Cruel April Fool Joke played on GMTV

It's not about having a sense of humour or not. It's about the fact overweight people are too often seen as an easy target, and the effect that has is to change the way people are treated on the basis of how much they weigh.

TV influences the attitudes people have, otherwise advertising wouldn't be such a massive industry.

I think I would've felt differently about it if it had been someone who was just a little bit overweight, but to show someone who was seemingly very depressed and withdrawn (when a lot of people ARE like that) for a joke is just a bit off.
 
I think it could have easily been any other subject and it just happened to be weight loss.
GMTV for as long as i can remember have done these april fools pranks and it just so happens that today was about weight loss.
i cant believe how much this has been taken out of context and been made much bigger than neccesary.
oh well each to their own i suppose
 
why is it silly to have a good, healthy debate? I can't see any 'outcry' or any nastiness ... and as far as I can see, the core of the debate is more to do with the ethos behind why it is acceptable to make a 'joke' out of a section of society who are already society's new whipping boys.

Let's think about previous April Fools day jokes ... a dog that can drive a car, spaghetti trees and an internet search engine that can 'read your mind'. Those are jokes because they don't point a finger at any one in any derogatory way.

I think that the reason some people are offended is yet again a subliminal message is being sent out that fat people are a) desperate and b) gullible.

But GMTV can split their sides with mirth because it was all just a big joke after all! Ha ha ha all you overweight people out there - and thanks for being good sports!!

Jaws would drop and complaints would flood in if, as another posted had said, the 'joke' was about a wonder cure for drug addiction or self harming.
PS
I haven't posted this with an angry attitude at all ... it's just my opinion in a healthy, balanced debate :)
 
I can't believe I actually got bored reading these threads. Has the British people really lost their sense of humour?

If this was a real product, at least one of us would have discovered it already on our internet searches for the miracle to lose weight. None of us have - does that not tell you something? Do you really think that losing 9 stone in 6 weeks is healthy? And how could you lose 9 stone when your eating habits hadn't changed? I don't think the medical society would allow such product. Where was the lose skin? please, this had April fool all over it.

This April fool highlighted one thing and one thing only - just how gullible people in this country are.

Now lighten up, and take it in the spirit it was intended! It's just an April Fool joke for pete's sake!
 
I don't think anyone really took it seriously as a potential weightloss 'miracle' product Corey (at least I hope not! 9 stone in 6 weeks from wearing socks?? :eek:).

I think the debate is more about the 'acceptability' of using an overweight person who is desperate to lose weight as the butt of an April Fool's joke (har-de-har).

Whilst I personally don't find it offensive (as a former fatty who is - and will always be - a fat woman screaming to get out of a slim body :sigh:), I can still understand that other people may hold the view that it was deemed an insult to anyone who is unhappy with their size.

Having said all that - I still maintain the actress looked like a turtle about to pop out of her shell in that fatsuit :D
 
And i can't believe that people haven't acknowledged the terrible brummie accent!!! It offended me!!! :)
:party0048:
 
They could have made a bit more of an effort with her head - when I started losing the weight, it was the first place I lost weight from!

Perhaps I am immune to being making jokes at my expense. Being a gay man, I and other gay people have been subject to endless jokes from heterosexual people for a long time, yes, some may get offended by it, but most laugh it off. I certainly don't get offended that easily. Look at comedians on television - does every mother in law get offended when the good old mother in law jokes come out time and time again? I don't think so. This is humour based on observation, and yes, I'm sorry but most people in this country are weight obsessed.
 
Corey said:
They could have made a bit more of an effort with her head - when I started losing the weight, it was the first place I lost weight from!

Perhaps I am immune to being making jokes at my expense. Being a gay man, I and other gay people have been subject to endless jokes from heterosexual people for a long time, yes, some may get offended by it, but most laugh it off. I certainly don't get offended that easily. Look at comedians on television - does every mother in law get offended when the good old mother in law jokes come out time and time again? I don't think so. This is humour based on observation, and yes, I'm sorry but most people in this country are weight obsessed.
Click to expand...


Try being a yank sometime!! :rotflmao:

Oh wait - you sort of are!! :D
 
Gay men shouldn't HAVE to laugh off homophobic jokes though, and neither should overweight people have to put up with constant jibes, because it IS constant and it's a symptom of something bigger.

