A confession: over the past two years I've become a regular (though not religious) viewer of The Biggest Loser. This interest has been aided by virtue of living in a household where the show is often on the TV, and abetted by a Foxtel IQ box that lets us record the program and skip through tedious 'filler' to focus on the competition itself.
I've consistently sneered at reality TV, and always considered The Biggest Loser to be a particularly objectionable example. Yet in the lead-up to the season finale, due to air tonight, I've been forced to reassess a couple of my prejudices, while others remain firmly intact.
Don't get me wrong. This is trash TV. Some of its dubious features are common throughout the 'reality' genre: the formulaic structure, the emotional manipulation, the vapidity of the format, the sniping and backstabbing which is cast as 'drama'.
Others are idiosyncratic: the nauseating pap-psychology dribbled by the Aussie trainers — as if bulky biceps give them the ability to psychoanalyse their emotionally vulnerable charges — and the try-hard tough talk spouted by militaristic motivator, The Commando.
Then there's the 'temptations', where high-fat, high-calorie foods (how can you fit so much bacon and fried eggs onto one plate?) are dangled in front of contestants, with the promise of prizes such as a week's immunity from elimination if they give in and scoff up. And, of course, there's the irony of a show that purports to celebrate weight loss while keeping thousands of viewers pinned to their sofas and their television sets.
As far as losing weight goes, the 'big brother' approach seems a particularly undignified one. That is a personal judgement. I'm a self-conscious exerciser. I prefer to pound pavement under cover of night. I use the gym at times when I know it will be nearly empty. The idea of sweating it out on a treadmill or struggling through my stomach crunches in front of a camera and a television audience seems totally abhorrent.
So while my overriding emotional response to the decreasingly overweight contestants on The Biggest Loser is one of pity and vicarious shame, that has more to do with personal biases than anything else.
I've reassessed another personal prejudice. In the throes of skepticism, I usually scoff at the seemingly insincere camaraderie between contestants. After all, at the end of the day each has their individual eye on the