero,” is worth the entire price of admission right there. So tonight, I stopped by the AMC Empire 25 and caught the 6:30 show.
Afterward, as I walked through the Times Square subway station to hop the 7 back to Queens, I passed by a advertisement on the wall that featured a group of gorgeous, happy, energetic, well-dressed fat people.
Wait. WHAT?
This demanded a closer inspection. Sometimes you see fat people in ads, but they’re NEVER gorgeous, happy, energetic, and well-dressed. And if they are, they’re certainly not in groups. Something must be amiss.
Turns out, there’s a new reality show premiering June 29 on Oxygen. It’s called Dance Your Ass Off. Okay, so it’s a weight loss show. It starts with the premise that fat is a problem to be remedied. It’s not, strictly speaking, about fat acceptance. But damn, those fatties looked GOOD! The women had their hair done, their makeup on, and they were dressed to the nines in cute shoes and dresses that shimmered. The guys were handsome and neat and clean and looked like somebody I’d really like to date. And every single one of them had a look in their eye like, “Sit back and watch, skinny couch potatoes, while my voluptuous self dances circles around you.”
I do not trust American television to do right by fat folks. Especially not if it’s reality TV. I mean, look at what we have so far: The Biggest Loser, which claims to be about transforming lives, but is really about showing us images of sweaty, panting fat folks on treadmills, who will later be dressed in spandex bike shorts and sports bras and placed on a scale, as if showing their fat rolls to all of America is a necessary aspect of transforming their lives. No thanks. And then there’s I Want To Save Your Life, where a shameless self-promoter with questionable credentials stalks fat people and jumps on them for every bad habit he can find, all in the name of wanting to save them from themselves. Oh, and cashing a big fat paycheck while he’s at it. And then there’s the show where they make over fat people so they can go out on dates– the unspoken assumption being that fat people are undatable without massive strategic interventions from dating experts, fashion consultants, and hair-and-makeup people. No thanks.
So when I got home tonight, I watched the trailer. Setting aside for a moment the fact that, as I said, the show is mostly about weight loss, overall I really liked what I saw. It appears that the fat contestants are provided with personal trainers and dance coaches so they can learn to dance beautifully and vigorously. They are provided with dance costumes that are sexy but not exploitative, and judges who appear to be able to focus on the dancing and not on the fat. As much as a show based on weight loss can, this show appears to treat fat people with dignity and respect and a reasonable and like capable people. I plan to watch it.
Oh yeah, and here’s today’s famous person sighting: Ali Velshi was standing outside the Time Warner building tonight when I walked past it. I’m starting to feel like I’ve seen everybody from CNN except my girl Candy Crowley!
