Berry DeMay on "Help Yourself" (UK TV)

[tanky]

Did anyone catch ?Help Yourself? shown on British TV last night (Monday 13th Feb) on ITV1?

For those of you who have never heard of it, it?s a very funny programme that shows clips of bad self-help videos and takes the piss out of them big time. Most of them are really ridiculous (e.g. ?How to Make an Antler Chandelier? and ?How to Hand-Feed Hummingbirds?) but last night the first video under scrutiny was a 1980?s bodybuilding video by the very gorgeous Berry DeMay.

It was cool, there was lots of footage of the big hunk pumping up and then some footage of him onstage at a bodybuilding contest. Then at the end of the show they showed some more of the video over the credits (more pumping and flexing) played to ?He?s Gotta Be So Macho?. It was hot!!

The thing that struck me was that there was nothing remotely funny or stupid about the video. It was of an awesomely built, sexy, handsome young muscleman showing you how to build a body like his and yet the show tried to make a mockery of it. Whilst the footage of him flexing onstage was showing a caption appeared on the screen saying,

?Does this turn you on girls??boys??anyone??

I felt like screaming out OH YEAH!!! when the ??boys?? came up! It just amazes me that even now people feel the need to run down huge bodybuilders and make them the subject of jokes when it?s so obvious that people are just jealous of their size, strength and sexual presence. It was especially evident on this show given that other videos featured had titles like ?Fun With Ferrets? and ?How to Cook Gourmet Food With Marihuana?. Massive sexy bodybuilder vs. a masked man cooking pretentious food using a class C drug?yeah that?s in the same comedy bracket?NOT!!!

Muscle prejudice, it?s a terrible thing.

[CelticMuscle]

taking the mickey out of self help videos. Other videos shown on the series include:

"The US Marine Guide to...entertaining a lady"
"Naturism: The Natural Way"
and "Scrapbooking for Couples"

For goodness sakes, don't take things so literally. Do you consider those lampoons of Sly Stallone in "Fairly Odd Parents" an insult to him, of course not, so lighten up please! I was laughing my head off at all the captions shown.

[indygary]

that sounds like a video that i have.
mmmmmm.
i need to go find that one.

[Uskathoth]

I think anyone who can't see a certain ridiculous element to bodybuilding is taking themselves (and body-building) too seriously.

I like big, beefy guys too but at some point you run right past masculinity, keep running and eventually come through the other side over by being effeminate. If you look at body building videos, magazines, etc you can see plenty of shaved bodies, fake tans, highlights in hair, fey posing pouches, etc. There is certainly potential for lampooning in all of that.

Then of course there are posing routines....'nuff said.

Don't get me wrong--a lot of people get physical and mental benefits from body building and body builders can be very impressive. But it has plenty of potential for comedy too. At the end of the day BB contests have no objective criteria making them essentially beauty contests. What constitutes that beauty is entirely subjective and (by definition) superficial.

[glammaman2000]

...of a 2nd place Barry congratulating Bob Paris the year he won the Universe.Shaking hands,....staring deeply into each other's eyes,.....priceless!