Friday, January 20, 2012

Regarding the Deen dustup

For those who don't know, Paula Deen has a cooking show on the Food Network in which she demonstrates recipes like this. She was diagnosed with diabetes three years ago - Type II, the kind you typically get from being significantly overweight (which she is).

We're well aware that most of the stuff on the Food Network is porn. And there's nothing wrong with somebody deep-frying a stick of butter in front of a live, cheering audience of consenting adults. And really, we could all see that Deen was obese and so it's not like she was hiding the fact that her food was unhealthy. No, what really chafes me (and many others) is that she didn't come out about her medical condition until she had signed a deal with drug-maker Novo Nordisk to sell their new diabetes "lifestyle drug".

Look, if Paula Deen wanted to keep maintaining the illusion that you could eat like she cooks and still maintain a vibrant, healthy lifestyle, fine. That's the magic of porn - you see the awesome part and not all of the seedy crap that goes on off camera; the surgery scars; the casting couches; the armies of creepy fluffers; the routine HIV and syphilis tests.

Deen could have announced her condition and told people, "hey, I'm fat, I eat unhealthy, but better to live short and happy than long and miserable". Or she could have made it a point that deep-fried Twinkies are a "sometimes food" and shown how to make some tasty but healthy recipes. Or she could have just kept it a secret completely and maintained the illusion of her porn star lifestyle.

But profiting off selling people something that's bad for them and then profiting off the treatment is just... icky. It's like a company that sells asbestos and chemo drugs, or cell phones and car insurance.

Paula, shame on you.

(I wanted to insert a line about Deen's fans being massive, formless bags of adipose tissue supported primarily by their own hardened arteries, but I couldn't find anywhere to put it. That makes me sad.)

Posted by Dave at 11:47 AM | Tags: life, media

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