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22 04 2008

Why it’s okay to be mean to the contestants on the show…

Posted by: Mythor in Discussion, The Biggest Loser

With the season wrapping up I thought it was about time I actually wrote up the explanation for why it’s okay to be mean to the contestants on the show. I actually meant to write this a couple of weeks back but now the Finale has stealthily crept up on me and I’m almost out of time!

If you’ve been around some of the forums, the official one in particular, you are probably aware of the “Friends and Family of…” phenomenon. This is where the Friends and Family of a contestant will log onto a forum and strongly and/or viciously defend their friend from the various attacks forumgoers make.

This was best exemplified this season by the Friends and Family of Sheridan, known on the forums as “FAFOS” due to the alarming rate at which they sprang up.

Friends and Family will usually defend their loved one by telling us all that their beloved Fatty is not actually that mean, stupid, lazy or whatever they’ve been accused of. In real life, they’re actually kind, clever and just generally lovely. The forumgoers are told that they don’t know the real Fatty!

And they’re absolutely right. We don’t know the real person.

But they’ve also inadvertently given us a green light to continue being mean, precisely because we don’t know the real people.

What we see each night on television is just what the producers of the show want us to see. If they want us to think Alison is always the nicest, most caring, most considerate and generally lovely girl on set, then all the footage that supports that gets aired, while all the footage that might show her as a horrible, mean spirited and evil woman is conveniently left out.

So we’re not seeing the real Alison. What we are seeing is more like a caricature. We are seeing Biggest Loser Contestant Alison, a character in this reality soapie. If we were to say that Alison is horrible for not warmly welcoming Bryce and Michelle back, then it is Biggest Loser Contestant Alison we are criticising, not Real Life Alison.

A great example of this phenomenon from last season was Courtney. During the first half to two thirds of the season, Courtney was horrible. He was brattish, insolent, lazy, conniving and probably a lot of other very unkind words. But at some point during the show, either his personality turned the corner or the producers started giving him a kinder edit.

Which Courtney is the real one? Is it the horrible troll we saw for the first half of the season? Or the lovely, funny lad we saw in the last half?

If he’s actually the lovely, funny lad we saw in the last half of the season, does that make terrible people of those who criticised him during the first half?

I say no. We were reacting to what we saw of Courtney at the time.

That is the distinction, for me. Yes, I am mean to some of these people. I expect some of them do take it personally, though I expect my insults are at the low end of the spectrum, going by what I read on other sites! But if I could tell them just one thing, it would be that I am criticising the person I saw portrayed on my TV screen and that I am actually aware that that is not the sum total of their being.

Does that reasoning make sense to anyone but me? I certainly hope it does. :-)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 2:07pm and is filed under Discussion, The Biggest Loser. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 8 Comments

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    It is OK to be mean. And it's OK for the respective fatty's friends to come on to these forums and defend said fatty. But it really amuses me to see the lengths some people will go to. On this very site, "Charlie" called Sheridan "HITLER IN A DRESS!!!". Well, that makes perfect sense. Let's make a list of the most hated people throughout history.

    1) Adolf Hitler

    2) Joseph Stalin

    3) -Insert your favorite Australian serial murderer here-

    4) Sheridan from the Biggest Loser, Australia.

    Obviously these people are all going to the same level of hell ;)
    • ^
    • v
    I believe you give the "Producers" far too much credit. Sure, they dictate what "events" will take place each day at the house. However, they do not control how the contestants will react like some evil puppet master. If a contestant behaves is a particular manner (Let's say Garry Gorges on 90 Jaffers) then all the cameras will focus on that person. They are not going to focus on someone who is just sitting there waiting for it to end. This would be boring and we'd complain more than we do already. The subsequent Interviews (from all contestants) filmed after the fact, will focus on the so called incident (Garry eating). This "thread" would be followed in the editing process and the end product is what you see on TV.

    My point is, These so called producers haven't gone out of their way to "get" Garry and make him look weak. It was probably the only interesting moment that transpired during temptation and they ran with it. Yes the Biggest Loser is showing us only what they want to us to see. But manipulating what contestants say and do and demonising some and preferential treatment to others...? This is far fetched and bordering on conspiracy theory. It is reality to a point, spiced up to make it digestable to a 7pm timeslot as light entertainment.
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    It is not a conspiracy theory.
    Which you would know if you'd read what was actually written and not what your own mind substituted for my words.

