Will Drop Dead Diva Live up to the Hype?
Like it or not, fat people have been making it onto prime time television. The Biggest Loser proved to be ratings gold, inspiring multiple seasons and a veritable franchise of products. Two more fat exploitation reality shows have hit the airwaves this season-- Dance Your Ass Off and More to Love. So Margaret Cho understands why people in the size-acceptance world might be a little skeptical about her new show Drop Dead Diva which premiers on Sunday July 12 at 9pm on Lifetime. But she thinks this show gets body acceptance right.
Thanks to CarrieP and withoutscene, I was able to attend a meet and greet on behalf of BFB with Margaret Cho and Brooke Elliot, the “plus-size” star of Drop Dead Diva. It was a fairly intimate group of bloggers, and I even got some one-on-one time with Margaret. When I asked what attracted her to this project, she told me, “This is a show for those of us who struggle to be visible. It treats body image with dignity and hope. I think it will create a new sex symbol…a new ideal.”
Drop Dead Diva is billed as a “dramedy.” Here's the set-up: Shallow, size-0 Deb and fat, brilliant attorney Jane end up at the entrance to heaven at the same time after simultaneous accidents. In a twist of fate, Deb ends up being sent back to earth, but accidentally lands in Jane's body. Comedy ensues... or does it?
The trailer doesn't exactly set this show up to be the breakthrough that it claims to be. However, both Brooke and Margaret (who plays Deb/Jane's faithful assistant) were adamant that this was not one long fat joke à la Shallow Hal. While there is some awkwardness when Deb finds herself in Jane's body, Brooke explained, it's really part of a larger journey, and one that isn't completely focused on body size. “Deb starts realizing that her life as a thin woman wasn't exactly perfect, and that maybe she has some things to learn.” Brooke went on to say that she hopes "people will receive the show in the spirit in which it was intended. This is a delicate subject that hasn't always been handled well.”
Margaret Cho has long been on record as someone who has struggled with body acceptance and eating disorders, largely due to her early experiences in Hollywood. “I would never condone or be involved with a project that was about fat jokes. The reason I took the job in the first place was because it dealt with issues of body image with such respect and grace.” She hopes that this will be a show that women, especially mothers and daughters, will watch together, and embrace seeing a "more realistic" body portrayed on screen.
The writer and creator of the show, Josh Berman (who has written for CSI and Bones) had a real-life inspiration for the show. According to Margaret, he was significantly impacted by his grandmother, who in his words “was as wide as she was tall,” but never let her size interfere with living life to the fullest.
While I believe that the writers and stars of the show have the best of intentions, I did lament to the panel that this show required a gimmick to get a fat woman center stage...after all, this is the metaphorical “skinny woman trapped in a fat woman's body”--the mantra of dieting women everywhere. I would much rather see a show where the lead is a fat woman (in a fat woman’s body) who is empowered, happy and successful; that would be a true breakthrough. Brooke agreed, and said that she too--especially as a fat actress--hoped that this might be a launching pad for more diverse shows featuring fat women.
I guess the proof will be in the pudding. I'll be watching on Sunday, for better or worse, and hope to be pleasantly surprised.
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Posted by kimdog on July 11, 2009
I gotta say I'm pretty skeptical. As much as I love Margaret Cho (So jealous you got to meet her, Kimdog!!! But glad you were able/willing.), I'm really unsure. So many people have good--even great intentions, but the means/ends may not be good ones, or at least ones I feel are suitable. I think it is clear that there are good things about this, like, there's not a weight loss contest involved. Inroads, perhaps, are made by shows that are somewhere in between complete exploitation and not, yet not quite there. I really don't like the fat is smart & down-to-earth, skinny is vacuous & materialistic dichotomy they set up. Seems like they are playing on the stereotypes rather than busting them...but perhaps that'll come as the show develops past a gimmick? We'll see.
Linda Bacon had a preview of the pilot for this show and kindly invited me to watch with her. This was a few weeks back. Neither one of us was hugely impressed. There are predictable food-obsession jokes with the fat woman character. I don't recall details, but it seemed to me that Camryn Manheim's character on another law show started out several notches ahead of wherever this show's fat chick is. Whatever. I'll hand it to Cho for trying. I know that LadyMonster (a fat-identified burlesque performer and awesome rad fatty, pirate radio dj, etc.) has worked with Cho and respects her fatpol awareness.
For me, I'm not willing to act grateful for media representations that dumb down my experience or get it a bit but then rely on stereotype.
