Normal is the new fat

I used to be an MTV addict. If there was an episode of The Real World on I watched. It didn't matter what season it was from or how many times I had already seen it. I watched it anyway, I was powerless to resist. Then I got a little older and I found myself getting more and more annoyed with the show. By the time the Las Vegas season came I had pretty much tuned out.

But then the evil marketing geniuses at MTV came up with something that drew me back in. The Real World/Road Rules challenges. Something about the challenges just drew me in. I knew it was total trash but I didn't care. I could watch and episode and hate every single person on it but I would still be entertained.

But here's my question. Has the show always been as anti-women as it is now? Or have I just recently noticed this? I would like to think that it wasn't always like this and that it's just gotten bad over time. I would hate to think that at one time I didn't notice that the entire show was pretty much a platform for the "men" on the show to wave their dicks around and make misogynistic comments.

Even the women on the show seem to be taking part in it. They whine about how they need as many men as possible on their team and how the other girls are just dead weight. I have never once seen one of them say anything like "Hey! Girls can do stuff too! We don't have to rely on the boys to carry us through this!"

The most disturbing thing that I've noticed lately on the show though is how damned skinny all the women are. Take Paula:

Now Paula is anorexic but she doesn't really look all that different than most of the other women on her team. Many of them look like they might topple over if a butterfly landed on them particularly hard. What happens when someone on the show is slightly larger? Take Janelle:

Pretty girl right? Yeah. On nearly episode she gets called things like "a whole lotta girl". And god forbid that the woman be an even larger size. Take Anessa:

I can't stand Anessa on the show but I've gotten tired of the constant comments about her weight. On the last episode there was a swimming challenge and one of the other people on the show commented that she was "swimming like there was a cupcake on the other side". Nice. And this kind of stuff is said all the time. Certainly MTV can't control what the people on it's shows say. But they can decide how many of these hurtful and damaging comments that they're going to put in every episode of their shows.

Why all the fat jokes MTV? Is your female audience not insecure enough already? Do you have to comtinue to drill it into their heads that they should not have any curves at all unless they're the surgicaly implanted, saline kind? Screw you MTV. This is one cupcake loving girl that won't be watching you anymore.

Edited - All of the sudden I'm getting a ton of hits for this entry and I can't figure out why. Where are you all coming from?