On Monday January 11, 2021, M6 will broadcast the first episode of Operation Renaissance. Karine Lemarchand follows obese people who lose weight through surgery, intensive coaching and makeovers. A false promise and a dangerous spectacle of fat people, according to them.
“Operation Renaissance”: a title full of promise for a program that promises to be a success. The concept ? Nine women and a man are accompanied for three years, with the goal of losing weight with the help of bariatric surgery (a major operation that concerns the digestive system, with installation of a ring, reduction of the weight). stomach …) and full coaching. Doctors are associated with the program, and find themselves alongside stars of the French audiovisual landscape, such as Stéphane Clerget, psychiatrist used to television, or Cristina Cordula. Which is also illustrated by controversial positions on the subject of weight: we remember that the host "forbids" fat women certain types of clothing in his Queens shopping …
Despite this choice of casting, Karine Le Marchand, who also produces the show, denies having wanted to make reality TV and claims support that is as benevolent as it is effective in the long term. And indeed, the participants seem rather satisfied with their very significant weight loss. With this program, the host also says she wants to change people's outlook on obesity, a multifactorial disease that does not depend on the will of those affected alone. As for the Superior Audiovisual Council, the Order of Physicians and the Ministry of Health, questioned by activists during the preparation of the show in 2015, they gave the green light.
Despite this well-crafted topo, the people concerned are currently expressing severe criticism. Arguments that are not directed against the participants, who play the game on purpose and see the show as a "last chance". Rather, they question the production ecosystem and the messages that this show conveys. The detractors are particularly moved by a narration built around surgery, presented as a miracle solution from the title of "https://www.aufeminin.com/" Operation renaissance ", as well as false benevolence displayed as long as the participants lose weight. What we are told there is indeed that a fat person "acceptable" is the one who is "ready to do anything to change." Finally, this program feeds the idea that to be in good health you absolutely have to be thin, and that being fat cannot be compatible with self-love.
The dangerous valuation of a "miracle" surgery
The Gras Politique collective, which does educational work on representation, but also support for fat people, is particularly mobilizing against the program. With the hashtag #pasmarenaissance, its activists call on those concerned to express why this is harmful. Mobilized online, they are currently denouncing the promotion made to a "magic" solution, which can however cause terrible disappointments and have disastrous consequences, on the psychological as well as physical level.
As Gras Politique explains on his Instagram account and in a Mediapart column, it is not a question of criticizing bariatric surgery, nor of expressing frontal opposition to this practice. There is also no question of blaming people who are eager to lose weight for various reasons of their own. What Gras Politique condemns is the presentation of surgery as a miracle solution for all those who want to lose weight. However, for this heavy operation to be successful, strict supervision is needed. The show's participants are closely followed by specialists for three years. And then ? The consequences of such physical changes are felt throughout life. In addition, in France, the conditions are not met to be able to benefit from this type of course: the support offered by the show simply does not exist in real life!
In a petition asking the CSA to cancel the broadcast, the association insists on this health issue. She recalls that "Presenting French medicine as a model of performance and treatment of the disease obesity and obese people is a lie. Gras Politique is indignant against the mistreatment and care received by obese patients and collects testimonies of serious medical violence on its site. We therefore cannot accept that M6 and Potiche Prod (the production of Karine Le Marchand, NDLR) showcase a benevolent and modern medicine when it does not reflect the reality of the thousands of obese patients who are abused. " Finally, what about those who could not resort to this surgery, for reasons of health or financial means? As we can see, the very principle of the program is problematic.
Read also: the reality of medical grossophobia in France
Questions are also raised about certain members of the "college of experts": an absolutely grossophobic image coach (Cristina Cordula) rubs shoulders here with an expert adept of reiki, a form of Japanese alternative medicine monitored for certain abuses sectarians… All this nicely presented in a "benevolent" packaging, which makes activists bristle.
A staging of suffering
This is not the first time that Karine Le Marchand has been found responsible for conveying clichés. Already, with Love is in the Meadow, the presenter had been accused of putting on a spectacle of the peasant blues. As for her 2016 political show, An Intimate Ambition, she gently received even the most nauseating presidential candidates … Here, the show is suspected of portraying the ill-being of people with morbid obesity. Right from the trailer, the show plays the card of voyeurism and emotion, both in form and in speech. A choice assumed by Karine Le Marchand, who underlines from the first extracts the multifactorial aspect of obesity, including … a supposed mismanagement of emotions. Something to promise tears, heartbreaking family scenes, but also moments of consolation, where fat people see themselves talking like children, according to the stereotype of the "big baby" unable to take care of themselves.
As early as 2017, the association Gras Politique had alerted to these outrageous sequences. In 2018, in an article in Buzzfeed, its activists noted scriptwriting intentions deemed humiliating: post-operation, the participants must carry their lost weight in a bag, or even observe the shreds of skin that they have been left with. withdrawn … The objective of this great show? No more, no less than to promote the "good fat.se.s", those and those who no longer want to be. The result being that those concerned, who are already guilty on a daily basis, will suffer yet another injunction to lose weight, on a national channel and in prime time, the king niche on television.
Real profits, false fight against grossophobia
As we know, this call to lose weight is the bottom line of oppression towards fat.se.s. But it is also a formidable cash machine. Once the operation is over, you need to consume many dietary supplements in order to stay "healthy". Makeover coaches of all kinds are also waiting for you, as are personal development coaches. The show is also the source of a book to "learn to love yourself", signed by Karine Le Marchand and Stéphane Clerget. Not stupid, the production is already defending itself from any opportunism, indicating that this notebook was originally intended only for participants, but that its usefulness during the shooting pushed the production to release it to help as many people as possible. And then what advertising ecosystem to support the show? The discomfort linked to self-estrangement, which the program reinforces on a large scale, is very profitable: in France, the slimming market flirted with 4 billion euros in 2018, between specialized programs, products food and dedicated connected devices.
While the show proves that grossophobia pays off, it is not at all clear about the identity of fat people in their complexity. Because if some suffer and can be accompanied to get better, there are also those who are happy. It is they, those who are largely absent from the program, who never get to the bottom of the question: why can being fat cause so much pain? Sometimes because of health issues, yes. But what also wears out a lot is the moralizing gaze that society places on these people. This is what the journalist Marie de Brauer denounces, at the origin of a documentary series on the life of a young fat woman in France in 2020. For her, the show marks a real setback. "This year (2020, Editor's note), we saw three documentaries coming out on grossophobia we took three steps forward and now we are taking a hundred steps back "she writes online.
Read also: Marie de Brauer changes the world by talking about fat people
Like Gras Politique, Marie de Brauer underlines that the program will have very violent real consequences for fat people: "the hatred on social media, the remarks that obese people are going to make by people who have seen the show …". Through her work, the journalist proves that it is possible to represent fat people on the screen in a different way (in a positive, truly benevolent way …). His documentary, The big life of Marie, follows her like this, a funny and intelligent young woman, in her daily life and in the face of the difficulties caused by her weight, in a society that only loves thin people and women whose bodies are under (his) control. Like all the many fat people mobilized, she appeals to viewers today: Operation Renaissance is indeed an ultra-toxic show. At the time of writing, Gras Politique's petition to the CSA has gathered more than 6,500 signatures.