Following last week's America's Next Top Model elimination of London because of a 10lb weight gain, I decided to write another post about fat aversion on TV when I came across an announcement for an upcoming show on Oxygen titled Dance Your Ass Off. The show is being dubbed The Biggest Loser meets Dancing with the Stars, and the new reality drama's plot is this: ten women and men between the ages of 21 and 40 get assistance from expert nutritionists and professional dancers in order to compete against each other week after week in a dance competition. The ultimate goal is to lose the most weight. Dance Your Ass Off doesn't debut until June, but tabloid media are already making jokes by calling the show "flabulous".

In times of war (check), political and economic upheaval(check), and social tension (check), artists are in a unique position to stoke democracy and to put pressure on the state, or, as the case may be, the banks, the corporations, "the man", etc. "In my experience, when things are upside down," actress and writer Anna Deavere Smith said in a PBS interview in 2006, "there's an opening for a person like me. I think when things fall apart, [as an artist] you can see more and you can even be part of indicating new ways that things can be put together."