A Nameless Blog

I’d like to apologize to my television.  Normally, it has the pleasure of displaying sports, talk shows, gameshows, pro  wrestling… you know, quality programming.  The other night, however, it must have been horrified.  You see, I gave the ladyfriend domain over the button-stick and the program she chose might possibly be the worst, most psychologically harmful program since Extreme Makeover.  This program is VH1′s Bridal Bootcamp.  Let’s enumerate all the societal problems this show highlights.

#1: Women’s obsession with weddings
The show’s premise is simple: brides-to-be compete with and against one another in hopes of winning their dream wedding.  This grand prize alone disturbs me.  I understand a woman’s desire to get married — monogamy is evolutionarily advantageous to women.  What I don’t understand is the obsession with the wedding.  I realize I’m donning my curmudgeon hat again, but people need to relax about ceremonies, particularly weddings.  If you find yourself stressing about the color of your tablecloths, worrying about whether the caterer will provide the right brands of bubbly, or wrestling other women in a giant cake in order to win wedding flowers (sponsored by ProFlowers.com!), you need to take better stock of what’s important to you.  I’ll try not to bitch any further about the wedding obsession.

#2: Overemphasis on fitness and weight loss
Okay, I get it, America’s obese and most of us could use a little exercise.  What bothers me are the competitions that surround weight-loss.  In Bridal Bootcamp, part of the incredibly convoluted process of eliminating contestants is a weigh-in.  If a woman has lost the highest percentage of body weight, she gets to nominate another girl for elimination, whose fate would be determined by the host.  Or something.  My point is, I hate the idea that personal health and body image can be turned into a cheap competition.  If weight loss is the goal, then the game will stop only when everyone’s wasted away to nothing.  Besides, every body is different and requires different amounts of fat and muscle.  The show could factor in BMI, ideal weight, genetic factors, and the like, but it’s just easier to say, “MaryLou, you’ve lost only 1.5% of your body weight this week.  You’re clearly not working hard enough.”

Another thing that I conveniently forgot to mention until just now: none of the women on this show are overweight.  They talk and talk about wanting to fit into their dream dress for their wedding day, but they all look good.  The “fattest” girl on that show is still a reasonable size.  Two of them are too thin, yet still cry and obsess about losing another pound.  They have nothing to be ashamed about, yet they appear on a show that foists shame upon them by the truckload.  The most I could say for some of the women is that sure, maybe losing five pounds before your wedding isn’t a bad idea.  You’ll look a bit thinner in the pictures, and you’ll feel better about yourself.  But that’s not enough to enter a no-limit weight-loss contest.  It’s unhealthy and unattractive.

#3: TV’s love of humiliation
You know how I mentioned a wrestling match in a giant cake?  Yeah, that happened.  It was mostly confusing, because as the ladyfriend noted, this is a program aimed toward women.  The contestants were dressed reasonably for a physical competition.  So why have them wrestle in cake?  It doesn’t even count as titillation — it’s simply humiliation for the sake of humiliation.  I’m not sure if I should hate the producers for thinking this was a good idea, or the contestants for agreeing to debase themselves just to be on TV and maybe (maybe!) win an expensive wedding.

#4: The unimportance of men
It’s fine that no men appear on the show.  It’s about brides, and frankly, I’d rather not see a guy encourage this kind of behavior.  But for a show about weddings, I’d like someone to acknowledge at least once that these women are actually marrying another human.  It gives me the sense that for a lot of them, the wedding is far more important than the husband and the marriage.  Call me old-fashioned, but shouldn’t it be the other way around?

#5: Petty, overblown arguments
During the wrestling match, the blue team started trash-talking the green team.  One girl called another a “rich bitch” (which makes me wonder why a rich person would have to be on this show… but I’ll ignore that).  The name-calling resulted in a lengthy argument about hurt feelings and rudeness.  It was ugly and stupid, and the fact that they were covered head-to-toe in wedding cake only made it worse.  It’s trash talk.  You got called a mean name.  Clean the cake out of your underwear and get the fuck over it.

#6: The twisted image of the ideal female form
The host of this show is absurdly thin and frighteningly muscular.  She has unpleasantly large breast implants and a face full of collagen and botulism.  She is the only person on the show ever to wear tight, revealing workout clothes, and she doesn’t have an ounce of fat on her.  All that’s fine if she kept it to herself; she can look however she wants.  But she’s the one to tell these women that they need to lose more weight.  She’s presumably the example of what the contestants should look like.  She shouldn’t be.  Most of the contestants are far more attractive to me, and I doubt I’m in the minority for thinking so.

Yes, American men tend to like thinner women with full breasts, smooth skin, and pouty lips.  It’s a general preference.  It’s not to say that anything outside the Barbie-doll ideal is unattractive.  If that were the case, nobody would be having sex.  Those who feel shame about their bodies are forgetting another unfair stereotype about men: we’ll have sex with pretty much anyone.  More fairly put, every man has a broader view of attractiveness than swimsuit calendars might lead you to suspect.  Trust me, ladies, we’re not as picky as you fear.  (And please don’t take that as an insult.)

Also, trying to look too perfect often backfires.  The host of Bridal Bootcamp checks all the individual boxes of attractiveness, but goes so far with each box that she ends up the least attractive person on the show.  She resides in the uncanny valley — she looks somewhat human, but comes just short enough that it ends up revolting.  Ladies, we’re not looking for physical perfection.  I don’t even believe in physical perfection; why would I demand that women seek it out? 

I could go on.  I could pick any five-second clip from the episode I watched and bitch about it for hours.  It’s that bad.  I’ve hit the broad strokes, though, so I’ll leave it alone. 

-Darrell

P.S.: Those who wonder why I’ve been blog-silent for so long deserve an explanation.  I was in the hospital for the last couple months (I was attacked and partially eviscerated by a hippo).  I’m still recovering, but I plan to use the blog as part of my healing process.  Beyond those bits of info, I care not to provide any more details.  Thank you.

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