An argument for intercultural studies if there ever was one

I’ve spent every morning this past week going to yoga, which I use as a justification to park myself on the couch for the remainder of the day.  Since half of the channels on our TV have stopped working for some inexplicable reason, I alternate between MTV España (all of our terrible reality shows, plus some equally terrible British ones such as Making the Band rip-off Breaking From Above, starring Blue Ivy’s grandpa Mathew Knowles), Telemadrid (lots of movies), and Kiss TV (a never-ending loop of mostly awful music videos).

I’ve been seeing lots of ads on MTV for some mysterious new show called Vida XXL about an overweight girl who goes to Los Angeles to fulfill some dream.  Intrigued, I did a little sleuthing and realized that the show is originally entitled Chelsea Settles.  Since I had only yesterday joyously shared my discovery with my cousin (and fellow aficionado of any reality show relating to obesity, weight loss, or body image) Laura that Ya no estoy gordo (“I used to be fat”) airs in Spain, I emailed her again to demand all the details about Chelsea Settles, aka Vida XXL.  She promptly responded:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA IM DYING LAUGHING. ok my friend rachel and i spent like 5 hours watching chelsea settles and with each episode we were trying to figure out what the fuck the show is about. is it about fashion? is it the poor girl’s version of ‘The Hills’? Is it about loneliness? But apparently it’s about an XXL life. CASE CLOSED.

So there you go, friends.  Sometimes, if you don’t know what the hell an uneven reality show is about, you should probably research its title in another language and you just might get your answer.