Huge: Are You Watching?
June 28th, 2010
When we talked about Huge, a lot of people said they might watch it, so I figured I’d open up a discussion thread for the show! If you’re watching it (or if you watched it already), let us know what you thought!
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Huge, Nikki Blonsky, Tidbit, TV
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I definitely want to see it, but I might have to catch it online or if she show reruns.
It seems like they are setting it up to have Wil changed over to the dark side, possibly in some “I was only fooling myself into believing I was happy being fat” kind of way. The doctor will probably pull an “I lost the weight and you can too!” bit since she was a former camper.
I will probably keep watching just to see how it happens…
I liked it, especially how it started with the saucy pseudo strip tease, but I agree that the ending seemed like a set-up for “I’ll TRULY be happy when I’m thin!” I understand making friends and wanting that camaraderie but I hope Will sticks by her assertion to let the even fatter person inside herself escape. I have to admit — the seemingly-biracial daughter hooked me at the very end. We’ll see…
Well, I watched it. I don’t know what to think yet. I just felt really depressed while watching. The fat camp just really made me feel like there was such a lack of dignity involved in the experience. I’m hearing that I have to keep watching to see how characters and situations evolve, but the pilot just didn’t make me want to watch any more.
I think it’s promising–I feel like they haven’t quite gotten the tone right yet. I wondered why they didn’t go for more comic relief among the adult counselors, because resentful, sullen campers + somber, quiet adults makes the whole show seem pretty dark.
But I’m so fascinated that they were willing to take a risk and actually do a show with a fat cast that’s not entirely about weight loss, I plan to stick with it at least through the first season.
My favorite line was when the girl with the headgear said, “Miley Cyrus walks her own dog…she’s like, so down to earth.” Very funny.
BTW, did anyone read the bizarro NY Times review of “Huge” yesterday? Here’s the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/arts/television/28huge.html
My two questions are, why would they reference gainer blogs, and is there such a thing as the “fat pride” movement? I got the feeling the reviewer was deliberately trying to misrepresent fat acceptance/size acceptance.
I liked it. It was enjoyable, but I thought that I would love Will and hate Amber, but I found Will to be somewhat of an unlikeable protagonist, and not an unsung heroine F.A. crusader as I expected her to be. The writers made her personality somewhat despicable. I expected Amber to be horrible, but she was actually sweet. She seemed to be not just a victim of Will, but a victim of society and that was illustrated well.
I thought it was okay. I have to agree with Laney about Will.
I also didn’t like that her quest to gain more weight was too eat a lot of crap because it just helps further the stereotype that it’s how we all eat.
I will keep watching because I want to see how the story continues to develop. Although, shows on ABC Family are predictable. I still have hope.
The NY Times review shows an overabundance of snark, and the near-complete misunderstanding of HAES, FA, etc. The review by Mary McNamara in the LA Times was, I felt, more balanced.
Too bad I don’t have that channel on my cable system – would love to see the show for myself.
Yeah, I agree about the NYTime review. It was biased, snarky, and fatist. And it made no sense to link to feeder sites. Very ridiculous.
The one thing I forgot to say above is that I really did not appreciate the binge eating montage durning the show. Just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I have binge eating disorder. In fact, my skinniest friend does suffer from BED and has been in therapy for years dealing with it. But she’s quite far from fat. I found it unfair to portray fat people as addicted to food. Here they are in fat camp and they HAVE to buy contraband food. They have no choice because they are powerless against their addiction to food. That bothered me. It’s a really unfair assumption. It is true that binge eating disorder affects obese people more frequently than non obese people, but the statistics say that 20% of obese people suffer from BED. So that means that 80% don’t. That montage made it seem like every single camper was involved in that really distorted food orgy.
i liked it! the fact that it was not that clear-cut who the protagonists/antagonists were was kind of amazing to me. i mean, complexity? on abc family? cool. of course, there are things to roll your eyes at… like the long-suffering once-fat doctor with her dad issues. but the truncated discussion about weight loss and “health” was promising. and i love nikki blonsky!
Oddly the food part didn’t bother me. I didn’t see it as saying that fat people have food addiction and binge so they can’t live without those foods and have to buy them.
There are a few ways to look at it. That these are kids being told they can’t have something so they want it more. It also isn’t uncommon to want something because it has been completely cut out of your diet. (Isn’t that part of why Diets don’t work?) We also don’t know if the camp food is meeting their nutritional needs and giving enough calories for 3 hours of exercise.
