Roosh faces off against Dr. Oz and his tan
So our old dear friend Roosh Valizadeh — the not-quite-Nazi pickup artist and rape legalization advocate — appeared on The Dr. Oz Show today. No, really.
Dr. Oz brought him on to elucidate the “fat shaming”campaign that he launched a couple of years ago to fight back against the women who torment him daily by being too big to please his boner. Apparently, at least in the eyes of Dr. Oz and his producers, Roosh is the “leader of the international fat shaming movement.”
Shockingly. neither Dr. Oz nor his mostly female studio audience were grateful for Roosh’s work on this front. Oz pointed out that fat shaming doesn’t work — all it really accomplishes is to make people feel shitty about themselves — and brought out a number of unapologetically fat women to confront him. Roosh responded by robotically repeating his talking points. (If you missed the show, you can watch a snippet of it here or read a recap here.)
In many ways more interesting than the show itself is Roosh’s reaction to it. In a blog post today, Roosh complains that he “was backstabbed by Dr. Oz and his female producers.”
As he tells it, these devious females sweet talked him to get him on the show, telling him what he wanted to hear and treating him “courteous[ly] and professional[ly].” On the day of the show, as they prepped him for his appearance, staffers
smiled at me and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say about fat shaming, and one even went so far as to offer aid in obtaining the loose leaf green tea that I desired (I avoid bagged teas whenever possible). From the behavior they showed me, it was safe to assume that I was about to have an honest conversation about the obesity issue on mainstream American television.
And then Dr. Oz called him a “monster” on national TV, and made him talk to some fat women who didn’t much appreciate his “help.”
After his segment, Roosh reports, “[t]he backstage hands didn’t even look at me.”
Yep, that’s right. The proudly amoral “pickup artist” is complaining that he was seduced, used, and abandoned.
So what exactly did the mean Dr. Oz do to poor Mr. Valizadeh?
Here’s Roosh’s version of events:
I was ushered backstage and did a microphone test for the sound engineer. There were several monitors above where I could see the studio set. I looked up at one and saw Dr. Oz introducing me. I was preparing to go on the stage with a slight smile, but that notion quickly evaporated when I heard the word “monster” and “bringing him out from the shadows.” Instantly, I knew I was walking into a trap. I looked around, half hoping for a hug or some assurance that everything was going to be okay, but realized that the staff who were so cheery earlier knew all along that they were ushering me to a public execution. They sedated me with niceities so I would not be mentally prepared for what was about to happen.
I’m sorry, but my irony meter just burst into flames.
I shook Dr. Oz’s hand, the man who just called me a monster, out of instinct. The lights were bright but not in my face, making it hard to see the 200 people in the audience. I counted three cameras with teleprompters attached and didn’t know if I should look at them or not. My mouth suddenly felt dry.
Dr. Oz’s attack began by cherry picking the meanest quotes I’ve ever written and asking me to justify them. I got out my shovel, ready to work, but every time I climbed up the edge, Dr. Oz would push me back in by saying I was “screwed up” or offer some type of emotional outburst before wild applause by the audience. I have been to European soccer games with less emotion.
Having read a great deal of Mr. V’s writings over the past several years, I feel safe in saying that the quotes Dr. Oz read back to Roosh — that men would “rather die than have sex with a woman over 150 pounds,” that only ugly people and feminists think that beauty is on the inside — were not “the meanest quotes [he’s] ever written.” Not even close. Nor did Roosh’s segments on the show much resemble a soccer match — or even a Jerry Springer show. It was actually fairly tame, by daytime talk show standards.
I tried to take the conversation out of feelings and into logic by claiming that thin women are objectively more attractive and that obesity is causing huge public health problems, but they specifically wanted to focus on me and my “hatred” and all the feelings I’m hurting. The debate was framed in a way to not bring up facts that went against the party line.
Not really. Roosh was given a good deal of time in which he could have set forth his “facts.” He simply didn’t have any facts to report. Even aside from Roosh’s assholery, his entire “fat shaming” campaign is built upon a premise that numerous studies have found to be false; on the show, Roosh more or less admitted that he’s done precisely zero actual research on the issue.
After frothing up the audience to despise me, Dr. Oz initiated the two minutes of hate. He found the fattest women in the New York area and put them on steel reinforced seats to insult me as they wished. The crowd cheered and applauded after each fat woman gave her prepared diatribe. It was at this point I started examining the crowd of mostly women. I made eye contact with a few to see if they would stick their tongue out at me or wag their finger, but they didn’t. They were motionless mannequins that waited for the flashing studio light to give a response.
I’m not quite sure why Roosh expected women to stick their tongues out at him like three-year-olds, but whenever Oz’s producers cut to the audience, I didn’t see “motionless mannequins”; I saw women incredulous and disgusted by what he had to say. If anyone on the show appeared robotic, it was Roosh.
At one point, Roosh reports,
I looked at Dr. Oz and wondered if he would cap it all off by punching me. It would make for good television, at least.
Towards the end of his appearance, Roosh continues,.
I squeezed in a decent bit about how fat acceptance shortens everyone’s life spans, and I heard a gasp from somewhere as if what I said was shocking, and realized that my statement will probably be edited out.
Nope. It wasn’t. Again, Roosh had plenty of opportunity to present his case, such as it is; it’s not Dr. Oz’ fault that the “leader of the international fat shaming movement” didn’t have much of a case to present.
Which makes sense, because it’s blindingly obvious that Roosh doesn’t actually care about the well-being of fat women (or men); he just wants them to feel shitty.
Yet he still feels, somehow, that he is trying to save Western Civilization. Before he went on the show, he writes, he delivered the following monologue to a friend of his who went with him to the taping:
Hundreds of years ago, I would have been a soldier, fighting battles to defend my country against invaders, or invading another tribe to steal their women and land. But here I am, with makeup on my face, about to talk about fat people, because now the world values entertainment more than anything else. They want singers and actors and famous people to make them forget about their boring lives, and even women we meet want the same. I was given some type of ability by god or nature so that I am wanted here right now in this building during this strange time of humanity, and so I will use that ability, and give everyone their entertainment.
Sorry to break it to you, Roosh, but you’re not nearly as entertaining as you think you are.
