Saturday, July 29, 2006

fake fat

Josh and I just watched an expose on Entertainment Tonight and I had to blog about it's ridiculousness. Some time ago, ET's correspondant Vanessa Minnillo did an undercover story about "every day prejudices facing America's weight-challenged women." Now, I applaud the idea of the story, but it's execution is a bit biased in my opinion.

First of all, here is what Miss Minnillo looked like before she underwent her 5 hour transformation into a size 28, 350 pound woman.
She's tiny. A size 4 and 125 pounds I believe.

Now, check her out as the 350 woman.

She claimed to have lots of people look at her awkwardly and do double takes. Um, that's because your fat suit looks totally fake! That picture on the far right is obviously her in the suit before she got dressed, but stay with me here. People probably stared at you because you looked ridiculous, not because you were overweight.

Give me a break! Am I way off on this? Did anyone else see her (or Tyra Banks when she did it) in this suit and think the same thing? I just don't feel that real women who weigh 300 plus pounds look like this.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yet another lame attempt from Hollywood socialites to connect with us common folk by falsely comprehending our blights. I would normally state that this kind of behavior turns my stomach—instead I will ...nope, yeah it still makes me sick.

Lisa said...

Hi Pixie:
THANK. YOU.

I hate it when Hollywood does this. First, you're right. The fat looks fake. Second, they put tons of waxy looking makeup on the "fat" woman to cover up the place where the fake double chin meets her real chin, so she looks like a cadaver. Third, when the "fat" woman walks, the fake fat doesn't move and jiggle the way real fat does. HELLO. No wonder people are looking.

I am not fat, so I'm no authority. Or, maybe I'm living in a dream world, but I just don't think people are as mean as these exposes want us to believe. I'm not saying some people don't get treated unfairly. They do. But it's also true that some people EXPECT to be treated unfairly so I wonder if - for them - it's sort of a self fulfilling prophecy. Just my two cents. I'll shut up now.

Fantastagirl said...

I didn't see the story - but I've seen it when other people have done things like this. IMHO - you are right - it's because they look ridiculous - the people dressing up to be fat don't try to act like normal fat people. They tend to over-react to everything and real women who weigh 300 plus pounds don't look like that.

DutchBitch said...

I obviously did not watch the programm but judging from the pics I would say you are dead on! She looks totally ridiculous like that!

Jen said...

I haven't seen that specific "experiment" or the Tyra one, but I've seen similar ones. My thing is always that the participants don't really MOVE about the way a person of that size for real would. They'd be struggling more, and probably really not even ever leave the house!

So, I agree with your post completely.

And I don't like her anyway- she's taking advantage of rebounding Nick Lachey.

Webmiztris said...

i didn't see this, but yes, her legs especially look super fake in that red jumpsuit.

Cupcake Blonde said...

She is definately trying too hard...and it looks totally fake. I think it is an insult to people who really are that weight.

Anonymous said...

I'd still hit it.

Anonymous said...

Nice Al.

Dave Morris said...

I agree. Most of those kinds of exposes are trumped up ridiculously. No wonder we don't trust the media anymore - everything is sensationalized.

EV said...

The whole thing is particularly mindless. Although, it does make a huge statement about the target audience - it's sure disheartning.

Anonymous said...

She looks like the Incredible Melting Woman.

Give me a break.

Hypersonic said...

laaaaaammmeeee!!!

Lynda said...

I heard Gwyneth Paltrow did this when she filmed Shallow Hall and I thought the experiment was ridiculous then. She said she knew how fat people felt after that. Yeah, but Gwyneth, you can take off your fat suit. Try taking it off over a period of months.

I even think the Fat Monica in Friends looks fake, but I can forgive that a little bit.

The Boy said...

I'm actually going to take an opposing view on this one. First, the US myth on "unbiased" reporting. Of course journalism is biased, always has been, always will be.

This looks like it was trying to make in interesting point, but was poorly executed. Just remember, it was an ET story, so was bound to be sensationalised. They are just packaging the story with the appropriate bias for the audiance they sell to.

Paul said...

Maybe they were looking at the purple velvet jumpsuit.

Plus, it's not groundbreaking research to show that people who are different are treated differently. There are racially motivated murders all the time. If she really wanted to make a statement, she should really gain some weight and then sue ET when they fire her.

Anonymous said...

i agree for the most part of all these comments but for the last part of LEEZER comment: sure u have no authority but u have No IDEA whats its like even being 20 pounds overweight. sure some people expect it, but the comments still hurt coming from some itty bitty thing that finds it funny. but in some parts of the world the people are meaner than what tv makes it out to be.

gothboy13 said...

I think that i need a realistic fat suit. I have a high metabolism and have trouble getting to be obese state. However, that is where i want to be. Help please??