It's the last thing you're allowed to say what you like about. Racism and homophobia are not socially acceptable (and rightly so!) but to discriminate against fat people is.

My issues with the 'joke' are that

a) it isn't funny

b) it upset people

c) it was mocking the emotional aspects of being overweight

I think it's sad that people really believed there was now a miracle solution, although I also think you'd have to be pretty gullible to fall for it. To their credit they deliberately made it something that was obviously fake.

There are sterotypes around people who are overweight. In personality tests, even young children attribute certain characteristics to people who are larger (laziness, stupidity) and I just think that it SHOULD be as taboo to make fun of people due to their weight as it is to make fun of people due to sexuality or race.

To be honest, if it was as socially unacceptable to make those jokes, I might find it funnier. It's the fact it's ok to say what you want that is the problem.
 
Well I thought it was mildly amusing and is taking the mick out of people that actually believe a cream can make you slim down by half in 6 weeks. Remember there is a complete industry deceiving people with this sort of claim. I would like to think that this sort of joke makes people realise that there are no silver bullets.

I think it is great that they did this and would not be offended by it as an obese person (at the moment thouygh probably not in a few weeks - Yippee!).
 
toller-girl said:
It's the fact it's ok to say what you want that is the problem.
Click to expand...

Ah, but I'm afraid that's where I really would have a problem.

Being able to say what we want lies at the very core of our society (whether we actually like what is being said or not). I agree absolutely that we should be considerate of other peoples' feeling - whether in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, age or size. But being ABLE to say these things .. whilst unpalatable to some .. is what makes our society far more tolerable (and tolerant) than many others in the world I could name ... :sigh:
 
I guess my problem is that if people have a problem with me being gay, or if people have a problem with me being overweight (let me put it another way - if people have a problem with gay people, or if people have a problem with overweight people) by the very definition they have the problem, and not me.

In the ideal world, there would not be jokes about blondes, gays, overweight people, mother in laws, irishmen, scots, americans (or any other nationality) religion, prisoners, etc etc etc. But hey, this is not the ideal world. I challenge anyone who has not told a joke or laughed at a joke that covers any of the above or any other group of people. If you havn't, then I am sorry, but you truly do not have a sense of humour!

Life is far too short to get hung up over trivia, and I am sorry, but this IS trivia, this will be the last posting I will put on this thread, because I have got more important things to worry about and waste my time on than this absolutely stupid topic!
 
Summerskye said:
Ah, but I'm afraid that's where I really would have a problem.
Click to expand...
Yeah I didn't word that well. I dont mean you shouldn't be able to say it, but that it should be treated in the same way as jokes about sexuality, race, gender etc.

I think if everyone said 'its just a joke, lighten up' all the time, then we'd still have sit coms like 'Love Thy Neighbour' and people like Bernard Manning on our tvs.

Corey, you're right that this programme is insignificant. I didnt see it, but if I did I wouldn't have been offended by it per se. What I am offended by is the idea that 'fat jokes' are ok.

I just don't see the issue with treating others with respect, and being aware of others feelings. :confused:
 
Surely it was more a joke about stupid people than fat people. Stupid people who think a cream can melt fat!
 
i wish cream could melt fat.. lol.. i would just put it in my bath n lie there.. for days if i had to..

x x x
 
And we back to the bit that really annoyed me, its not stupid people who believe these wonder cures, its desperate people who want to believe them. That the bit I took issue with, it not an appropriate topic to poke fun at.
 
at first i was a bit annoyed tbh by it.. but now im chilled out at it all.. i do get a bit offended when people tell fat jokes.. i know it isnt aimed at me.. but it makes me feel uncomfortable.. but i guess i think this could be because its too close to home.. if you get me.. gay jokes offend me too.. not only because they affect me.. but because they affect about 90% of my friends too.. and i guess being a girl.. its the vulgar side of it all.. it just makes me shiver.. urrgh.. lol..
ive seen a lot of people been hurt by fat jokes.. gay jokes.. racist jokes.. and so on and so forth.. i guess all we have to do is hold our head up high.. and ignore them if it offends us.. i can see it from both sides.. i really can.. but i think esp on minis.. we're here to love and support one another.. people arent always going to agree with us.. and thats good.. because it makes life beautiful.. we wouldnt all want to be the same now would we?

Hope i havnt annoyed anyone by saying this..

Cat x x x
 
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