Marilyn, I understand your position. I don't think we should hail things like this as revolutionary and life-changing for fat people. Certainly not. If a piece of awareness is wrapped in stereotypical, uncritical gimmick that fucking sucks and I refuse to accept that we in any way deserve that. Not to mention it creates bigger problems because you will have people who are aware of "body image" issues, but have never really thought past the level of (severely dumbed down) discourse they are provided on TV shows and popular media...and that includes the idea that fat women are still invisible in this whole body image discourse because that would be "promoting obesity." I mean, this [tv shows like this--not to mention the co-opting of body-acceptance] is some transformative shit that is changing the game for us in fat-acceptance, and in many ways making it harder for us. It creates people who think they are on our side, or the side of "women" and "body acceptance," but then that only goes so far. People who think of themselves as informed and aware, but still perpetuate bias and discrimination and bullshit ignorance. (See the recent Jezebel post/reactions about Corinna's critique of FIFI originally posted on Obesity Timebomb.) Fat people make them uncomfortable or don't even exist within the concept of "woman." And if we insist that we do, we--again--are promoting obesity and unhealthiness. This is why TheRotund suggested to me that they may be downgrading her actual weight--so that they aren't seen as pushing that "promoting obesity" limit. So I agree that it's unacceptable, and not laudable in a revolutionary sense.
On the other hand I also think that baby steps like this can make a difference, despite producing more difficulties. I think of other movements where baby steps and contradictions foregrounded/stimulated (and continue to foreground/stimulate) a deeper level of awareness and understanding and acceptance--though the groups in question don't deserve less than full subjectivity, representation, and complexity in that subjectivity and representation. I never accept that "this is the lot we've got" but I can't ignore cultural shifts that do represent possibilities and our movements' influence--coopted, convoluted, contradictory as the cultural results may be. I remember a personal time when my thoughts about fat-acceptance were convoluted and contradictory and simply less all the way there (not that I really believe there is a tangible "all the way there"). So while I don't really accept less than all the way there---far, far less--I have hope that a multitude of things can come from that, up to and including something much, much more. I may be long dead before that something more ever meets my standards, but I take note of these not-really-there-yet events because they, for me, inspire just enough hope to be pissed off at all they deny me and the ways that they betray me.
Sadly, no matter what their good intentions are, MSM will never fully be able to fully embrace size acceptance. It is not only ratings they are concerned with, but their sponsors. The media needs to create dissatisfaction in its viewers so we will be better consumers and always look to products to fix us. That is the way it is set up. Not to mention there are agencies in Hollywood whose job it is is to go through scripts and find opportunities for secret commercials. So I predict the messages will be mixed. Yes, love your body, but here and there we will find plugs for slim fast and the like.
Still, you have to respect Cho for trying. It takes people both within the system and out of it to create change. Hopefully she can find a way to be subversive right under the nose of the execs and sponsors.
"Fat can be beautiful. Intolerance is ALWAYS ugly!"
Did anyone watch it tonight? I was on the phone with my friend and it came on and he was telling me about it.
I watched the show last night and they lost me in the opening scene. The thin girl eating a healthy breakfast of fruit and the fat chick is bypassing the fruit for a pastry. The "you're fat so you must thrive on unhealthy food" theme continued through out the show. The scene where she mainlined spray cheese was enough to make me change the channel.
The stereotyping in the show was too much for me. I won't be watching again.
So, I finally watched it (I missed the actual premiere and ended up streaming it). While there might not have been endless fat joke per se, the show certainly relies on a series of trite stereotyping to establish Jane as a food addicted fat chick . Squeeze cheese and donuts? Really?
But I guess the take home lesson is that this show isn't geared for people like us (i.e. BFB readers). In the interview, I asked Margaret Cho if she or the creator Josh Berman felt that they had to change things to appease the network. Her reply was that "Lifetime loves their viewers, and wanted to be respectful towards them". Do I have to ask if many of us are regular Lifetime viewers?
Following on the tails of withoutscene's comment, I do think that this show could be a consciousness raising experience for people who might not discover size-acceptance through the other means (which I guess basically boils down to the internet, or a few books in the local library). Brooke Elliot is a great actress. And I'm sure that any episode now there is going to be a makeover of Jane (OMG, fat girls can be pretty too!).
I doubt that I'll be watching the series, because realistically, it doesn't speak to me. But I won't say that it is completely without worth in furthering a positive dialogue on fat acceptance for some segment of the population.
It's interesting that you mention Camryn Manheim, Marilyn. I was thinking about fat female TV characters that are/were portrayed in a more interesting, multi-faceted way, and that don't rely on the cultural shorthand of donuts and low-self esteem to define them. The two that crossed my mind were Manheim (Eleanor Frutt on The Practice) and Kirsten Vangsness (Penelope Garcia on Criminal Minds). THEN was really blew my mind was that both of them were involved in plots where they dated men who ended up being serial killers! So if that doesn't speak to the fucked up attitudes about fat women and the men who love them... I don't know what does.
Didn't I post a thread about this one a couple months ago? LOL
I knew from jumpstreet that I wouldn't be watching this drivel. I definitely don't see it as uplifting or positive in regards to FA. I see it as "Size 0 dies and comes back and has to learn to live her life as a *gasp!* fat woman" Tired, boring, bored, snooze. Gimme a break, Lifetime........
I bet the "fat chick" is played by a size 10, 8, or 6 actress in real life.
Actually, many people have suggested they are downplaying her weight and that she may actually be larger than a size 16.