Is there Really "More to Love" About the New Reality Dating Show Featuring Larger Women?

By Liz Langley, Liz Langley's Blog. Posted August 1, 2009.

I hate admitting that the commercial got me, but it did. It went something like "The average woman in America is a size 14. The average woman on a reality show is a size 2. This is reality?"

Interesting, especially because in re-reading that sentence, I know I'm way closer to "America" than I am to "reality." Enter "More to Love" a new Fox reality show that's essentially a supersized version of "The Bachelor," "Rock of Love," or any reality dating show where a bunch of women vye for the affection of a man they've just met as though their world is the Titanic and he's the last lifeboat. The only difference with this one is that everyone is a bigger size than you normally see on TV: the prize, Luke, is a 26 year-old cutie who weighs in at 330 pounds.

Here and elsewhere I keep hearing folks who aren't skinny described as "real," a linguistic fad I find unfair and inaccurate. Skinny people are just as real as everyone else; I have yet to meet someone with such a low body weight that they could be deemed imaginary. It's wrong to dismiss people as non-existent just because they've escaped the ill effects of pie.

Anyway, I don't watch much reality TV but I kind of liked the point the ad made and thought this might provide a different spin.

It didn't. Expecting a different spin from a reality show is like opening a can of Pringles and expecting one to be shaped like a star fish. Just like other reality dating shows, the theme music hadn't even faded before it felt as cheap and cheesey as movie theater nachos. The participants are a little more likeable and some are outright stunning, but in the long run it's just a bunch of women fighting for the good opinion of a man they don't even know. It's kind of like watching those people who would dress up like dolls or clowns or cavemen on "Let's Make a Deal" and put themselves in a tizzy to win whatever was behind curtain number two. They were so sure it was a car they never thought it might be a donkey.

Actually this seems a lot worse.

Not that Luke is a donkey: he's probably a perfectly nice guy but the circus atmosphere of these shows just makes the sadness of thwarted hearts feel even sadder. On this show there seemed to be more crying than usual - and this was the first episode. It's certainly heart-breaking and a poor reflection on the men these women have met that some of them have never had a single date. If "More to Love" accomplishes anything hopefully it will wake the world up to the fact that some guys like a girl with an ass like a couple of throw pillows. If they didn't I'd still be a virgin.

I just wish this revelation could overtake America without so many people being willing to exploit their own misery for their 15 minutes and our entertainment, which I'm well aware is the nature of all dating reality shows. I know watching people be hurt and humiliated is fashionable right now but I can't take it. Like the greatest moments in love, the worst ones should be private. Am I taking a piddling TV zeitgeist too seriously? Maybe. But seeing people willingly throw their hearts out in these crazy games of emotional Beer Pong gives me the same brand of the creeps I get when I see a bear on a bicycle - something that wild, beautiful and dangerous just shouldn't be a sideshow.

I hope every last participant of every reality dating show finds their one-and-only true love and lives ever-after just like Cinderella (presumably). The world is better when people are happy. But I won't see it. I will have long switched the TV back over to Cartoon Network where my tuner belongs. At least there everything is supposed to be completely crazy.

See more stories tagged with: dating, reality show, more to love

Liz Langley is a freelance writer in Orlando, FL.

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