There’s a new genre of entertainment that seems to have hit the mainstream in the past year. And it’s all about tossing out your membership to Jenny Craig and hoping on the body positivity bandwagon. There’s so little not to like!
So far, I’ve watched the series Dietland (2018, created by Marti Noxon, appearing on AMC, and apparently now canceled), the movie Dumplin’ (2018, starring Jennifer Aniston, available on Netflix), and most recently, Shrill (2019, produced by Lorne Michaels and Elizabeth Banks, available on Hulu). All are based on books with the same titles and adapted to varying degrees for the screen. All of them star an overweight woman in the midst of a personal crisis of sorts. It doesn’t hurt that in all cases she is incredibly likable and you want to root for her to not only get her life together but change the world in the process.
There’s a parallel story arc in all of these. There is a woman who is beaten down by the world (she doesn’t just feel beaten down; the world really is not kind to her). Even her mother harps on the importance of losing weight to become happier. Then, the epiphany occurs (or maybe a few small epiphanies), and she begins to stand up for herself. Losing weight isn’t the answer and she decides not to let her weight—what others, or more importantly, she thinks of her weight—determine her self-worth. Her personality blossoms. She was already funny (fulfilling the all-too-typical fat stereotype of personality and humor overcompensating for overweight), but she becomes a force to be reckoned with.
Perhaps these epiphanies are best summarized by Annie (Aidy Bryant of Saturday Night Live fame) in Shrill. Mid-way through the first season, after an awful interaction with her fatphobic boss, she declares, “Isn’t it bad enough that he’s constantly writing about the obesity epidemic as if it’s this abstract, far away thing?... That’s me… You think the whole world isn’t constantly telling me that I’m a fat piece of sh*t that needs to try hard?... At this point, I could be a licensed (expletive) nutritionist, because I’ve literally been training for it since the fourth grade....I’ve wasted so much time and energy and money – for what?...I’m fat!” Annie’s commentary offers a personal narrative for a body positivity movement that’s been swelling among some psychologists, nutritionists, and dieticians. It’s a movement away from prescribing diets, which research clearly indicates are difficult to maintain, and a movement toward prescribing self-acceptance.
The body positivity movement is not just an anti-diet movement, however. At least in some of its manifestations, it is a pro-health movement—both mental and physical health. Because apparently there are finally enough people tired of banging their heads against the wall, wishing for a diet potion that doesn’t exist. Juice cleanses are miserable. Fasting is miserable. The Paleo and Keto diets are miserable. Ask nearly anyone who’s tried them. And, if all that misery actually worked for most people, maybe it would be worth it. But, after suffering for years, and in many cases decades, there is a growing number of people ready to say “enough!”
I can’t say that I know exactly what it feels like to have strangers on the street talk to me about my weight in a disparaging manner. But, I can attest to being insecure in a variety of ways and being in situations where I’m judged by others on my intellect, personality, and appearance (I am a woman, after all). I appreciate that it may not be the same, and yet I can certainly empathize with the characters in these shows. I found myself feeling a bit bolder as I watched them. I wasn’t going to take any crap from anyone anymore, either. God damn it, my kids were going to have to pick up after themselves. I was going to say “no” to that assignment at work that was going to take too much time for too little reward. I was leaving the house in my pajamas and I didn’t care who saw me.
I assume that all of these shows aim to destigmatize people living in larger bodies—or, at the very least, to offer the perspective of someone who feels judged because of her weight. Given the strange paradox that the majority of people in the U.S. are overweight and yet weight stigma often appears to be the last acceptable form of stigma, there’s incredible value in offering this perspective. And, even for girls and women (and boys and men, for that matter!) who are not overweight, I suspect we’ve all dealt with issues of appearance insecurity at various times in our lives. There are good lessons to be learned from empowering entertainment (and the moments when fictional characters take this empowerment a bit too far, such as when Dietland's main character, Plum, joins a group of terrorists fighting the patriarchy. I'm betting this storyline is part of why the show ended up canceled).
Psychologists used to discuss identity development and self-acceptance as tasks of adolescence. By the time you hit adulthood, you were supposed to have sorted all of that out. But, increasingly there’s little evidence to point to adulthood as a respite from self-doubt. It can’t help that we’re all constantly barraged by advertisements and “influencers,” product placements and options for physical self-enhancement. It’s about time that the media counters those messages with something a bit more positive, even if the real-life solutions for people’s discontent are unlikely to be simple.
What’s especially encouraging about Dietland, Dumplin,’ and Shrill is that they all start as stories about one woman and her “weight problem” and quickly become about society’s problem. They are about the cultural emphasis on beauty and the consequences that has for everyone—and the consequences really are never good. Even for the folks fitting societal beauty ideals, there are costs in terms of time, energy, resources, and an inability to focus on more important issues while being weighed down (no pun intended) by these ideals. Of course, I’m not suggesting that two television shows and one movie will wipe out long-held beliefs about weight, beauty, and what counts as requisite appearance enhancement for women, but it sure is an entertaining way to chip away at them.