The Ultimate Showdown Between Brains and Beauty
The people over at Lifetime Television are doing their part in the smart versus beautiful war that rages on, with their new series, Drop Dead Diva coming out this summer. You can be beautiful and thin, but not bright, or you can be fat and brilliant, but not beautiful. So what would be crazy, see, is if a shallow, beautiful model dies, and then her spirit, wackily enough, ends up in the body of a brilliant fat woman! Isn’t that hilarious? Lifetime seems to think so!
When beautiful-but-vapid model wannabe Deb has a fatal car accident, she suddenly finds herself in front of Heaven’s gatekeeper, Fred, who declares her a self-centered “zero.” Outraged, she attempts to persuade Fred to return her to her shallow existence but is accidentally relegated to the body of the recently deceased Jane Bingum (Brooke Elliott). A brilliant, thoughtful and overweight attorney, Jane has always lived in the shadow of her more comely colleagues whereas Deb has always relied on her external beauty. Now, by a twist of fate and a bolt of divine intervention, both personalities must learn to coexist in Jane’s plus-size frame in the ultimate showdown between brains and beauty.
There is so much here that raises my hackles and makes me judge, judge, judge before I ever see a frame of the thing. The cliche, for one thing, that you can only be either/or that they’re relying on for the entire premise; “overweight” is being used as the shortcut for the opposite of beautiful; the impression I get that the beautiful, shallow model is being punished by having to live in the body of a fat lady; that the fat girl who is brilliant and competent but is still–more cliches!–the lonely shy wallflower who has never found love; that she is named JANE because she is PLAIN; and maybe I am stretching and sputtering here.
Brooke Elliott, the actor who is playing Jane, is absolutely gorgeous, and that gives me hope. It is possible that this will be a sensitive, thoughtful portrayal–nay, indictment–of the cliches about a woman’s worth and the only niches she can be slotted into. Maybe our attorney won’t hate herself and eat a lot of cake and be depressed because she’s not pretty because she’s fat. Maybe the shallow model will, as I fear, flail and make horrible, mean, fatist remarks and be horrified to learn that she is suddenly wearing a fat body because that would be just awful–but, but! But eventually she will learn Valuable Lessons about tolerance and real beauty and acceptance and love! I can’t wait for the heartwarming scene where the shallow model teaches the fat, unconfident attorney about confidence and Looking Hot and showing off your rack! And then probably she falls down because she’s not used to walking in heels, ha ha.
Oops, I started judging again. Maybe I’m wrong! Maybe this show will be brilliant. We’ll have to wait until the summer to find out.
Posted by jenfu
Filed under: Brooke Elliott, Fatism, Gossip, TV
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Wow. That’s on Lifetime?
Oy.
Hollywood’s idea of fat, ugly, nerdy, etc. is so fucking ridiculous I just want to puke. On all the producers. Preferably projectile, all over their $400 shoes and power ties.
I could write a horrendously long post here about how most (powerful) people in Hollywood rarely see a fat person (surrounded as they are by anorexic wannabees), are nasty, shallow folks, and don’t live in the real world, as all they do is drive their fancy cars around Beverly Hills and West Hollywood and NEVER venture into the Valley or, God forbid, East L.A. or Watts. Or they take private jets to Vegas, where they are protected from the unwashed plebians by their private suites, private VIP rooms at clubs, and private tables at “upscale” restaurants.
I could, but I won’t.
Heh.
Lifetime is the home of “Diet Tribe,” sensationalist screed that foams at the mouth”Fat is contagious! Fat girls travel in herds! Weight and body image are matters of public concern!”
Cindy, can you believe that I was contacted by a Lifetime PR woman who wanted me to advertise the Diet Tribe show on my eating disorders awareness and education site? Yes, really! I also blogged about the Drop Dead Diva show here.
oh vey! why can I no longer see full text in the RSS feed? I have to admit that since I’m too lazy to click to the website every day if it doesn’t show up, I probably won’t read :(
Are you kidding me? *sighs*
Jesus.
