University of Denver Digital Commons @ DU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 1-1-2011 Love Through a Wide-Angle Lens: A Mythic Narrative and Feminist Critique of the Reality Competition Dating Show More to Love Amy LeAnn Zsohar University of Denver Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Zsohar, Amy LeAnn, "Love Through a Wide-Angle Lens: A Mythic Narrative and Feminist Critique of the Reality Competition Dating Show More to Love" (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 739. https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/739 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. LOVE THROUGH A WIDE-ANGLE LENS: A MYTHIC NARRATIVE AND FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF THE REALITY COMPETITION DATING SHOW MORE TO LOVE __________ A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of Social Sciences University of Denver ___________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy ___________ by Amy LeAnn Zsohar June 2011 Advisor: Dr. Bernadette Marie Calafell Author: Amy LeAnn Zsohar Title: Love Through a Wide-Angle Lens: A Mythic Narrative and Feminist Critique of the Reality Competition Dating Show More to Love Advisor: Dr. Bernadette Marie Calafell Degree Date: June 2011 ABSTRACT Obesity is on the rise in the United States and reality television has also risen to the charge of representing fatness. More to Love was the first reality competition dating show to afford fat women a chance at reality show love. The purpose of the study was to look at how fat women are portrayed on reality competition dating shows. The purpose of this study is to understand how the mythic narrative of love through a feminist lens informed by LeBesco, Bordo, Hill Collins, and hooks are in conversation with each other in More to Love. This study found that the women were written into a fairy tale where they were afforded no ownership in their story. The bachelor, Luke, and their fatness controlled their destinies and their “happily-ever-afters.” Their identity was portrayed through their fatness, gender, and sexual orientation over any other identifying markers. The relationships with Luke and with food were found to be the main relationships evident. The study found that the show is unsuccessful in normalizing fat women as equally afforded the myth of love as thin women. It proliferates the totalizing of the identity of fat while minimalizing any other identity. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I must take a moment to thank those who made this dissertation and degree possible. Without the wisdom, guidance, and support of Dr. Bernadette Marie Calafell, I would not have been able to do anywhere near what I accomplished here. She offered advice, she pushed when needed, and read through and edited this document more times than I can imagine. She is not only an advisor, but a strong mentor. I thank Dr. Kate Willink and Dr. Christina Foust for offering their criticisms, ideas and support as members of my committee and wonderful inspirations as professors. I thank Dr. Frederique Chevillot for stepping in last minute and chairing this dissertation. She brought a vivacious energy to this process. KR Roberto, thank you for all your help in researching fatness and for your positive energy. On a personal note, I must thank my parents, Z and Shirley Zsohar, for always believing in me and for loving me as I embarked on this journey. I could not have finished this in such a timely manner had it not been for the support of William and Maranda Murphy. I must also thank my DU support team of Dan Foster, Dr. Jacquelynn McDaniel, Arianna Molloy, Dan Strasser, Andy Kai-Chun Chuang, Dr. Rich Jones, and Dr. Jennifer Huynh Thi Anh Morrison for never letting me give up and for always knowing exactly what to say, whether I wanted to hear it or not. And to my friends and family all over the world who supported, loved, challenged, offered me escape and a hug when needed, and never let me give up on myself, I doubt I have the proper words to say thank you enough. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction: Love Through the Mediated Lens .............................................. 1 Chapter 2: Love Through the Bifocal Lens of Literature: Fatness and Reality Television.......................................................................................................................... 13 Chapter 3: Love Through Magnifying Lenses: The Methods Section ............................. 42 Chapter 4: Love Through a Rose-Colored Lens: More to Love as a Mythic Fairy Tale ................................................................................................................................... 66 Chapter 5: Love Through a Prism Lens: Feminism and Fatness in More to Love ......... 100 Chapter 6: Love Through a Wide-Angle Lens: Discussion........................................... 129 Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 141 Appendix A: More to Love Statistics ............................................................................. 155 iv Chapter 1: Introduction: Love Through the Mediated Lens People judge appearances as though somewhere in their minds an ideal beauty of the human form exists, a form they would recognize if they saw it, though they do not expect they ever will. It exists in the imagination. –Etcoff 10 Oh I don’t want her, you can have her, she’s too fat for me. –Too Fat Polka Introduction As many young girls do, I spent my childhood planning my perfect life that fit within the parameters of being a girl. I had my wedding planned at the age of 16, had my children’s names picked out by 12, and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I would be married by 25. Yet, everywhere I looked I was told I wasn’t enough for that dream. I wasn’t pretty enough, smart enough or thin enough to achieve any of those milestones. I bought into the rhetoric. I believed what I was told. I conceded my own happiness to the rhetoric of idealism through media and my own family. I watched my mother fight with her weight and expend a ridiculous amount of energy trying to fit an ideal. Everywhere I looked it was images of thinness as beauty. I looked for a love story on TV or in the 1 movies where a large girl found love; she wasn’t just the best friend. I latched on to movies like Hairspray and Shag as the large girls found love. Beauty was defined for me through these representations. Not only were the women thin, they were also white. It wasn't just their thinness that defined beauty; it was also their whiteness. The intersections of the two define desirability. Women of color are as rare as fat women on television and in romantic roles. Fat women of any color are defeminized through the mammy figure, the angry women of color, or the buffoon (Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought). Femininity, as it relates to the body, is presented in this stick thin, white female form (Bordo). To have love available to you, you must fit this intersection of identity, otherwise the friend role is the only available role, according to mediated representations. As I grew older, I accepted that I would always be cast in the friend role. As long as I believed the rhetoric, I would be the friend. I celebrated with Camryn Manheim as she won her Emmy and dedicated it to all the fat girls. I was enthusiastic when The Biggest Loser started on television. Finally people who looked like me were on television. However they were still the friend or in need of being saved. Romance didn’t appear to be an option for fat women like me. When FOX announced their new reality competition dating show, More to Love, I got excited. Finally, I believed I was going to be represented in a show about love. I watched the show the first time with ice cream in hand excited about what I was about to see. What did I see? I saw women’s weight and height on the screen, wondering what that had to do with love. I saw an inordinate amount of tears and heard the statement “this is my only hope” too many times to count. I found myself enraged at the pathetic representations of me. 2 In my rage, I began to question what mediated representations of fatness are defining as normal. Each day, the average U.S. American adult watches 2.8 hours of television a day (Bureau of Labor Statistics). This is roughly half of the amount of leisure time Americans utilize a day (Bureau of Labor Statistics). CNN reported in 2009 that Americans were watching 151 hours of television per month (Gandossy). Television plays an important role in American society, which leads to the question: what is television telling us about women, beauty and fatness? Female Fatness on Television Women’s roles have been heteronormatized on television as the good wife, the secretary, the friend, and the teacher since its inception. Throughout the history of television, these roles were played out in almost every character and talk show. When fatness has been present, it has been in the background, as the friend or in roles of subservience. Nell Carter played her mammy role incredibly well on Gimme a Break where she served as a surrogate mother for four white children in the 1980s. Later, Roseanne Barr on the show Roseanne embodied the mammy in a white body as a blue- collar wife and mother of three children. Charlotte Rae on the Facts of Life furthered the white mammy as a housemother of four young boarding school children.