The Thinner Fat Girl? A HUGE Review

(Photos from abcfamily.com)

                                                    

Last night was the premiere of the new ABC Family show HUGE staring, Nikki Blonsk, Hayley Hasselhoff, Raven Goodwin, Ari Stidham, and Ashley Holliday among others. It follows the life of teens who are sent off to fat-camp in hopes of shedding some weight. Now, you would think that for fat kids going to a weight-loss camp would put everyone on an even playing field, but just like the real world, there are the haves, and the have-nots.

The haves consist of Amber (Hasselhoff), Chloe (Holiday), and Caitlin who was voted off fat-camp island before the first episode ended for purging. The haves are the "skinnier fat girls" who basically have all of the guys salivating at the mouth over them as if they were real life walking and talking Twinkies. Chloe and the first fat-camp cast off Caitlin from what I could tell, are the Mean Girls of the fat-camp world. They inducted Amber into their fat chick clique without her even knowing it. Cast off Caitlin practically neglected poor Chloe for the thinner and very blond Amber once she saw the attention Amber was generating from the fat-camp male population.

(Photos from abcfamily.com)

I am conflicted with Amber's character because on one hand she to me is not considered fat, but she is not exactly skinny either. I think what the show is trying to do is show us different variations of what fat is, but coming from someone who is bigger than she is, if Amber is considered fat, then what am I?

Amber decorates her bunk with pictures of size -0 models for her inspiration and here, I think ABC is really missing the mark.They shouldn't be reinforcing societies "what is considered beautiful" standards instead, they should be sending the message that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. You don't have to be skinny to be healthy, and not every fat person can realistically be small. I do however, give kudos to ABC for promoting living a healthier lifestyle

(Photos from abcfamily.com)

And then, you have the have-nots, Will (Blonsky), Becca (Goodwin), and Ian (Stidham) play your quintessential unpopular group. Becca's character is somewhat a breath of fresh air because often you see the shows only black girl portrayed as the loud, smart mouthed hot ghetto mess, but Becca is rather meek, sweet, and nerdy. The way she acts around Chole and Caitlin makes me believe that they were close once. Maybe C squared went on to lose weight and got new "fatitudes" and figured Becca wasn't making enough progress to keep up with the cliques new appearance and stopped talking to her. I do hope that as the show progresses that Becca will speak up  for herself. Ian reminds me of a mixture of my dearest 80's movies. He is hopelessly in-"fat"-uated with Amber, but behold Amber's sights are set on one of the camps trainers (Zander Eckhouse) who of course is fit. Ian befriends Will by giving her one of his mixed tapes (they found a common bond over music). I think Ian and Will will become romantically involved at some point. 

Willamina (Will) played by Nikki Blonsky, sets aside her bubbly girl image from the movie Hairspray and puts her best tough girl "I don't care what you think about me" attitude forward. A few minutes into the show Will gives us a strip down to reveal her one-piece swimsuit in front of camp staff and goers, and if you couldn't sense her rebellious side from her electric blue hair streaks, then you surely understood what type of chick she is after that. Will's tough exterior is covering up something HUGE inside we just don't quite know what it is yet. We do know however, that she is at odds with her family about her weight. Will not only drug herself into camp, but she also bought a suitcase full of junk food as well. Her goal? To not lose weight at camp, but to gain.She ends up setting up shop in a bathroom selling to anyone who had a craving. This ultimately spirals into Caitlin being booted as mentioned, and Will attempting to leave camp once and for all. The camps head honcho played by Gina Torres who Will has bumped heads with since she landed at camp, eventually convinces her to stay.

I did not mention Will's and Amber's dislike of each other because I would like to leave that for another post. In all, the jury is still out on whether or not I actually like the show. I'm in disagreement with some on it's views, but it is rather entertaining. I shall see how HUGE of an impact this will have on my tv viewing schedule in the near future.