Apparently bigger women are NEVER attractive (Crystal Renn) and skinny women are NEVER smart (Virginia Woolf).
What complete twaddle. People would WATCH this?
also, I second the “full text in the RSS feed” comment.
I’m going to watch at least the first few episodes out of curiosity–they’re also the same network that developed How to Look Good Naked, which is very body-positive. And I’m hoping, maybe, that the show will surprise us, and it won’t be a pile of cliches, and that Brooke Elliott will be amazing and lovely.
It’s mentioned on Rachel’s site that this show was rejected by Fox. Clearly Lifetime is making a image for themselves, by picking a show out of another channel’s trash bin.
I mean, Fox’s trash bin. Fox has been known to show some pretty sketchy and trashy stuff. It’s like if they rejected it, then what does it say when Lifetime picks that up.
I suppose we can hope that Fox rejected it because it was too sensitive a portrayal. (snort)
Come on people, we all know the drill! In Hollywood you CAN NOT be fat (or any shades thereof) and be beautiful. Just like you can not wear glasses, you can not have curly hair (because naturally that means frizzy, unruly, nappy hair), and you can not (without a shadow of a doubt) be sexy.
Fat actors are only allowed 2 options in Hollywood – smart and/or sarcastic.
The End
So why are we still surprised here?
Smart and sarcastic is good.
Unfortunately I will be watching… because this is the first new project Sean Maher is doing in about a year and a half, and I am a hopeless fangirl of his. But if it’s too excruciating I don’t know if Sean can keep me interested.
As it turns out–the show is absolutely delightful. Brooke is fabulous. As a formerly fat girl, I find her portrayal of Jane excellent, and the writing gives her depth and true wit. Love it.
I think that there is a misconception that this show is making fun of overweight women or saying that they are “ugly”. If you really watch the show, what it is saying is that people of all sizes have life difficulties and that what may seem perfect on the surface, isn’t usually the case. No one is perfect.
The thing is, Brooke Elliot is soooo incredibly beautiful, so much more attractive physically than the supposed thin “beautiful” model that the show keeps telling us is the “gorgeous” one, that it’s hard to accept the premise of the show………….. at first. However, Brooke is such an amazing actress that she pulls you right in, and makes the mediocre writing come alive. Who is this actress? I have never seen her before, she does seem very broadway, possibly musical theatre , albeit, very capable, with palpable star quality. She is the axis on which the show revolves, I wish there were a better cast of supporting actors, there is Margaret Cho, who is the only actor that seems over qualified for their role, but it’s nice for us, the audience to have one other credible actor besides Brooke Elliot. We will see much more from this rising star, of that, I’m sure.
Hey amastar, I know what you mean…I watched the show last night, and I kept thinking how distractingly beautiful she was….but she is also a really good actress and I was there with her in her struggle to figure out who she was. I thought the show was going to be really awful, but found myself caring about her.
I think Brooke Elliot is incredibly beautiful. I am a card carrying narcissus, but I love her more than I love myself, so you know it has to be the real thang.
I watched the first two episodes and I thought it was pretty good. The only thing is, I dont think Jane’s character is ‘fat’! I would look at her and say, okay maybe she’s a little overweight, but my mind would never jump to the word fat.
Im struggling to take off the baby weight I put on after I had my daughter, so when I heard that she was a size 16 (through commercials) I was like, “that’s fat??”
It made me feel a little angry that she is what they chose to portray a “fat girl”
BUT, it was a good show regardless.
I have a weird feeling that she and the guardian angel will have a thing for each other in future episodes??
I really like Brooke Elliott so far. She’s absolutely beautiful and seems to be a good actress. I’d keep watching just for her.
I just discovered the show, and love it! Brooke Elliott is gorgeous, brilliant, and multi-talented. Definitely what I would consider a plus sized triple threat. I had my reservations at first, but they’ve won me over. I can’t wait for the new season to arrive. :)