Fat Camp

This past weekend I spent at my parents' place in Massachusetts. To stave off the bitter cold and 400 pages of reading for class, I watched a fair amount of cable. On Friday afternoon, I stumbled across the following gem: Fat Camp, an MTV documentary about, well, a Fat Camp in the Poconos. From the first weigh-in, I became mesmerized by the trials of Petey, the King of Camp, and Marisa, the object of his unrequited love and recipient of several love letters (including the following endearment: "When people were calling you a ho and a slut and saying you were fat, I was always there saying you weren't." Ah, sweet love.). And then there was Dianne.

Dianne sported the unfortunate combination of a body shaped like a prize-winning tuber and the personality of a mewling piglet/sadistic high school lunch monitor. Unapologetically whiny, she waddled through camp against a backdrop of kids earnestly playing volleyball, kayaking, and running, complaining of the constant activities and her lack of friends. Dianne didn't play well with others (we find out at one point that she has been home-schooled). During the camp-wide "Color Wars," in which two teams battled each other for four days of activities, we found Miss Dianne prone in the infirmary, a cell phone somehow strapped to her right ear, proclaiming that Color Wars were "stupid" so she "opted out" in favor of laying on her ass in the air conditioning. Now, Dianne, what kind of attitude is that for a Fat Camper?

For all her complaints, she dished out punishment with swift swaths of her meaty little fists. When her bunkmates suggested she take a shower, like they all had, she went ballistic. She screamed her little pink head off, offended to the point that she inadvertently released her grasp on the towel she was clutching (apparently she had caved and decided to wash), and, well, you can imagine what happened next. The towel fell, the other girls laughed, and Dianne marched straight to her counselor's room to tattle. Poor Dianne.

At the end of the documentary, those geniuses at MTV redeemed our little friend. The camp sponsored a concert night where what I imagine was a local high school cover band played hits like Blind Melon's "No Rain" and Lynard Skynard's "Sweet Home Alabama." Surprisingly, this second ditty was a hit with Dianne, so much so that her raised hands formed little round devil's horns and her stringy blond hair flapped back and forth as she headbanged and sang "Oh sweet home!" in all the right places. Yes! Our Dianne was a rocker chick! The film crew captured her in all her glory, rocking out, and losing a few pounds in the process. Now that's more like it, honey!

At the final weigh-in, everyone had lost weight. Petey, Marisa, even Dianne. Camp was over; everyone cried, traumatized by the thought of going back to school. I cried at the prospect of this show being over, which meant I had to go back to my reading. I clicked the TV off, opened my book, and thought of Dianne in her black T-shirt, joyously flinging her hair back, not caring about how fat she was, or how alone, and gave her props. She was going to be okay.