Intervention: Asa

In this specific episode of “Intervention,” the subject is Asa, a twenty-eight year old homosexual man of color residing in southern California, with a white father and first generation American mother. He is afflicted with bulimia nervosa and alcoholism. He is still in school where he works in a lab to help pay for his tuition expenses and school loans. He is the first person on both his mother and father’s side of the family to have attended college.

The episode begins to describe Asa’s addiction, in which he discusses his past and the ways in which his experiences have currently effected his addiction. The viewer is made to see his family dynamics, situating his relationship with his father as one that contributed to his negative self-image, and therefore his addiction that is so centered around his outward appearance and in creating a barrier between himself and his true feelings. The juxtaposition of Asa’s effeminacy and his father’s hypermasculinity create a “vicious cycle” of verbal violence in which Asa gains no support or reassurance from his father. In providing the background of Asa’s childhood, the show reveals how his family’s disapproval of his homosexuality directly linked to his affliction. Asa himself states, “Gay plus ethnic plus overweight equals a recipe for hatred in my life,” thus showing how the intersections of all of these embodiments results in the creation of an uninhabitable space in which Asa must reside. Asa’s family provides emotional accounts of his addiction which function to stir an emotional response within the viewer, thus depicting to the viewer the urgency of his rehabilitation.

The format of the show situates Asa as a spectacle for the viewer in that the scenes chosen are often scenes involving Asa binging and purging, intoxicated, and/or arguing with family members or friends about his addiction. His depiction, then, is dehumanized, as he embodies the image of a “freak” in his non-normative lifestyle that is defined by his addictions. The use of statistics within the show reinforces this format of the freak show, such as “more than 30% of bulimics abuse alcohol,” which places Asa within a seemingly static category of “the addict.” Continuing with the format, the show infantilizes Asa and constructs his lack of agency in his own life through having his friends and family discuss his addiction while he the camera records him purging in the bathroom. This infantilization is supported as the show chooses to emphasize his want to be “normal” and inhabit a normative embodiment, however Asa can never truly embody this space due to his homosexuality, non-whiteness and class position as a struggling student. The show suggests that since Asa has progressed so far along in his education, proving his productivity and worth within society, that he can be rehabilitated.

An “intervention” follows where his family and friends meet with an interventionist who conducts the intervention that expresses to Asa that healthy boundaries need to be set or else face inevitable “jail or death.” The interventionist states that they must do “whatever it takes” because Asa is “so close to dying.” This construction of rock bottom leaves him with no choice but to accept rehabilitation; “You’re intelligent, you’re educated. What is preventing you from going to treatment?” After Asa’s rehabilitation, he states that he “can feel like a somewhat normal person now.” This rhetoric of “somewhat normal” situates his homosexuality and race as abnormal in addition to his addiction. The rehabilitative process is then seen as successful in that Asa returns to this state of “somewhat normalcy” in which he can continue his education and life, allowing him to contribute to society as a productive citizen.