The folks at FOX knew it could generate a lot of hubbub about its new show More to Love, AKA "The Fatchelor" and thus promoted the hell out of it way before it aired. Predictably, people started talking. Would it be it demeaning to overweight women? Could it be empowering? I admit, I wondered before I tuned in tonight, what would it mean to ME? I'm a woman. I used to be rather More to Love-sized. What was going to be my sociological thesis?
Then, I realized that it's probably going to be just as stupid as every single other reality dating show out there, only with a new gimmick, and it was best just to judge it on its television merits or lack thereof. So. As a critic, it's not the weight of the people on the show that I have issue with: it's that the women on it tend to be so desperate it's icky. However, my other problem is that I don't watch The Bachelor or Rock of Love or anything like that so it's quite possible that women on all these shows are equally desperate and icky. You go on TV to find love; you're not exactly an emotional genius.
But goddamn. Luke Conley, the fatchelor in question (a 6'3", 300-lb 26-year-old former college football offensive lineman and "successful sub-contractor and real estate investor" who enjoys running around with his dog, eating hamburgers and staring off at the horizon) is a lucky man. Not only is he living every man's dream of having 20 women throw themselves at him, he's knee deep in grateful pussy to boot. He's Gandhi without the, you know, food issues, Jesus but with even kinder eyes. Because to each of the women on this show, Luke is a hero. And maybe I'm cynical but I felt like I could kind of see him realize what a racket he has going on. "He's an amazing man to step up," one girl says. "I can see in his eyes how sweet and kind he is," gushes another. One says she know she'd marry him if he asked. For each time he listens to a story about a woman being rejected due to his weight you can see him think "Nod sympathetically now…blowjob later."
While it pains me to see any woman bawling on television about how this is her one chance to find love, I can kind of forgive the over-30 crowd. But the 20, 21, 22 year-old chicks weeping and crying about how they've never had a date or love or anything like that—that's life for a bunch of people, fat or thin. Maybe the crying was supposed to make me pity the women on this show but it just got so tedious after a while. "I want someone who's not going to be embarrassed to be with me." "I don't believe love is just for skinny people." "What if I'm alone for the rest of my life because of my weight? I'm a good person." "This is my last chance to find love.” GO ON A DIET might have been some people's reaction towards the women on this show but mine was QUIT CRYING, GODDAMMIT.
Other than all this, I can't discern how in any way this show is different from the other reality dating shows. The guy is meets a bunch of broads in (mostly) tacky frocks, who introduce themselves with winning lines such as "Like my dress? I wore it just for you" and "Can I give you a kiss on the cheek?" They all party in a generic mansion: some of them get drunk, some of them make side-eyes at each other, one of them jumps in the pool. The only real difference was that the weight was listed of all the contestants on the show. Why is this? We can't use our eyeballs to discern whether someone is larger or smaller than other people? Is it so that we can all feel good if and when Luke chooses 215-pound Bonnie (one of my favorites with her tattoos and Bettie Page look, despite her odd mommy-pie-baking fetish) over Malissa, a mere 180 lbs?
One part of the show that was hilariously ill thought out was Luke giving each of the girls a diamond ring, to indicate "my promise that I'm going to open up my heart and accept you as you are." Of course, some of the women found this so touching that they started crying, probably thinking that this was Luke's idea and he paid for the rings himself. But then—yoink!—they all had to give the rings back for some reason so Luke could redistribute them to the 15 he actually wanted to keep around.
I do feel bad for the women on this show who got eliminated who seem to think that their only option now is to crawl off and die. Maybe I live in a weird bubble but I know many women of a larger size who found awesome, fun, sexy-hot love, and none of them had to go on a stupid TV show to find it.
Anyway, forecasting the rest of the show, it doesn't seem to promise anything different than its skinny contemporaries, unless you like to see overweight women bash each other with bouquets of flowers.
Grade: C-
Stray observations:
—Barely any women of color on the show. Discuss.
—So, according to the More to Love people, the average reality-TV contestant lady is a size 2 and the average woman is a size 14. So when do those of us who fall squarely in the middle get our show? And will it be called "Some to Love"?
—Luke kind of looks like fat Judge Reinhold, no?
—I bet the skinniest of these ladies wins.
—For a bunch of ladies who talk about how important it is what you're like on the inside, they sure wear a lot of slap.