A weighty debate in this Big Brother format? Fat chance!
Everyone is searching frantically for new ways of being offended these days. But a loudmouthed activist called victoria took her hurt feelings to a new height of self- indulgence, on the discussion show Who Are You Calling Fat? (BBC2).
Steaming from the ears, she insisted the term ‘obese’ and ‘overweight’ should never be printed in full. The self-proclaimed ‘ body positive’ therapist labelled them ‘the o-words’ and declared they were too offensive to be written without asterisks.
Anything’s offensive if you try hard enough. Pretty soon, if the likes of victoria get their way, the folk of north Piddle in Worcestershire will have to use a bleeper when they spell out their addresses.
When BBC execs sent nine larger thanaverage people to live together, some of them morbidly o- word and others just wellcovered, they were hoping to churn up lots of confrontations, tearful recriminations, insults and meltdowns. They weren’t disappointed.
This is television’s new favourite format for addressing controversial topics. Studio debates and audience questions are seen as an outmoded way to stage discussions.
now, everyone piles into a house to be filmed as tempers fray. It used to be called Big Brother but these days, as the housemates sneak into the garden for a gossip or blub with self-pity in the kitchen, we’re expected to take their conversations seriously.
It was hard to give any credence to their arguments when half the household decided to ‘challenge stereotypes’ by standing in the middle of a shopping precinct in their swimming costumes and inviting passers-by to write inspirational messages on their bodies.
The show took a grim turn when former nightclub owner Colin dropped in to show off his prosthetic leg. He had an amputation after years of Type 2 diabetes: he broke a bone in his foot and gangrene set in.
once a big eater, smoker and heavy drinker, Colin was so unhealthy that his surgeon feared he wouldn’t survive a general anaesthetic — so the limb was removed while he was fully conscious, with just local pain relief.
you’d think a horror story like that would make anyone look at lettuce in a new light, but three of the housemates dismissed it as scaremongering and ‘ body shaming’. At that point, it was hard to sustain much sympathy.
There was one great gag, though, from stand-up comedian Jed, a big lad himself: ‘I could go to the doctor with a bullet wound, and he’d say: “It’s because you’re fat... if you were skinny, they probably would have missed you!”’
A brisk walk and some mountain air would be any doctor’s advice for the ov*rwe*ght, and The Mountain (ITv) supplied plenty of that.
This four-part series offers a look at Snowdon across the four seasons, through the eyes of farmers, mountain rescuers, railway workers and Alwena, the lovely lady who runs the cafe halfway up the mountainside.
Some of the locals found perpetual awe in their surroundings. Poet viv loved to swim in the clear mountain lakes, where the water was so cold she could feel it in her marrowbone.
others, such as sheep farmer Joe, were more blasé. He’d never been to the summit itself: ‘What’s the point when you see it every day?’
More than half a million visitors a year would disagree with him. Mind you, a lot of them probably get no further than Alwena’s cafe.