Host Too Fat For Fat-Themed Reality Show?
More celebrity gossip, only not in blind item format this time. Marissa Jaret Winkour is leaving as the host of Dance Your Ass Off. She will be replaced by Mel B., of Spice Girls fame.
This is what Marissa had to say: “Marissa’s reasons for not returning to season 2 are the following: the format of the program did not allow her to interact with the contestants and offer them encouragement and support, and criticism she received from producers regarding her appearance.”
To me that means the producers thought she was fat and probably told her this more than once. This is a show about people embracing who they are as people. Sure, the idea is to lose weight, but to throw someone up there like Mel B who weighs what, 85 pounds kind of defeats the whole purpose. Was Marissa the best host in the whole world? No, but allthe producers are doing is telling the world they don’t believe what they are trying to sell on the show. They are trying to sell that all people no matter their size are beautiful, but then kick off Marissa and replace her with someone who is not typical and instead is probably a size zero and has fake breasts and says this is the ideal.
The producers’ official statement is that the core fans of the show grew up Spice Girl fans so this is what they really want. Uh huh.
Here are some of the comments about the change:
Marissa’s personality makes me want to rip my eyeballs out. Mel B is more engaging, I believe. If this is a program about weightloss via dance, than I would think Mel B is more inspirational than Marissa since Mel B has successfully shed some pounds.
Marissa was one of the big girls on DWTS and I was always embarrassed for her whenever the male partner had to lift her. I didn’t think it was possible to do it without him getting a back ache and dropping her. She was heavy and certainly not graceful enough for the dances. Also she’s very bubbly but in a way that I find annoying.
This is one of my guilty pleasure shows. I love dancing and I love seeing everyone’s journey through the weight loss. I must say though, Marissa was one of the bad points of the show, as far as I’m concerned. I didn’t think she did that great of a job of hosting, but what really was disturbing is just how TIGHT the clothes she wore on camera were. Seriously, she looked like she was going to pass out from not being able to breathe most of the time. She always looked extremely uncomfortable in the clothes. I’m no fan of Mel B. but to be honest, I care more about the contestants than who’s hosting it, so it doesn’t matter to me. The contestant’s stories were always very inspirational to me. But I must admit, it does kind of send a bad message to get someone thinner to host.
I don’t watch the show myself, because the weight-loss component seems shirty to me. Your thoughts?
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Dance Your Ass Off, Hairspray, Music, TV
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I’m glad I’m not the only one who noticed the clothes thing. I mean, Marissa always looked knockout GORGEOUS, but you could tell she was definitely packed in tight (http://tinyurl.com/yee35kd).
I don’t watch the show religiously, but I have watched 3 or 4 episodes. And I always did find it ironic that a successful (Tony award winning) actress who–let’s be honest–isn’t exactly a size 2 was hosting a show where the main goal is to lose weight. I do feel bad that she’s getting dropped though, especially for Mel B (http://tinyurl.com/y9ch93j) EW.
I was an uber Spice Girls fan when I was young, but I’m 18. And hmm, I doubt the core audience of this show is in my age demographic.
I’m just annoyed that they to pick the most annoying Spice Girl. Sporty wasn’t available?
I love Marissa! Granted, I didn’t watch the show, but I love her.
This is typical Hollywood Bulls**t. The show itself probably isn’t very good, so rather than trying to fix what’s wrong, they blame “the fat girl.” As usual. (They blamed Kirstie Alley’s ass when her sitcom didn’t do well, and they made Margaret Cho lose 30 pounds for her sitcom, then denied it when asked about it.)
I watched the show when it started. A few episodes in I noticed that I wasn’t really interested or watching it, even though I had it playing on my tv, so I found something better to do. It would probably only be interesting to people with weight loss interests.
I’m not surprised they did a host change. How can they expect people that are fine as they are to push themselves to lose weight if the host is fat? Well, there’s the money…
It kind of reminds me of putting a picture of a thin person on your fridge to try and get yourself to starve down to that ideal. I almost wonder how she’ll be as host and how the show will change, but probably not enough to watch it.
I never watched the show because I don’t think the weight loss angle should even be a factor, but I also found it odd they would choose Marissa to host when while she’s not deathfat like me, doesn’t represent the typical Hollywood thin body. Did the producers assume that she would lose weight along with the contestants too?
MJW started a weight loss blog on People.com around the time the show started, I think, and I just peeked and it looks like there are several entries about her not losing weight/not sticking to the diet. So maybe when they hired her, they expected (and/or established the condition) that she would lose weight along with the contestants, and that didn’t work out.
Seeing her get canned by a weight loss show doesn’t bum me out nearly as much as seeing someone as fabulous and successful as she is still publicly beating herself up for not being able to resist bread.
Kate I couldn’t agree more with your comment about how sad it is that someone is beating themselves up for not being able to eat bread. In my work I help people from celebrities to housewives lose (or gain) weight to achieve a healthy happy body/mind state. The very first thing we do is get rid of distructive self talk and learn to be kind to the body they have TODAY. Self compassion is vital to fast paced healthy body image weight management. In some cases people never lose the weight or quickly put it back on no matter how much exercise they do if they don’t get to the core of what lies beneith the ‘layers’. Fat is a means of protection as being too thin is self abusive in another more vulnerable way.
I continute to dream of a day when women (and men) choose to be more self loving – and naturally become more compassionate with the rest of the world. The more we share our opinions in places like this – turning off the television programs and closing the magazines that shove negative messages in our faces, the more chance we have of making that a possibility.
I will soon be doing some FREE webinars on the topic of “Body Image…What’s Love got to do with it?” so if you’re interested please feel free to join us. log onto http://www.gaylamaxwell.com next week for more information.
In the meantime…enjoy the body you’ve got! It would be…kinda hard to have a whole lot of fun without it! :)
The producers are being hypocrites. There is no way around it.
I agree with Bianca, If their cause for a new host was to motivate…… then why not choose someone like sporty spice… BUT I don’t think thats the case. Her clothes might have been tighter than some, but I think she was beautiful, and if she is healthy, what does it matter? I don’t think it’s fair that they fired her, and I thought once I saw her on the show.. that wow Hollywood really is coming around… thicker girls on the TV is really going to be a thing of the future… Well, I guess not.
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