More to Not Love

I, like my colleague Emily, have a somewhat vexed relationship with reality TV. Some days, there's nothing more enjoyable than collapsing on the futon and flipping to Bravo to watch mindless, ridiculous (and often staged) drama unfold.

However, I'd like to think I have my standards. You know, certain lines in the sand that I draw with the crappy-tv-world. When I first heard about FOX's new show, More to Love, I had suspicions that this would, tragically, be one of those series that crosses said line. Unfortunately, my suspicions were realized when I sat down to watch the first episode on Tuesday evening. Check out a trailer/clip below:

For those not familiar, here's the description of this new gem from FOX's website:

MORE TO LOVE, the new dating competition show from Mike Fleiss ("The Bachelor"), follows one regular guy's search for love among a group of real women determined to prove that love comes in all shapes and sizes.

The tragic part is that this sounds like it could be okay. If I put aside my general disdain for dating shows, it seems like this could be a step in the right direction - breaking open the definition of what the public sees as desirable and even "normal." The show's trailers frequently made mention of the fact that the average American woman is a size 14, as opposed to the size 2 stars of most reality TV. But the issue here is that More to Love seems to fall prey to the binary standards of acceptance and tolerance it (hopefully?) sought to debunk. Here's a few examples:

1) Whenever the women are speaking solo (both introducing themselves and commenting on their experience) the caption beneath them states their name, age, occupation, hometown, and - get this - their height and weight. Now, in my experience, the best way to reify a concept of 'normalcy' is to shore up an 'other'. Excuse the dusty women's studies vocab, but I have trouble thinking of any other reason for the women's height and weight to be included other than to make sure that the audience knows that these folks don't fit the social standards of your "normal" bachelorettes.

2) The introductions were the most painful. Primarily because, with a few self-assured exceptions, the women introduced themselves by way of heartwrenching stories of unrequited love, failed relationships, and prom night agonies. All of this, of course, on account of their size.

Okay. As mentioned before, I really don't like dating shows in general - they seem to feature women as a) utterly weak and pathetic or b) extremely cutthroat. Also, these shows equate a relationship with happiness - ignoring the reality of both extraordinarily unhappy relationships and perfectly happy single people.

I'm starting to think, maybe I was giving this genre of TV and FOX itself too much credit here, with the assumption that by producing this show they would be carrying the message that "it's possible to be happy and to be greater than a size 2." Throughout the show, I was disappointed that most of the women spoke about their size and love lives with such disgust and sadness. If we're really trying to increase personal and social acceptance, it makes me cringe to see women giving credence to a flawed, arbitrary concept of normal and in fact blaming their lack of compliance for their misery. Isn't this just another way of underscoring the notion that living within a socially constructed norm equates with happiness, while everything outside of that will mean a life of unfulfilled misery? Awesome.

3) Also, I struggle with the choice of bachelor and emphasis placed upon his also-greater-than-"normal" size. With terrible euphemisms related to the size of both bachelor Luke and the women competing for his attentions, the show describes itself. "This brawny prince is searching for one curvy Cinderella to take on the romantic adventure of a lifetime." (Thank you, FOX, for your clever usage of a thesaurus and deliberate avoidance of the descriptor "fat.")

This gives me qualms. I am totally for increasing size acceptance for both men and women alike, but I'm struggling a little bit with the connotation here. Are viewers to take away the message that the only way a fat woman can be happy is if she's in a relationship with a fat man?

It seems to me that if we did the same for any other physical attribute, it'd be at best, silly, and at worst, extremely offensive. If I suggested a show where only black women competed for the affections of a black man, I'd be thrown to the dogs - and rightly so. What if we restricted the field of bachelors/bachelorettes based on ability? Or ethnicity? Hair color? And is it any better to restrict based on the trait of fatness than it was for the other reality shows to (tacitly) restrict the pool based on thinness?

Like I said, I'm a little torn over this one. Overall, obviously not impressed with More to Love. I'm disappointed because I wanted to believe it would exceed my expectations, and I'm anxious because I worry about the message it sends to viewers and to society. What are your thoughts?