    At no point did I say that they manipulate what the contestants say or do, all I said was that they selectively edit what is shown on screen of what the contestants choose to say or do. This is an indisputable fact.

    Of course they're showing real slices of what people are like, but if you don't see all the slices you can't possibly know the entirety of their character.

    That was my point. It's a shame you were more interested in coming here to trash me than actually consider what I had to say.
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    I agree the producers have sway. Obviously not on as large a scale as on, say, Big Brother, which I love to bits but have always noticed accentuates either the negatives or positives of certain contestants, but still to a certain degree. Personally I thought Cosi was an asshat at first and by the middle/end I LOVED him and he ended up being one of my favourites. Did his personality change within that time span? No, I simply believe more of his snide comments were shown and less of his humour at the beginning, and after time we saw his hilarious star quality shine through.
    I was going to say more but now I've forgotten, so I'll leave it at that :-P
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    I'm not trashing you Mythor.

    I was merely commenting on what many of us believe and that is that the show is heavily manipulated and "fixed".

    Quote- "What we see each night on television is just what the producers of the show want us to see. If they want us to think Alison is always the nicest, most caring, most considerate and generally lovely girl on set, then all the footage that supports that gets aired, while all the footage that might show her as a horrible, mean spirited and evil woman is conveniently left out."

    I believe this is what I read.... And what I commented on.

    Maybe, just maybe, Alison is a genuinely a really lovely girl who doesn't say horrible, mean sprited things. This is why we don't get "the other side".

    Like I said, I think you (and many others) give the producers too much credit.
    • ^
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    Suggesting that something is a conspiracy theory is not exactly the nicest thing you can say to someone. If you weren't aware of that before, you are now.

    And, again, you're completely missing the point. Alison is used as an example. Everyone always says Alison is lovely and I have no reason to suspect otherwise.

    But, and this is where you've come unstuck, if Alison is not actually the lovely person we see on TV, but the producers decide a lovable mother of three is of more interest to viewers, they can leave out all the bits where she's swearing her head off about this contestant, being rude to that contestant and generally being horrible.

    I am not saying that she does those things. But if the producers want to emphasise the niceness it is trivial to leave out all the swearing and only ever show her saying lovely things about people. Trivial.
    Even the most horrible people will say some nice things occasionally, even if you have to take them completely out of context to make it not seem rude.
    There's no need for them to say to Cosi, "Call everyone clowns!" They just wait for him to say it and get a lot of mileage out of it. They don't need to ask JJ to be an insensitive prick, they just show the footage where he does so of his own accord.

    If you don't think this is exactly what happens then you are incredibly naive. Trust me, it's happening. Go ask a past contestant if you have any doubts on that score. You're in for a nasty surprise.
    • ^
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    Yes, TJ was a prime example last season of BB of how a lot of selective editing can make you seem quite sane and normal and the person you're interacting with seem very meanspirited. We didn't see TJ's screaming fits of insane rage until after she was evicted.
    It made me very sad as I thought she was hot before that!

    Big Brother also has the advantage that they have 24 hours of footage a day, minus sleeping time. And if they can't manufacture anything they can always have "blissful" scenes of the backyard early in the morning...

    I'm always forgetting things to say, not a problem! :)
    • ^
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    "But, and this is where you’ve come unstuck, if Alison is not actually the lovely person we see on TV, but the producers decide a lovable mother of three is of more interest to viewers, they can leave out all the bits where she’s swearing her head off about this contestant, being rude to that contestant and generally being horrible."

    Firstly, I'm not unstuck, secondly I may be naive when it comes to many things, but I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. Let us use Alison as an example (again sorry).

    Let's be clear. Yes, Alison is the loving mother of three... We know this. We learnt it before the show went to air and they were playing those damn ads.. She is the Kristy of this series if you will. All the contestants are archetypes of of many varieties. We all know what they are and we root for the good guys and give the thumbs down to the villians like JJ. To take these characters out of their archetypal strongholds would upset the apple cart so to speak. Leaving the masses confused and turning to Home and Away in a heartbeat.

    So Yes you are right Mythor, the producers have it in their best interest to put across all the niceties that Alison has to offer whilst leaving the potential nastiness on the cutting room floor. But... you know what, I'm confident that if Alison were to have a fit of rage and hit someone... We would see it see... Only if it were relevant to the story and applicable to her journey... If it was a random incident that had no impact on the episode, then yes, they'd ditch it because it does not offer progression her character or doesn't tie in nicely with the stupid temptation that's on.

    Cheers
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