Comments on: Total Fabrication Live

By: ungraceful girl

ungraceful girl — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:12:33 +0000

I’m actually watching this as I leave my comment. It is so typical of MTV to up the drama factor as much as possible. In the scene w/ Sharonda clothes shopping w/ her friends, she made a great point about the difficulty to find trendy, fashionable clothes in her size and then her friends acted like she didn’t even deserve to have trendy clothes since she dared to be that overweight. Wow. For all the faux drama I think Sharonda held her own quite well and her friends just ended up appearing annoyed by her confidence.

By: bbrugger

bbrugger — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:32:33 +0000

I had a brush with ‘reality’ tv a couple of years ago when friends of ours were involved in a show.

Fake Fake Fake-y McFakerston with a side of fake sauce. They really do everything they can to drive the segment along their chosen story line. And I say that despite having quite liked one or two of the filming crew I got to chat with during the shoot.

At least in their case I think the show covered costs the participants wouldn’t have otherwise incurred.

Seriously, it’s amazing what someone with an agenda can to to interview notes or video footage.

By: it’s not time for american idol yet, so read this stuff « mmm, brains!

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:29:02 +0000

[...] college student trying to start a Fat Acceptance group on campus. In the end, I hardly cared, but Fillyjonk wrote about it at Shapely [...]

By: singpretty

singpretty — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:10:49 +0000

Thanks for the great wrap-up and for detailing Joy’s experience in it. Really highlights the manipulative crap they pulled!

By: Divajean

Divajean — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:27:46 +0000

I flipped back and forth from the show and Medium. I just wanted to see what it turned out to be- and was not surprised to see it edited down to what the powers that be wanted it to be, since I’ve followed the backstory along here.

By: sizzle

sizzle — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:42:10 +0000

what a great post! i didn’t watch the show but i appreciate hearing your take on it.

By: Roberta Lipp

Roberta Lipp — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:33:30 +0000

I happened to see this thing last night, and you're review is accurate. But in some ways I thought Sharonda was the most well-spoken, because she was just so unaffected (except by all the pressure we saw her receive). She just plain liked how she looked and felt, with no agenda about it. And penguin, you are so right. I've had my eyes on the gays in media through Soap and thirtysomething and it just keeps coming. Remember what a shocking premise Will and Grace was? And now we can't remember why.

By: penguinlady

penguinlady — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:19:26 +0000

Changing attitudes takes time. The first out gay character on TV didn’t happen until “Soap”, and that was a caricature. Twenty-five years later, there was a gender-transitive character in a soap and “Will & Grace” was popular.

My point is that even the crappy, ill-informed stuff is laying a groundwork for the future. The more we talk about it, the more we push to get heard, the more the message will come on-line. It sucks today, but tomorrow it may shine.

By: shinobi

shinobi — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:02:14 +0000

Yeah, I only watched it so I could get pissed off about how mean they were to the fatty. (And until Paranormal State came on.)

By: Stresskitten

Stresskitten — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:59:20 +0000

DMX = dextromethorphan. Cough syrup.

The ads for that Intervention episode upset me; it looked a lot like it was going to be “look at the fatty who needs to be saved from his own indulgence.” Of course, the very existence of that show upsets me (I’m sorry, why should people’s addictions be entertainment?), so my view wasn’t exactly without bias.