After years of excavating their alien habits on talk shows, and of turning weight loss into the sort of blood sport last seen in ancient Rome, television has discovered, or remembered, that fat people are human after all, with a panoply of dreams, desires, foibles and stories that often have nothing to do with their weight.
Just like all those crazy-thin people we’ve been watching for years.
Lifetime’s “Drop Dead Diva” broke the ice last year. Lit up by newcomer Brooke Elliott, the show wrangled its iffy conceit — an afterlife mix-up leaves a thin girl trapped in a fat girl’s body — into a surprisingly edgy comedy.
This summer, ABC Family debuted “Huge,” a vehicle for “Hairspray” star Nikki Blonsky, which was no doubt the cause for much rejoicing among plus-sized thespians. It explores the complexities of childhood obesity with a clear eye and dark humor.
And this fall, pound-power comes to the networks. In CBS’s romantic comedy “Mike and Molly,” Melissa McCarthy and Billy Gardell play a fourth-grade teacher and a Boston cop, respectively, who meet at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting.
All three of these shows take on the emotional, social and physical difficulties of being overweight, but none of them get bogged down in the slippery excess of parody or pathos.
For those of us long weary of seeing weight issues addressed only in extremes — by participants of “The Biggest Loser,” longtime yo-yo’ers Kirstie Alley and Carnie Wilson or stars like Courteney Cox scripted to occasionally glance in the mirror and wonder if their butts look fat — “Mike and Molly” is a beacon of hope.
McCarthy (so wonderful in “Gilmore Girls” and “Samantha Who?”) finally gets center stage while comedian Gardell can finally slide out of Kevin James’ formidable shadow.
However, when I said television has discovered that fat people are human, I mean it’s discovered that fat women and children are human. Men have always been allowed to be fat on TV.
Jorge Garcia’s beloved Hurley fell in love and was a hero in two alternate worlds on “Lost.” Jackie Gleason, William Conrad and John Goodman built their careers on their wattles and prodigious guts.
Yes, there have been exceptions: Roseanne Barr’s character on “Roseanne” refused to obsess, or even care much, about her weight.
The idea that those with high body fat indexes also have jobs and love lives, that they raise children and make art, travel, sing and have pets, endure nonweight-related tragedy and triumph, has been lost in the clamor over calories.
Of course, none of the characters on the new shows takes fat lightly. Everyone is trying, to one extent or another, to eat more greens and less cake.
But the pounds come off slowly, if they come off at all. Overweight is just one part of who these people are, losing weight just one of the things they’d like to experience in their lives.
Which makes these dramas closer to real than any reality show around.
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