And, while the idea that fat people don’t exercise (which has come up with both Jane and the woman she defended) is just flat-out wrong, at least the implication is that Jane doesn’t exercise because she’s too busy, not because she’s too lazy.

Plus, I think my main positive feelings about the show just come from Jane being so darn adorable that it’s hard not to think she’s both likeable and beautiful. She is portrayed so positively in terms of her intelligence and personality and altruism that I think it would be hard for a viewer to come away from the show thinking really bad things about fat people, even if a few stereotypes are there.

So a nice smart guy who really just plain likes every damned inch of me (and every pound) was a joy to find. We’re not still dating, but it kind of broke through the complete bullshit that fat girls are second-tier choices for men. We aren’t. And it’s done miraculous things for my love life, because I’m much more comfortable expecting men to find me devastatingly sexy, instead of just hoping like hell I’ll be acceptable. It’s weird how well it works. Or maybe it just scares away the ones who would prefer to nag me about my “health.”

I’m sure if I write to them to complain I’ll get a whiny letter back about how hard it is to put captions into flash videos…despite the fact that almost every major video content provider can do it now. And also they’d be whining to someone who makes terrabytes of dvd rips with external caption files every month. I’m sure I’ll buy it when they pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.

I was honestly surprised by how stereotypical the women on More To Love appeared. But I think that maybe you are right that fat people will have to go through a period of just being on TV before they are represented positively on TV. In a way its like how other minority segments of the population made their way into the television culture. Mocking stereotypes first, positive portrayals later, even though there have already been great examples of fat women in leading roles. Fat acceptance is something that will take time.

I hated that they placed the women’s weight next to their name and age. They shouldn’t be ashamed of that, because they were all really beautiful women, but why was that necessary? It would never, ever happen on any of the other dating shows. It was like the producers just couldn’t get enough of saying “Hey they are fat! Look! Fat! See?” That bothered me.

I’ve got no problem with shows portraying people enjoying food. Most people I know, fat and thin, enjoy food. But, so much of TV presents enjoying food as totally strange and forbidden, and when enjoying food is restricted to fat characters, then it just leads to the conclusion that overeating=being fat.

I know I’ve seen episodes of TV shows where a thin character has a break-up and eats ice cream. There’s not an indication, usually, that the behavior is disordered or unhealthy or problematic. But, when a fat character eats a snack after a hard day, I do think the audience is supposed to have this “Aha! That’s why they’re fat!” reaction. I can understand when somebody like Camryn Manheim would be so adamant about her character not eating donuts or having snacks on her desk, because while eating donuts and having snacks on the desk is something that both thin and fat people do, it’s interpreted in a very, very different way when a fat person does it, and I do tend to think that until we move beyond the idea that fat people are fat because they eat too much, any representation of a fat person eating more than a thin person is going to unfortunately be problematic.