trigger warning: weight, body image, self-hate, suicide mention
Recently, actress Sharon Rooney who plays Rae Earl on the UK TV show My Mad Fat Diary announced that the show is returning for a third season. MMFD is allll about bodies. Rae Earl is the protagonist of the show, a fat sixteen-year-old girl dealing with not only her weight and low self-esteem but also with mental illness. She has a tough push-and-pull relationship with her mother, and a father that is out of the picture.
When we meet her she is about to be released from a mental hospital after attempting suicide, and she doesn’t think she’s ready to enter the world again. The show does almost too good of a job capturing the shame and self-consciousness that so often come with being fat. Rae looks down when she walks, is afraid of people looking at her, and in the first season, is unable to eat in public.
Remarkably, Rae is a character who although shy in public, is very expressive about her sexuality in her diary and private life, and while among friends. Rae narrates each episode, many times gushing about her cute doctor, friends, and her favorite Oasis band members. She is a fat teenager who is represented as having a strong sexual drive and desire, which is a gift rarely afforded to fat characters.
I relate to the show on an emotional level because in many ways I am very similar to Rae. I experience the same fear of being watched and judged, the fear that you’ll fail to make or keep friends, and just the insidious self-consciousness that comes from having a body that society deems as nonnormative. That’s why I find myself having to look away or mute the episode at certain parts – many of Rae’s experiences mirror my own so the show can be a bit triggering.
Two exceptional scenes from the show stick out in my mind in terms of really getting at the heart of body image issues. The first takes place in the first season; We are in Rae’s imagination. Rae stands in front of a mirror and reaches behind her head. It is revealed that there is a zipper on the back of her neck- she unzips it and her body becomes a fat suit that she takes off and steps out of. A new, skinny version of Rae drags the fat suit down the stairs and outside where she puts it in a trashcan and sets it on fire. The gas drips from the side of the trash can, turning into Rae’s real tears on her bathroom scale. This represents the simple want of many fat girls, just to rid themselves of their fat instantly, to just be able to take it off. I feel this with my stomach especially, the thought that I’d “look fine if it weren’t for my stomach” is one that I used to (and still sometimes do) have a lot.
Another especially upsetting moment in the show is when Rae hits another low with her self-esteem. It comes in the beginning of the second season: Rae now has a boyfriend, Finn, who she considers out of her league. You see Rae and Finn hanging out, having fun, doing things, and you think everything is fine. However it’s not until later in the episode when Finn wants to have sex with her, that the truth is revealed; every place and every time Rae hangs out with Finn she remembers every stare from a stranger. Every scoff at her size compared to her boyfriend’s. You now see the same scenes again, except with Rae looking back at other people’s glares. This scene is heartbreaking to me because, depending on how my day is going, I go through the same thing when I walk around by myself. The paranoia that everyone is staring at you and the out-of-body experience of dissociating from your fatness just to be able to walk around in public- not feeling at home in your own skin.
In addition to dealing with body image issues, the second season of the show deals with sex. Both Rae and her thin childhood best friend, Chloe, are briefly engaged in unhealthy sexual relationships with boys, dealing with both body shame and guilt. Although Chloe is thin and is depicted as confident in the first season, the second season reveals her true self-hatred and her jealousy of Rae, showing that self-consciousness and body image issues are not limited to one body size, and proving that Marilyn Wann’s term “body liberation” is the most useful term in combating body shaming and sex shaming.
Ultimately, the show has a lot going for it. But no media is without problems. One of Rae’s first lines is “I’m a bulimic without the sick. I am fat.” This is a line that can be read as insensitive to those with eating disorders. Additionally, the complete lack of characters of color is very apparent on this show, the only man of color being Rae’s eventual stepfather, Karim.
It is especially interesting to think about race and sexuality in conjunction to MMFD. How would Rae experience the world if she was black as well as fat? What if she was queer? Rae’s sexual expressiveness is exciting–she represents a sexually autonomous fat teenage girl, which is incredible, but her experience of the world would change drastically if she was affected by other intersecting marginalized identities.
Unruly Bodies 
Whoa, awesome post on this show! My Mad Fat Diary is definitely a favorite of mine, and I’m really happy with the way that you highlighted certain positive aspects of the show while pointing out some of the problematic points. I am deeply respectful of your empathy with Rae, and your statement about not being able to view certain portions of the show makes me reflect on my own consumption of it. Though I love the show for many reasons including the production, acting, and great storyline, I sometimes can’t help but wonder if I’m unconsciously “enjoying the spectacle” or something of that nature rather than just watching to gain insight on the experiences of others.
I love this show. Since the show is based on the real Rae Earl and her book of diary entries, I can’t help think about Autobiography of a Face. I enjoy how we see the perspective of a young woman and her ability to be honest with her feelings and her experiences. I remember in season two when Rae reads Chloe’s diary and exclaims her recollections of certain events aren’t what actually happened. That was mind blowing because we forget other people can and do view situations differently and can and do react differently. I thought your comment about what the story would be like if race and sexuality were explored more was interesting. As a woman of color I viewed the show as “Rae’s World”, and have an understanding some people don’t have the same experiences I do when it comes to race. I see My Mad Fat Diary as a stepping stone and hope more people are open to this type of raw story telling. It works and it’s compelling.
This show looks great at showing how fat bodies and society intersect. That scene you posted with Rae unzipping her fat suit is so jarring, but also very true since in our diet focused culture tends to say things such as “now I’m a new person” as if the thinner, “better” version of the person is inside the fat person.