As an empowerer of the larger lady, Gok Wang has become a household name, but his new show Baggage leaves much to be desired. This Channel 4 show, of which he is the host, is proving to be quite popular. God only knows why.
Gok makes his entrance with show-like spectacle, surrounded by slender women dressed as air hostesses to maintain the theme of the programme. However this image is completely contradictory to Gok’s former attitude that all women are beautiful and we should not judge ourselves based on images portrayed in the media. The image that he now seems to endorse.
The women from his former show, How to Look Good Naked, would not fit in with the ‘stereotypically perfect’ idea of a woman being paraded about in baggage. One show tries to make women feel good about themselves despite their diversity whilst the other reinforces the ‘perfect’ model thin image which makes the rest of us feel so self-conscious. The women perform basic rou
tines as a backdrop to Gok’s entrance and exit to the show and could not be more plastic fantastic if they tried – hardly the ‘natural woman’ that Gok claims to love so much.
I’m not being weirdly bitter about this, although I can’t claim not to have fallen prey to the green eyed monster, it just seems like a bit of a philosophy crash for the image of Gok as the champion of the larger lady to be strutting about with these ‘air hostess Barbie’ characters.
I’m not saying I’d necessarily prefer the clients of his old show to be the ones shimmying about on stage but that’s more to do with the fact their presence in general seems a little pointless and adds significantly to the tacky image that the show manages to portray.
If you fancy an alternative Take Me Out, that’s less catchy and without the typical Paddy charm, then this might be worth a watch. If you’re expecting the same Gok we’ve come to know and love though you might be in for a disappointment, ‘darrrrhhling’.