Really, WEtv?
Summary: White woman walks around town, sometimes eating unhealthy food (ice cream sundaes, etc). Thin white man follows her, and narrates his stalking — “I investigate people. I spy on them. I watch their every move. I dig through their lives. I look inside, so I can help them change the outside.” When she walks into her house, he’s there, with her husband — he introduces himself, and says, “I’m here to save your life.”
Because, you know, she’s fat.
I don’t want to get caught up in a discussion of whether or not she’s “really” fat, or whether she looks like she’s in danger of keeling over dead — because that’s an awfully tough call to make when you have no medical information at all. What bothers me about this ad — and the whole concept of the show in general — is (a) the premise that fat people are fat because they’re secretly miserable and therefore eat cupcakes all day; (b) the message fat people (and especially fat women) need to be saved from themselves; and (c) the assumption that women’s bodies are public property.
Stalking and harassing women in order to teach them the error of their ways is a pretty popular tactic among misogynists who get the vapors whenever a woman does something that transgresses social norms, whether that’s walking into an abortion clinic or speaking out publicly or having the nerve to eat while fat. But it’s particularly disappointing to see it on a network targeted at women.