TLCTLC has unveiled Hot and Heavy: a new, totally necessary and sensitive reality TV show focused on ‘mixed-weight couples’.
The series will seemingly explore the various highs and lows of being in a relationship with someone at the other end of the weight-spectrum.
After the network released the trailer for the upcoming show, folks on Twitter aired their issues with the concept, calling it out for what it is: daft, pointless and troll-baiting.
Check out the trailer for Hot and Heavy below:
The series will follow three couples – Joy and Chris, Kristin and Rusty, and Adrianna and Ricardo – as they navigate their respective relationships, as well as dealing with judgement from friends, family and the public.
Here’s the problem: in each of the couples, it’s the woman who’s heavier.
TLCIn the trailer, Ricardo says:
We’re just two people that are different sizes and I don’t feel like there should be a stigma behind it.
However, the trailer has not been received well online, with one user writing: ‘This is not okay and that title is horrible.’
Another critic pointed out the ethical issues behind the show: ‘Only showing couples where the woman is heavier aka TLC into enforcing societal beauty standards only on women, kinda sad stance to take into 2020.’
So…
a show exclusively about
"men who love
plus-size women"
but not women who love
plus-size men.
Why not both ways, @TLC ? pic.twitter.com/Id62jgtQw1— GESS (@GESSwrites) December 11, 2019
A recurring point in the replies to the trailer is that the network is glamorising obesity, with one user writing: ‘What’s with TLC and morbidly obese people? I can understand My 600lb Life because they actually want help but morbid obesity [is] not to be celebrated.’
Talking in the trailer about her husband of two years, Kristin – who weighs in at 329lbs – says: ‘I think every girl hopes they are going to get a hunky husband, so I totally hit the jack pot.’
‘I absolutely love Kristin’s size – I wouldn’t mind if she was a little bigger,’ Rusty says of Kristin.
TLCHowever, disagreements between the couple arise with discussions of starting a family together, as Kristin realises she may need to get gastric bypass surgery in order to actually have a baby.
On the other hand, not everyone is criticising the upcoming series. One user tweeted: ‘We’re all attracted to different people! I’m gonna LOVE this show!’
I want to watch this. I'm glad these men feel that way about the love of their lives. It dont matter what people think or say if they are in love and happy that's all that matters. ❣❣
— malisa lee (@malisalee67) December 10, 2019
Another person wrote: ‘I’m not going to sit here and judge. Whatever makes your clock tick, it’s your life enjoy it.’
Hot and Heavy will premiere on TLC on January 7, 2020.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.