Is plus-size programming like “More to Love” and “Drop Dead Diva” empowerment, exploitation — or both?
Fox’s new reality show “More to Love” might as well be called “The Fatchelor”: It’s an excruciatingly typical dating competition with the single twist that both the catch of the day and the women competing for his attention are all larger than average. With weight as the show’s central focus, the editing plays to as many fat stereotypes as possible: In the first episode, which airs Tuesday night, we get women weeping about their dateless pasts, one unironic use of the phrase “big-boned,” a debate on the merits of Spanx and, of course, umpteen conversations about food — one of which includes the fatchelor flirtatiously declaring, “I like anything thick and juicy.” (And cheesy, apparently.) The show’s marketing and promotion campaigns claim a message of empowerment, but for the larger romantics among us, “More to Love” does little to dispel the myth that fat people’s lives are built around dessert and desperation. Along with Lifetime’s “Drop Dead Diva” and Oxygen’s “Dance Your Ass Off,”
