Whitney Way Thore Is Changing Reality TV for Fat Women

The heart of Whitney Way Thore's TLC series, My Big Fat Fabulous Life, is perhaps best encapsulated in a scene from season four—when she attends a gay-pride festival in Charlotte, North Carolina. One minute, Thore and her friends are having fun, laughing and smiling while decked out in rainbow eyeshadow. But then Thore's mood quickly dissipates after a man fat-shames her. The comment comes out of nowhere, and it stings, so much so you can see the heat rush to Thore's face. It's a painful moment, but an important one: In just under two minutes, we see the full spectrum of Thore's emotions—confident and sexy, yes, but also a human being.

That dichotomy isn't something you often see in the world of plus-size reality TV. Most of the shows involving fat people are one-note. Think The Biggest Loser, Revenge Body, or Celebrity Fit Club. They all center around a shallow, reductive narrative: "My life sucks because I'm fat, and the only way to fix it is to lose weight."

Thore wants to tell a different story. On The Biggest Loser or Revenge Body, her gay-pride experience might serve as motivation for a drastic physical transformation. Thore, however, knows what happened that day has nothing to do with her. She is absolutely fine—fantastic, even. "I think it's an important message to show fat people that your life can be fabulous," she tells Glamour. "And also that even if sometimes it's not, it doesn't have to be horrible or miserable or pathetic or all the other things society will tell us that our lives are."

Thore had this mind-set long before TLC turned her life into a reality show. In fact, her extroversion is what got her discovered in the first place. While working at the North Carolina radio station 107.5 KZL, Thore helped launch the video series "Fat Girl Dancing," in which she performed choreographed routines to Top 40 songs. (She was a dancer in college before gaining 200 pounds, in part because of polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, a hormonal disorder that can cause weight gain.) Around the same time she began a blog called No Body Shame, which tackled fatphobia head-on. When one of Thore's "Fat Girl Dancing" videos went viral in January 2014, it gave her an opportunity to shed light on both her dynamic personality and her mission to destigmatize fatness. TLC took notice, and My Big Fat Fabulous Life premiered in January 2015.

"We found her No Body Shame message compelling and a unique angle to explore stories related to weight and body image," says Wendy Douglas, TLC's East Coast VP of production. "She's an incredibly engaging, funny, and articulate individual who bucks stereotypes."

On the surface the show's title (My Big Fat Fabulous Life) may seem that it's leaning into the infantilizing "fat best friend" archetype, presenting Thore as a one-dimensional character who's constantly upbeat. And the show's branding, at times, certainly gives off that vibe: Thore is happy and smiley in the photos, where she wears whimsical skirts and strikes "sassy" poses. However, Thore tells me it's when the cameras aren't rolling that she feels the need to be the "fat best friend."

"I definitely do feel that pressure to maintain this really happy facade," Thore says. "Something that I really don't like is when I'm not happy or bubbly and I'm upset about something from the way society is treating me, a lot of people will say, 'Whitney, why do you even care? It doesn't matter.' You can be happy and confident and also not happy about harassment, abuse, doctors not giving you good medical care, and fat discrimination."

This type of complexity is what you see on My Big Fat Fabulous Life. Thore says she's never felt any type of pressure from TLC to dilute her issues or present herself as the "fat best friend." And as far as the show's title is concerned, she owns it.

"I love the name," she says. "To me, it really embodies everything the content is about and everything I'm about. It juxtaposes the word fat with the word fabulous, which I think is really important. Sometimes haters will be like, 'Your life isn't fabulous, blah, blah, blah,' but my life is fabulous."

Thore especially loves the title in comparison to those aforementioned plus-size shows—the ones that make fat synonymous with sad.

"I think there are two extremes. I feel like when you see fat people on TV, it's either the 'funny fat friend' or a weight-loss show, where fat people are miserable," Thore says. "And if TLC's going to pick one way to brand me right now—we mostly deal with happy or miserable—I'd for sure go with happy."

So when will fat representation on reality TV go beyond these two extremes? My Big Fat Fabulous Life is a happy medium, but it's a diamond in the rough. And Thore thinks we still have a ways to go. "In movies, when was the last time you saw a fat person and their weight was never mentioned?" she says. "It just doesn't happen. That's where we are as a society. I don't feel like we'll be anywhere close to change in 20 years. I wish. But I think that's definitely the goal."

To be fair, there is some positive plus-size representation on reality TV beyond Thore. Women like Tokyo Vanity from Love & Hip-Hop and Tanisha Thomas of Bad Girls Club fame are at least bringing body diversity into the mix⁠—but this still isn't the norm. The Bachelor, for instance, is notorious for having only thin female contestants. The show broke new ground, somewhat, in 2015, when it featured plus-size model Bo Stanley as a candidate, but she was cut the first week.

"If you look at America, the average woman is plus-size," Thore says, noting the often quoted statistic that 68% of American women wear a size 14 or above. "So what are we doing on however many seasons of The Bachelor and there's never been a fat woman? I would love to see it, especially in terms of desirability and love and sex appeal. You don't see a fat person because they're not ready to present that a fat woman can be that way. That's a big problem."

For now Thore is laying down the groundwork on My Big Fat Fabulous Life. The series doesn't shy away from love, sex, or dating—Thore's "will she or won't she?" relationship with her friend Buddy Bell was a major hook last season. Interspersed with this are narratives about her career, family life, and friendships. Her battle with PCOS is also discussed. (In an Instagram post last year, Thore explained that the hormonal disorder has contributed to, but is not the sole cause of, her weight gain.) In short, she is given the same treatment as any Real Housewife or Hills cast member. "I'm not a two-dimensional fat character that you normally see in movies or whatever," she says. "I'm a full human being with a range of emotions and experiences."

Of course, some of those experiences deal with weight, but Thore says she has no issues addressing them because fatphobia still exists. "I don't mind bringing attention to my weight," she explains. "I will never be tired of talking about it until it changes. I think at this point it just does the job of really putting it in people's faces so that they can think about it."

One thing Thore hopes My Big Fat Fabulous Life makes people think about is the way our culture doesn't crack down on weight discrimination as harshly as it should. "I'm definitely not in the business of comparing oppressions," she says. "I know I have tons of privileges. I have basically every privilege you could possibly have except that I'm fat. So not to say there isn't extreme racism and homophobia and transphobia—but I feel like when someone is that way, there's at least a pushback. You don't see that with fat people. Some people think fat people aren't oppressed."

My Big Fat Fabulous Life illuminates that point while also showing viewers that fulfillment has nothing to do with a number on the scale. "It's amazing the kind of people who will tell you the show has changed their lives," she says. "I expect it from other fat people, but I'll be walking into Target and see the most size-0, most beautiful, socially acceptable woman you've ever seen in your life, and, five minutes later, she's in tears, telling me I changed her life. The show not only opens up conversations about fat people but about body image in general."

It's interactions like the one Thore had in Target that keep her on this path: of showing the world fat women are entitled to respect. "I love it when people tweet at me that they're hate-watching me," Thore says. "I'm like, 'Great. Every minute you spend watching is another minute you're going to see a fat person as a human being.'"

"If the only thing that comes out of this program is that there's a fat woman on TV represented, in living rooms all over the world," she adds. "That's enough for me. I think that in itself is life-changing for people."

Christopher Rosa is the staff entertainment writer at Glamour. Follow him on Twitter @chrisrosa92.