A few hours before I watched Half Ton Mum on More 4 last night, I’d been reading a fascinating article on the British Library website about the history of ‘freak’ shows, and therefore, unavoidably, when I’d watched this documentary, I couldn’t help but make comparisons.

Here’s an extract from the article I’d been reading…

“Exhibitions of live human curiosities had appeared in travelling fairs, circuses and taverns in England since the 1600s. These included so-called giants, dwarves, fat people, the very thin, conjoined twins and even people from exotic climes.

“Freak shows were a particularly popular form of entertainment during the Victorian period, when people from all classes flocked to gawp at these unusual examples of human life.”

The only difference between us and our Victorian ancestors then is that we don’t have to go out to see ‘freaks’, they’re conveniently beamed directly into our living rooms.

From British Library archives

But before anybody gets angry at my comparing freak shows to shows of the like of Half Ton Mum, just take a second to note that in the article quoted above about giants, dwarves, fat people etc., people who have these afflictions have all been the subject of documentaries. And of course, the picture above from the billing for one of those freak shows isn’t so different in primary subject matter than Half Ton Mum’s own promo picture.

And frankly, Half Ton Mum was a freak show and I felt sort of ashamed watching it after reading the British Library article. The purported aim of the film was to stop others getting as life-threateningly large as Renee Williams, who, at 64 stone was the world’s heaviest woman – the Victorians would’ve loved the billing – and who died shortly after having surgery to have a gastric band fitted.

Her very lovely daughters wanted this film shown in part as a warning of sorts to others, but Renee typified what makes many people morbidly obese in the first place; that is, they’re fat because they eat and they eat because they’re fat.

It’s sad. It’s very sad. Renee’s story, though at the extreme end of the spectrum, is one that many of us might have watched and thought “I would never let myself get like that”. I imagine twenty years ago, Renee might’ve said the same thing.

It was certainly a cautionary tale but all the way through the film, my overriding thought – apart from feeling this was an uncomfortable, voyeuristic freak show – was why hadn’t she been given some kind of counselling or psychiatric help?

Nobody gets that big from just eating a bit too much. Clearly Renee had ‘issues’ with food and it was both her best friend and her worst enemy for a reason.

And how desperately sad that her daughters had to witness it all. Having to watch their mother eat herself to death and never leave the bed she was effectively marooned in must’ve been heartbreaking for them. And though this is by no means a jab at her family who clearly all loved Renee very much, but while she was literally beached in that bed, someone kept feeding her the foods that exacerbated her status of “super-morbidly obese.”

Renee couldn’t get food – or anything else for that matter – for herself, so though it may have been very, very tough to deny her, surely those around her could’ve and should’ve insisted on no more ‘treats’ and given her only healthy food?

It just all seemed so pointless and so tragically avoidable. That old adage about being cruel to be kind could’ve been applied here and perhaps the outcome would’ve been different.

But again, I must stress, I’m not blaming Renee’s family; she clearly needed some serious psychiatric help and I suspect that once the mammoth task of getting her into a hospital had been done, six months of the enforcement of a healthy diet could have saved Renee’s life.

So what did you think of the programme? And in general, do you think we’re all just latter day Victorian voyeurs or are shows of this ilk truly trying to convey a ‘message’?