Attention!  New TV trend alert!  Fat people shows.  And no, I don’t mean weight loss shows.  Those have been around since just after the Reality Show boom of 2000.  I mean shows whose main characters are not only overweight, but that fact is woven into the premise of the show.  There are currently two of these shows on the air and one that’s going to premiere in the fall.  And I’m not sure how I feel about it.  Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing diversity of any kind in media.  And while I understand that it’s still TV and we want to look at pretty faces, that doesn’t mean we can’t look at all sorts of people.  But I guess we’re not at the point where an overweight person (or even someone over a size 10) can star on a show without it being about the fact that they’re fat.  The closest we came to this was Rosanne, but A. that’s been off the air for thirteen years, and B. she was a married Midwesterner, and we’re okay with them being fat.  Today we have schlubby ladies on TV, but they’re still gorgeous.  Liz Lemon, I’m looking at you.  It would not be okay for you to be chowing down on Sabor de Soledad cheese curls if you were twenty pounds heavier.

I suppose making it the gimmick of the show is just the way networks are making the audiences okay with it.  “Guys, this show is about people who meet at Overeaters Annonymous.  They will be fat.”  (Incidentally, you don’t have to be fat to be in OA.)  That fake quote was a description of the new fall series, Mike & Molly.  And while I’m sure, as the creator has said, it will be about these two people learning about each other and starting a relationship, they are still overweight, they still met in OA, and the promos are still riddled with fat jokes.  I’m also pretty sure the actual series won’t have a proportional amount of fat jokes, but still that’s what they use to hook people to the show.  Here’s the thing though, I love Melissa McCarthy.  A lot.  I will watch this show.  And I’m hoping that it is good and not just about two fat people.  Because whatever the joke is, if it gets beaten into a show over and over again, it’s not going to be intelligent or funny.  Self-deprecation?  Sure.  Self-awareness?  Definitely.  Self-hatred?  Not funny. 

The two fat people shows that are currently on the air right now are Huge (seriously?) and Drop Dead Diva (another bad title).  Huge is about kids at a fat camp.  I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard good things.  Perhaps I’ll start.  Plus, I loved Heavyweights, and I’m sure it’s the same thing.  Drop Dead Diva I do watch, and it’s a little high-concept.  Deb, a beautiful, young model, dies, but through some wackiness, comes back to earth and wakes up in the body of a size sixteen (!) lawyer.  Brooke Elliot is delightful to watch going back and forth between characters — she’s still the model, but has the knowledge of the lawyer.  Like I said, high-concept.  But after the initial, “Oh my god, look what I was and now look what I am!” of the pilot, the show really is about this woman trying to navigate a new life.  The new body is a non-issue.  So, okay.  We may never get to the levels of English TV and let truly ugly people have shows, but it’s a start, right?