Ftrain, by Paul Ford

I was stuck at work until 9PM hand-rebuilding a database, and so under the advisement of a coworker, who finds the show cheesy but touching, I brought up Hulu and watched The Biggest Loser for the first time last night as I entered commands, waited, entered commands, waited.

I had been avoiding it; I've avoided all the weight-loss shows in the same way that a failed musical theater performer might not watch American Idol, or a failed chef might not watch Hell's Kitchen, or Ted Haggard might not watch Queer Eye. I am familiar with reality TV strictures, the fact that it gives the world what it truly wants--dramas of class struggle in which the hardest-working person always wins the prize, be it money, a "husband," or a restaurant. But come now. The Biggest Loser. What a poxy pile of scurrilous bullshit. That any slend could enjoy this poison points to their vilest slendness. That 200,000 people auditioned points to how bad the chubs have been messed up by the vilest slends.

I do enjoy the hollow-eyed trainers, in particular the the bony woman with the amazingly defined stomach attack-modeing broken fatties as they exercise. "What's it like to have a heroin-addicted mother?" It sucks. "So did you eat instead?" Yes, yes, I ate. "Well you're a victim... a victim..." That word rings like a tolling bell. Victim. God help us were anyone to break down and yell out "I am a perpetrator; I am part of the evil in the world." And when it's done they say, we have broken down this nearly 500-pound woman, made her cry, and cry, and cry, and cry. All is well now. She has shit out her weakness through her eyeholes. The reveal, the breakthrough, the goodwillhunting, has made her real. One of us.

I want the fatties to birth from their mouths demon babies that eat the trainers. I want them to look into the trainer's souls and in a devil-voice be just as cruel in return. I'm coming for you Jillian. Why the tearing-down? But it makes good TV. And instead of fighting back they fight themselves, shirtless in the full blossoming of their rotten flesh, debased in the vain quest for acceptance, confessing their shame. Willing to sacrifice dignity for celebrity. I wonder if they put make-up on the stretchmarks before weigh-in, as things progress.

The same bony trainer says to Rudy, the chubster who is my instant favorite, as he is most like me, that she wants him to acknowledge that he wants to win. He says, no; I just want to see people play fair. The trainer is disgusted. She needs his journey to include savagery. He has, as a fattie, kept himself detached from life; by not being allowed to play in regular reindeer games he has become kind, and soft. That must be destroyed. He must be taken from victim to perpetrator or the story won't work. So this is the purpose of the show: to turn fat, confused people into victim-capitalists. That is an American archetype: Oprah, in particular. Roseanne. But all of them. The very wealthy and powerful person, the person who plays to win, who is also a suffering child. Why is victimhood such a constant prerequisite for (particularly) female success? Even if it's invented it has to be there.

Watching the show I wanted to eat ribs and run away. "They run a marathon," my coworker had said, explaining the show to me. "And I thought, This is ridiculous; and then I thought, Yes, but they lost all that weight and their legs must be very strong."

The familiar myth of fat-people-strong. I could have told him how I can barely lift the weight I lost, in cast iron, but I didn't. I watched a portion of the marathon instead and I thought, Holy shit, those people are actually dying on-screen, all for my anonymous approval. For the chance to walk into the mall and be high-fived. Sure, a 31-year-old man can lose 150 in 10 weeks and run 26.2 miles. He's 31; his body is just beginning to be destroyed by itself. I'm sure that at 35, a little beneath 300, I could run a marathon six weeks from now if it was all I was doing to train. And I'm sure it would give the slends some narrative pleasure, but it would be fucking stupid and dangerous.

These fools volunteered, and I'm sure they are proud of themselves, as everyone is proud of them. The winner, announced next week in the special finale, will be blessed with fame. They will go on to motivate. To say: "You can be happy." It's always better to be thin. The poor bastard who won a few years ago and then was too ashamed to go on Oprah when he gained 100 back aside.

So I thought all that, and I thought, If I wanted to see fat people cry I could revisit my 20s. And I thought, when this thing comes on again in January, I am watching it, with a bowl of ice cream and a bag of Fritos in my hand.

Weight: 295.25 lbs