Half Ton Mum, C4, Sunday
10 Years Younger: Winter Sun Bikini Special
Corrina, Corrina, Channel 5, Saturday
Like so many things in life, the goggleboxing experience for 2007 was both up and down. There were the ups of the fourth series of Peep Show, the Blink episode of Doctor Who, Noel Fielding on Never mind the Buzzcocks, and men strapped into pregnancy suits getting their legs waxed on Human Guinea Pigs.
But there was also the jingoistic patriotic ranting ofthe commentators during the England/France semi-final of the Rugby World Cup, Ross Kemp on Gangs winning Best Factual Series at the BAFTAs (pah), and Gordon Ramsay’s F Word joining the ranks of all the other egotistical, yelling, boring chef shows. Double pah.
And then of course there were the likes of The X Factor, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, Strictly Come Dancing and Big Bloody Brother. As anyone within a 100 feet radius of me at any time will know, I is not a fan of the reality TV show. It’s not just because, as Ricky Gervais/Andy Millman said in the final episode of Extras, that reality TV is just an updated version of the Victorian freak show, where misfits and miscreants are wheeled out solely for our amusement. It’s mostly because they’re crap, and the people in them are talentless muppets.
And also because I know that 2008, like 2007, will see me unable to avoid them. Not watching them isn’t enough, apparently. I’d like to say that when I’m in charge, reality TV will be allowed to be on as long as no-one talks about it or newspapers fill pages about it, but that would be being too optimistic about my own capacity for mercy.
Car crash TV, however, will not be banned, mainly because it amuses me and makes me feel better when my jeans don’t fit. Still though, Ten Years Younger: Winter Sun Bikini Special is a fair candidate for having everyone involved in a programme lined up and shot.
It used to be that us girls were allowed to let ourselves go a bit over the winter. Those extra few pounds over Christmas were seen as, if not a perfectly acceptable winter addition to hairy legs and pale winter skin, then something no mortal soul was allowed to point out for fear of being chased down the street by a screeching, axe-wielding hormonal female.
Not so any more, alas, according to Ten Years Younger: Winter Sun Bikini Special. No ladies, apparently it isn’t now acceptable to have pale (read: normal) skin during the winter, or to skip a couple of days between each defuzzing of the pins, or to eat so much Milk Tray we can’t move. Even though no-one will see our bods through their wintery layers (ahem), TV is still annoying us about how these bods should look.
Monday’s episode followed the usual format of taking a saggy, baggy 40 something and showing her just where she was going wrong. This episode featured blonde Essex woman Heather, who had lost five stone and so was left with what she flatteringly called "elephant’s ears" of loose skin hanging over those jeans she couldn’t fit into (ah, Heather, I feel your pain).
But of course by the end of the programme the elephant’s ears had been removed, Heather had had a boob job, a new haircut and a new wardrobe, and she was swanning around on the beach like Pamela Anderson.
And fair bloody play to her, too. I know I don’t like these types of programmes. I know I don’t like the emphasis put on looks, and the pressure that this puts women (and many men too) under. But as someone whose body shape can go from slim to chubby in as little as a couple of weeks of overeating (damn you, festive season), I also know how your opinion about how you look affects your confidence. So I was happy for Heather. But uncomfortably so. Of course that makes sense.
There was also a mixture of emotions a few days before, while watching Half Ton Mum (Channel 4), following 64 stone Renee from Texas (where else?) as she pleaded to be given gastric band surgery.
Bedridden and barely able to move, someone of Renee’s size is classed as "super morbidly obese" and not suitable for gastric band surgery because of the risks to the heart. Renee managed to convince the Renaissance Hospital in Houston to perform the procedure on her, but she died a week later from a massive cardiac arrest.
I was struck by many things while watching this show. Pity at someone whose life was of such poor quality, for whatever reason. Annoyance at Renee for getting herself into that state, and then whining about it. And of course, a good old helping of Catholic guilt about thinking Bad Things About the Afflicted.
But, as I said to a friend while we were discussing the show and I pointed out that almost everyone in it, even the doctors, were at least a bit overweight, the main thing I took from Renee’s story was yet another sense of the truly messed up nature of capitalism. It took Renee a year to be approved for and have her gastric band surgery, during which time around 40 million people elsewhere in the world died from hunger and hunger-related disease. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark.
But most of the TV this week was less stressful on my wee noggin. I was settling into the new house at the weekend, so was ensconced on the new sofa goggleboxing for most of it, sighing happily every few minutes as I gazed around my new pad. As I was all warm and cosy and didn’t want to even bother changing the channels, this included watching Corrina, Corrina on Saturday afternoon on Channel 5.
For the uninitiated, this has Whoopi Goldberg playing Corrina, a maid in a house where a young girl has just lost her mother. Difficulties abound until of course Corinna and the da fall in love and live happily ever after. And it says a lot for the cynic in me that at the end, watching Corinna and her new man together, in what was supposed to be a fluffy, heart-warming moment, that I thought, Hang on a minute.
As the maid, Corrina was expected to cook, clean, look after the kid, iron the da’s knickers and all the other nauseatingly boring things involved in the day to day running of a house while the da was at work. As the new wife, she was expected to er, cook, clean, look after the kid and iron the da’s knickers – except she would now have to do it FOR FREE. Hmph.
I think it’s safe to say I’ll never get married.
And there’s a DVD player in the new house – yes, I really was living in poverty in the old one – leading to more goggleboxing joy with The Simpsons and yet another great line from Homer as he wondered what good cause he could spend some ill-gotten gains on.
"There’s plenty of needy children out there," Lisa reminded him. "Ah!" Homer said in dawning comprehension. "You mean I should buy a gun!"
I think it’s safe to say I won’t be having kids either.
