Susan Powter - The Politics of Stupid: The Cure for Obesity

T he hardest thing about having a success is having a success. Oscar Wilde said something like it, except Im sure he didnt use the word success . Oscar was talking about the hard part of getting what you want, and his language was certainly dressed in something much more nineteenth-century-sounding than the word success.

My generations version of Oscars thinking would be: once Leave It to Beaver, always Leave It to Beaver (who says quality is on the decline?), and the Beave and I, Susan Powter, have more in common than I ever dreamed possible.

Im not sure what the Beave is doing now (or even if the Beave is still alive), so I cant honestly tell you what people expect from him, but I can promise you this: if I dont walk into an infomercial meeting screaming Stop the Insanity at the top of my lungs, the infomercial boys dont know what to do, and Im thinking, The Beave has similar pressure simply because he is the Beave.

According to the marketing, creative, and writing wizards Im up against in the infomercial world, Stop the Insanity was the perfect formula. Overnight those three little words turned into one of the most effective catchphrases in the weight-loss industry.

Its what they all wanted then, and its what they are all still looking for now. The perfect sound bite. The one that sells, sells, sells.

And the only thing they want from me is?

Yell it just once more, Susan?

Come on? Stop the??

How nutty is it?

Insanity Two. Stop in the Name of Insanity, daughter of anything that resembles what I said way over ten years ago.

Rephrased: Go back and stay there, Susan. Dont move ahead. Stay right where the infomercial boys want you, now that they finally do understand it. Because dont forget (I never will), these are the same people who threw Stop the Insanity in the trash because it was too:

radical

loud

bald

aggressive

So Ill make one thing clear before I move forward: Stop the Insanity was a monster hit despite, or to spite (I certainly have it in me) them. They didnt get it, but you always did.

The only reason the corporate boys latched on was because of you, the women of America. Its you who heard eat, breathe, and move and Norma Raed it right into the spotlight. You were the ones who heard the weight-loss truth and jumped up with your signs held high, forcing the mills to grind to a stop.

It was you, not the wizards in the instant quick-fix-lying-through-their-teeth weight-loss-product-selling industry. You are the reason Stop the Insanity blew the roof off. Women. Millions of women got it in a big, big way.

Millions of women who were (and still are) looking for the strength and energy just to get through their/your day. Hundreds and thousands of Women trying to restore their bodies to some semblance of looking and feeling the way they want their bodies to look and feel. The boys in the how-to-sell-gadgets industries had nothing to do with Stop the Insanity . They dont own it, you do. Well, actually, I do.

The television-sell, market-research experts with their rhymes and reasons were dead wrong and scared to death, desperately afraid of you and me ever meeting, but according to the experts in the field of you and me, there was not much to worry about. There was no chance of that ever happening.

The women of America and Susan Powter, never! You were never going to listen to, learn from, accept, watch on tele, or have anything to do withme.

Just look at her, shes tooeverything. They threw Stop the Insanity in the trash, literally, and got on with the quick fixes (that fix nothing) in the world of weight loss they do understand, the very profitable business of promising weight loss that never gets lost. It turns out that the experts in the field of you and me were wrong. Stop the Insanity was unstoppable. You and I did meet by the hundreds of thousands, and we continue to meet.

Of course, as soon as you did embrace Stop the Insanity, the experts in what Women really want jumped all over it and started advising me left, right, and center. If I wanted to keep this thing going, I had to:

• Only talk weight loss in the most advertising-friendly, cute little sound bites.
• Say things that make the average American housewife (apparently, the only people who need to lose weight?) feel as if she was being respected. Operative words, feel as if? And, most important, I needed to:

• tone down
• soften up
• laugh a lot
• always be hap, hap, happy
• tell em (that would be you) what they want to hear
• And never ever utter a political opinion.
• Women dont want to get tangled up in politics.

True, these are quotes, folks, and Id be glad to give you the names and numbers of the men who said them. They also said:

• Dont give them too much information.
• Keep it short and simple.

Because, I guess, all American women are ? Listen, you and I know that corporate America wouldnt know you and me if we hit them over the head with you and me.

Turn on the television. Is your life anything close to what is being advertised at you everywhere you turn? It certainly isnt connected at all to mine or to the lives of the thousands and thousands of Women Ive met, the Women I continue to meet every day, everywhere I go.

Who are these women walking around with a plastic spray bottle full of chemicals spraying their kids stuff, whistling while they work? What next, the white knight riding in, resurrecting them from the dead? Snow White ring a bell? A maid to seven midgets (or little people)? political correctness aside, the woman was a maid to seven little men and loved, loved, loved nothing more than cleaning up after them. She died. Who are these women?

These women are not me and they are not you. But its those moments blasted at us every second of every day and now at warp speed that do affect/infect our lives. The powerful atmospheric suggestions about how your life should look, feel, and be; the standards that millions of women cant live up to. And when it comes to images created and directed at us by corporate America, there isnt a bigger, more damaging load of junk lurking around the parameters of your life than the weight-loss, wellness, fitness, standardized body image demanded of Women.

I never went into the infomercial business expecting high standards. In the thirty-minute late-night sellathon world, integrity and honesty were not words I expected to see at the top of any list. Dont ever forget just when it was that I walked into the late-night bullpen. Way before everyone and their mother thought they could do an infomercial and hit the jackpot. Back in the day when Stop the Insanity first appeared, the infomercial industry was still lighting cars on fire to prove the strength of the car wax they were begging you to buy. If you want trashy, I could (and will be glad to) tell you stories!