Carol (and anyone else without ABC family channel) can catch the first episode on hulu.com for free. I’m pretty sure the rest of the new episodes will be on there every week too.
The show was alright and I’m hoping it will get better soon since this was only the pilot. The Amber character seemed a little weird/fake/too girly/I dunno. There was just something about her that I wasn’t feeling though that might change later on. I did, however, like the fact that the trainer guy was interested in Amber because he genuinely seemed to like her and think that she was pretty. I just hope that he doesn’t turn out to be ashamed of liking her (I know they’re not allowed to be together cause of rules but still)
“We also don’t know if the camp food is meeting their nutritional needs and giving enough calories for 3 hours of exercise.”
Totally agree, and I hope they address that pretty much anybody (not just fat people) would be hungry after 3 hrs of exercise a day.
I finally watched it last night. It looks like it could turn out to be interesting and I will definitely keep watching.
My problem is that they just HAD to include a Jillian-esque trainer because we all know that what it takes for a fat person to lose weight is someone in their face yelling at them!
I work with kids at an after school program at a school, where we provide healthy snacks. None of the kids are fat, MANY of them try to sneak candy, chips, etc. from older friends who can go to the vending machines. Sneaking candy is a kid thing, not a fat kid thing.
I actually really liked the eating disorder elements because I get the impression that it’s often overlooked in weight loss programs. Also, I’d feel like any setting where people are pressured to lose large amounts of weight as quickly as possible is a perfect place to encourage eating disorders.
Does the general public seriously not realize that a place where food intake is so restricted and they’re [forced] to explicitly exercise [must call it exercise or working out, other fun physical activities don’t count] 3 hours a day is not setting up realistic healthy habits for the real world?
Anyway though, I sort of liked that a camper was kicked out for bulimia. If the general public acknowledges any ED in fat people they tend to assume binge eating, so the bulimia was somewhat different.
What I found most annoying about the WIll character is that the show seemed to confuse FA with pure rebellion. Yes, it is rebellious for a person to say “I accept myself as I am,” but that’s a far cry from the idea of “F**K YOU! I REJECT SOCIETY AND AM AN OPPOSITIONAL TEENAGER. I WILL THEREFORE BE FAT BECAUSE F**K YOU.” I don’t think that’s the motivation that brings most of us to this site, and I don’t think the average person, fat or not, can really identify with such an extreme character.
I thought it was great. XD
Being a former fat-camper it was so relateable to me. And I was all about Will. I thought she was funny. “Sorry, I’m down with my fat.” I loved it! I thought the whole thing was very cute and charming.
Maybe I wasn’t watching it deep enough to pick it apart (besides the 3 hours of exercise), but I saw it as a cute show about fat camp.
Did people expect the kids going to the fat camp would not have some body issues? I mean, more often than not, they’re not going to be comfortable, so I don’t really see this as a “fat pride” show, but just a cute show. I thought it was nice that one of them has a disorder. Bulimia isn’t a skinny disease like everyone thinks, so it was kind of nice for them to explore that a bit.
Wish they wouldn’t make them all seem so desperate for love though. That got old fast.
It’s far from perfect, but considering the other shows on this network (“Pretty Little Liars,” “Secret Life”) which figure oversexed and underweight female characters, it’s almost a miracle this show made it to air!
I agree with some of the comments talking about how this is on ABC, so it won’t be completely ground-breaking. I loved the faux strip-tease scene, and I was completely shocked they didn’t digitally alter her body or cellulite! For those of you who don’t get ABC, the pilot is currently free on iTunes in the US. As with any other place, I advise you not to read the comments section.
I didn’t like the candy/milkshake/fries thing (Cause that’s what fat people eat, haha!)and the superfast assistant coach/Amber romance thing much, but let’s hope that the only gets better. I was surprised that I actually liked all of the non-staff characters!
I love Huge!! Love it! Love it! Love it!
FINALLY… a show about overweight people that doesn’t have Jillian Michaels screaming in their faces.
(love you Jillian!)
No but seriously though… I love the show. It kind of brings me back to my own memories of being an overweight, confused, angsty and hormonal teenager. Confusing times. Everyone trying to fit you into the advertiser’s vision of what a person “should” look like rather than what people actually look like.
I don’t know. Rambling over here. But point blank the show is filled with mostly good stuff and I am a fan. :)
~Kellie
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