Melanie and I normally don’t watch much tv. We have high-speed internet because that is important for both of us, but when it comes to the old boob tube itself we just say no. I’ll go into the why and wherefores in some other post, but the quick ‘n’ dirty reason is simply that it’s expensive and since the shows we occasionally DO watch are almost always available for download or viewable on Hulu/Joost, then it’s just better that way.
This situation is great, like, 95% of the time. The other five percent are those days when you’re feeling so gross that the mere idea of doing ANYTHING other than lying on the couch and staring at the pretty pictures is repugnant to you. Then the lack of tv can get a little annoying.
Hulu to the rescue! I spent a good chunk of yesterday afternoon curled up and poking through their archives. After I vanquished the more traditional fare of The Family Guy and American Dad, I started getting experimental and watched some Desperate Landscapes, some Howdini, and finally landed on The Biggest Loser.
I remember, vaguely, that when I heard the premise of The Biggest Loser for the first time being downright incensed. I thought it was exploitative (which it still sort of it) and degrading for the poor SOBs who were actually on it. It boggled the mind to me! Even the name of the show – a double entendre of completely shallow proportions – made me grind my teeth. These people were setting themselves up to lose weight in front of an entire nation – to ridicule, to humiliation, to disgust – and for what? The chance to work with a personal trainer (which, if they wanted so badly they could have somehow managed to swing at home) and a shot at a large chunk of money? I thought it was just another example of our media sensationalism and a travesty on the whole. Why the hell would someone DO that?
I haven’t been a small woman for years but I rarely consider myself huge. But some of season seven’s smallest ladies (at least in the first episode) only weighed maybe twenty or thirty pounds than me. WTF?! To say that this was a big of a kick in the nuts to my self image and ego is an understatement.
As you can tell, I got on my high horse about it even though my high horse was entirely in my head. I was the disparaging one. I was the loser for saying that anyone who’d go on national television and set themselves up like that deserved whatever humiliation that followed. AND, keep in mind, I’d decided all this without ever once watching the damn show.
Then, yesterday, headachy and exhausted, I laid down and came across it. I started the player up expecting to be vindicated within the first ten minutes. Instead a character collapsed and I was suddenly pressing my hands against my mouth, praying silently that he’d be okay. This is a show that was filmed, what, six months ago? And here I was, praying for a man who I’d not only never met but who, thirty seconds prior, I’d been mentally calling an idiot for signing up for the show considering his age.
When the show was done I was disappointed that there wasn’t more. I’m not a fan of reality tv – normally I think people who like it could be doing better things with their time – but there was something about their struggles that really drew me. I immediately felt badly about what I’d thought before. This wasn’t traditional reality tv, this was people, real people, struggling to achieve a goal that is life and death for them. These were people who made me look at myself differently. These were people who wanted something and weren’t afraid to reach out and take it. And I was painfully, heartbreakingly proud of them.
I went to sleep and I dreamed one of those headache-induced, I’m-so-sick dreams. You know the kind.
In my dream Melanie was on a reality show. I don’t remember all the details, but she was one of the finalists and all she had to do to win was to tell her mother about her crossdressing. Now I know this dream was prompted by Melanie recently telling her mother about her crossdressing. I’d always assumed she’d known since all of his father’s side knows and so had Melanie. Well, someone must have been keeping a secret, because apparently it was a big surprise to her. She didn’t take it well, but that’s a post for another day.
Either way, in the dream Melanie couldn’t do it (despite the fact that in Real Life ™ she’d done it just a few weeks prior) and lost the show in the last round. She came off the stage crying and smearing her makeup and I just hugged her and hugged her and hugged her. (Though, on second thought, her mother should have known considering the fact that she was dolled up to the nines on the stage and her mom was calling Melanie by her male name.)
I told Melanie that I didn’t care that she didn’t win and that her mom didn’t know. I told her that she’d made the effort and that was all that mattered. I told her lots of comforting, pleasant things and when I woke up this morning I reached over and hugged my husband tight-tight-tight.
Telling that first person that you’re a crossdresser is scary. It’s like, pardon the reference here, reality tv scary. You know that you’re risking ridicule and humiliation and misunderstanding from a potentially narrow-minded person. But, on the other hand, you’re also reaching for something more. Just by telling that first person, that person you love so much that you don’t want them to NOT know, you’re reaching for health. You’re reaching for a healthy MINDSET. Do you get what I’m trying to say here?
Being bottled up inside, being closeted (so to speak) is not healthy. Now you may live in a town where going out as a woman might be a little dangerous. You don’t have to go out and risk your body if you don’t want to, that’s your decision. But you should risk your mind and your emotions. You should tell select loved ones.
If you were a painter who refused to paint, a writer who refused to write, a dancer who refused to dance… well, you’d be doing the world a disservice. By stepping out, by standing out, you’re showing other people that there is no such thing as “normal” and that we can all live together happily no matter what clothing we wear, no matter what gender we ascribe to. By simply being yourself in a time when being a crossdresser or transgendered isn’t quite there yet… well, you’re being brave. You’re doing the right thing. And you’re making a difference, one person at a time.
I respect your bravery.
Tags: biggest loser, musing, theory
