TV

People Are Angry At A New Show Called ‘Hot & Heavy’ For Its Treatment Of Fat People

The trailer for the show about "mixed-weight relationships" has faced mixed reviews online.

by Michelle Rennex  13 December 2019
TLC Hot & Heavy Backlash

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TLC is facing backlash for Hot & Heavy, their new show about “mixed-weight relationships”.

The official trailer for Hot & Heavy, which premieres in January, was uploaded to Twitter this week to mixed reviews. The trailer features three couples: Joy and Chris, Kristin and Rusty, and Adrianna and Ricardo.

“For these couples, love knows no size,” TLC tweeted alongside the trailer. “See the highs and lows of their mixed-weight relationships on the series premiere of Hot & Heavy.”

The trailer opens with a scene of three women sitting together in hot tub as we watch the water overflow. It’s presumably meant to be funny because they’re fat, of course.

The vibe of the sneak peek let’s us know that the show is focused on the issues these “regular” guys face by being with their plus-size partners. Every problem in the trailer revolves around the “heavy” women, with no mention of what issues the men brought to each relationship.

As soon as the trailer was uploaded, people immediately found issue with the title of the show. While producers probably thought the play on words was smart, the title implies that anyone “heavy” can’t also be attractive.

The exploitative nature of the show is only made worse by all the scenes TLC added for comedic effect. Beyond the opening hot tub scene, the shot of a driver hurling abuse is also questionable.

It’s amazing that TLC was able to capture the exact moment that a passerby mocked Adrianna as the “mixed-weight” couple were eating ice cream. People begun to point out that for this to realistically happen, TLC would’ve likely had to hire an actor.

But the biggest issues that people had with the Hot & Heavy was TLC’s portrayal of “mixed-weight” relationships solely being between heavier women and slimmer men.

Despite popular shows like The Simpsons, Family Guy and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air portraying larger men with thin wives, TLC chose to entirely focus the show on larger women.

Beyond TLC’s choice to portray only one type of “mixed-weight” relationship, the men they have included fetishise the women throughout the trailer. “I absolutely love Kristen’s size,” Rusty says. “I wouldn’t mind if she was a little bit bigger.”

After a suggestion of gastric bypass surgery for Kristen to have children, Rusty refuses. Then the next clip then features an angered Kristen yelling: “You just want to keep me fat. Fuck the chips!”

But not everyone was against Hot & Heavy for the fetishisation or portrayal of fat women, some were angered by TLC’s alleged glorification of obesity.

While others pointed out that it’s not glorification, but rather TLC’s fatphobia and exploitation of fat people that continues to produce these shows. Hot & Heavy is not the first TLC program focused on obese people, with My 600-lb Life and My Big Fat Fabulous Life also being popular shows for the channel.

If you’d like to watch Hot & Heavy and decide for yourself, it’s set to air in January on TLC (which you can access on Foxtel).