10 Years Younger: Winter Sun Bikini Special
Corrina, Corrina, Channel 5, Saturday
Like so many things in life, the goggleboxing experience for 2007 was both up and down. There were the ups of the fourth series of Peep Show, the Blink episode of Doctor Who, Noel Fielding on Never mind the Buzzcocks, and men strapped into pregnancy suits getting their legs waxed on Human Guinea Pigs.
But there was also the jingoistic patriotic ranting ofthe commentators during the England/France semi-final of the Rugby World Cup, Ross Kemp on Gangs winning Best Factual Series at the BAFTAs (pah), and Gordon Ramsay’s F Word joining the ranks of all the other egotistical, yelling, boring chef shows. Double pah.
And then of course there were the likes of The X Factor, I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, Strictly Come Dancing and Big Bloody Brother. As anyone within a 100 feet radius of me at any time will know, I is not a fan of the reality TV show. It’s not just because, as Ricky Gervais/Andy Millman said in the final episode of Extras, that reality TV is just an updated version of the Victorian freak show, where misfits and miscreants are wheeled out solely for our amusement. It’s mostly because they’re crap, and the people in them are talentless muppets.
And also because I know that 2008, like 2007, will see me unable to avoid them. Not watching them isn’t enough, apparently. I’d like to say that when I’m in charge, reality TV will be allowed to be on as long as no-one talks about it or newspapers fill pages about it, but that would be being too optimistic about my own capacity for mercy.
Car crash TV, however, will not be banned, mainly because it amuses me and makes me feel better when my jeans don’t fit. Still though, Ten Years Younger: Winter Sun Bikini Special is a fair candidate for having everyone involved in a programme lined up and shot.
It used to be that us girls were allowed to let ourselves go a bit over the winter. Those extra few pounds over Christmas were seen as, if not a perfectly acceptable winter addition to hairy legs and pale winter skin, then something no mortal soul was allowed to point out for fear of being chased down the street by a screeching, axe-wielding hormonal female.
Not so any more, alas, according to Ten Years Younger: Winter Sun Bikini Special. No ladies, apparently it isn’t now acceptable to have pale (read: normal) skin during the winter, or to skip a couple of days between each defuzzing of the pins, or to eat so much Milk Tray we can’t move. Even though no-one will see our bods through their wintery layers (ahem), TV is still annoying us about how these bods should look.
Monday’s episode followed the usual format of taking a saggy, baggy 40 something and showing her just where she was going wrong. This episode featured blonde Essex woman Heather, who had lost five stone and so was left with what she flatteringly called "elephant’s ears" of loose skin hanging over those jeans she couldn’t fit into (ah, Heather, I feel your pain).
But of course by the end of the programme the elephant’s ears had been removed, Heather had had a boob job, a new haircut and a new wardrobe, and she was swanning around on the beach like Pamela Anderson.
And fair bloody play to her, too. I know I don’t like these types of programmes. I know I don’t like the emphasis put on looks, and the pressure that this puts women (and many men too) under. But as someone whose body shape can go from slim to chubby in as little as a couple of weeks of overeating (damn you, festive season), I also know how your opinion about how you look affects your confidence. So I was happy for Heather. But uncomfortably so. Of course that makes sense.
There was also a mixture of emotions a few days before, while watching Half Ton Mum (Channel 4), following 64 stone Renee from Texas (where else?) as she pleaded to be given gastric band surgery.
Bedridden and barely able to move, someone of Renee’s size is classed as "super morbidly obese" and not suitable for gastric band surgery because of the risks to the heart. Renee managed to convince the Renaissance Hospital in Houston to perform the procedure on her, but she died a week later from a massive cardiac arrest.
I was struck by many things while watching this show. Pity at someone whose life was of such poor quality, for whatever reason. Annoyance at Renee for getting herself into that state, and then whining about it. And of course, a good old helping of Catholic guilt about thinking Bad Things About the Afflicted.
But, as I said to a friend while we were discussing the show and I pointed out that almost everyone in it, even the doctors, were at least a bit overweight, the main thing I took from Renee’s story was yet another sense of the truly messed up nature of capitalism. It took Renee a year to be approved for and have her gastric band surgery, during which time around 40 million people elsewhere in the world died from hunger and hunger-related disease. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark.
But most of the TV this week was less stressful on my wee noggin. I was settling into the new house at the weekend, so was ensconced on the new sofa goggleboxing for most of it, sighing happily every few minutes as I gazed around my new pad. As I was all warm and cosy and didn’t want to even bother changing the channels, this included watching Corrina, Corrina on Saturday afternoon on Channel 5.
For the uninitiated, this has Whoopi Goldberg playing Corrina, a maid in a house where a young girl has just lost her mother. Difficulties abound until of course Corinna and the da fall in love and live happily ever after. And it says a lot for the cynic in me that at the end, watching Corinna and her new man together, in what was supposed to be a fluffy, heart-warming moment, that I thought, Hang on a minute.
As the maid, Corrina was expected to cook, clean, look after the kid, iron the da’s knickers and all the other nauseatingly boring things involved in the day to day running of a house while the da was at work. As the new wife, she was expected to er, cook, clean, look after the kid and iron the da’s knickers – except she would now have to do it FOR FREE. Hmph.
I think it’s safe to say I’ll never get married.
And there’s a DVD player in the new house – yes, I really was living in poverty in the old one – leading to more goggleboxing joy with The Simpsons and yet another great line from Homer as he wondered what good cause he could spend some ill-gotten gains on.
"There’s plenty of needy children out there," Lisa reminded him. "Ah!" Homer said in dawning comprehension. "You mean I should buy a gun!"
I think it’s safe to say I won’t be having kids either.
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