Bridgette on Medium

Originally posted at Fatly Yours on Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Medium has a premise that might be hard to buy: a mother of three who's also a psychic, seesthings and talks to the dead, and helps the local DA with murder cases. It's based on a real person who may or may not really be psychic, Allison DuBois, who is portrayed on the show by Patricia Arquette. The realistic aspect of the show is the family life. In real life and on the show, Allison has three daughters. What interests me the most is the middle child on the show, Bridgette DuBois (Maria Lark). She divides opinions - precious sweetheart, unusually realistic child or irritating and precocious? I personally like her and think she's depicted quite realistically. She seems to have an actual personality, which is rare for child characters (especially ones that aren't the center of the show).

Bridgette is a rarity for many reasons. She's a tomboy. She doesn't comb her hair much. She's a bit of a "freak" - she might decide to camp in the dining room instead of sleeping in her room; she might want to wear a biking helmet to school every day; she sometimes sees dead people or has clairvoyant dreams. She's portrayed as unusually intelligent and aware of what's going on with her parents. And - she's chubby.

I love that she's chubby. I love that there's never been any issue with this on the show. I love that her two sisters are slim; I love that her parents are pretty slim; I love that she's gained weight during the show and her depiction hasn't changed. She's written as a girl with a personality, and her role could be played by a slim girl. This, to me, is always a good sign.

The family's eating habits seem realistic to me. With two working parents, there might be oatmeal or waffles in the morning, but more often than not, it's a quick bowl of cereal and then off to school. In the evening, the family eats a homecooked meal together - if the parents have time to prepare one. Food is a pleasure, but health is also considered. For instance, Allison is notorious for bringing healthy foods to soccer practice, and the parents insist that Bridgette eat her salad as well as the hot dog (note that she isn't expected to eat only salad while others eat hot dogs). Bridgette is only shown eating at meal times, and her diet isn't any different from her slim sister Ariel's. No commentary is ever made of the girls' weight.

What we often see on TV is a division between "fat families" and "slim families". The fat family has fat parents, fat children, fat grandparents, fat uncles and aunts, fat pets, and everyone's eating massive meals of grease and sugar all the time. (The most extreme fat family I've seen was on Eddie Murphy's The Nutty Professor.) The matronly mother is always telling her children to eat, or wondering if they get any food at all, especially if they've moved away from home. "Food is love" is the motto of such families.

The slim family is the norm. It consists of skinny mother and daughters, slim/muscular dad and skinny sons. The grandma and grandpa are allowed some chub; all family members under 60 are usually slim. They eat TV-normally - i.e., they eat homecooked meals together, but there are quite a few bags of chips and candy in between,which, as we all know, is OK for slim people but not for fat people. Also, they don't eat as much food as the fat family (it's all about eating less and exercising more!) Food isn't discussed much, and it's just a part of everyday life rather than the focus.

If there's a hybrid form, it's the fat men/skinny women family with a fat father and son, skinny mother and daughter. The rule of thumb in both skinny and hybrid families is that no girl over five or so is allowed to be chubby. That's why Bridgette caught my eye. While I wouldn't call her fat, I realized I'm not used to seeing school girls on TV with a body like hers. It's nice to see a realistic spread of children in a TV family. Most real life families I've known have been mixed: chubby child, skinny child, one in between the extremes, another chubby child. Siblings can have very different body types, but you rarely see this on TV. Maybe the idea that all of the girls have blonde hair, like the mother, is a bit annoying, because I haven't seen many totally blonde families either. But I do like the realistic touch in body types.

The girls' gender identities on the show are also somewhat interesting. Bridgette is a tomboy who likes to dress in boyish clothes, while her older sister Ariel is a super-feminine slim girl with long golden hair and pink clothes. There isn't rivalry set up between them (at least so far) even if Ariel is the popular girl and Bridgette is the freak at school. When the boys in Ariel's class rank her as a "hottie", Bridgette reacts not with jealousy but with obvious disbelief: "Someone thinks you're a hottie?! I thought you had to be smart to get to junior high!" This comment, to me, shows that she doesn't think about how boys might rank her. She speaks from her usual point of view of sisterly superiority - the same tone Ariel often takes with her.

The parents' attitude is also encouraging. The girls have distinct personalities and are allowed to be themselves. Allison and Joe worry about Bridgette being lonely, but as someone who never really fit in, Allison also sees a value in being a freak. When Bridgette decides to wear her bike helmet to school, Joe is worried and wants to wean her of it, while Allison demands that they let the girl be herself. In the end, she is allowed to keep the helmet on for her school photo.

Bridgette is often shown to be more alert and intelligent than Ariel. When the family go on a camping trip, they stumble across a dead body. Bridgette becomes suspicious about her mother always uncovering dead bodies and solving murder cases, but when she tries to discuss it with Ariel, the older sister just shuts her down. It's an interesting scene - does it mean Ariel is dumber than Bridgette, or less observant, or just in denial about what goes on with her mother, despite the fact that Ariel, too, has had clairvoyant dreams? As the popular one, she faces more pressure of being "normal". Bridgette has perhaps never been too concerned with that and is more interested in finding out the truth about their mother's abilities.

The chubbiness might be a part of Bridgette's "freak" personality. Maybe the implication is that she doesn't care about her appearance - also with the unkempt hair and boyish clothes - and is truly herself, no matter what others think. Maybe they would have written her this way even if she hadn't become chubby, or maybe they picked a chubby girl for the role because of this. Either way, it's part of the reason why I identify with the character. Way too many girl characters are meek, pretty and popular, and almost always thin. There's usually a chubby or fat boy in the "boy shows" - in fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a show that doesn't have any chubby guys. For girls, it's a different story. Even when the character is an outcast of sorts, a thin and pretty girl is usually picked (for instance, the unpopular Sam on Popular).

Interestingly, Patricia Arquette has gained quite a bit of weight since Medium began - not enough to make her fat in my book, but enough to put pressure on her to diet. She has refused to do so, stating that her body looks realistic for a middle-aged mother of three. I was positively surprised by this. A mother of three with a demanding job is likely to gain weight as time goes by, and this probably wouldn't be a big deal in real life. I like that she insists it's not a big deal on the show either.

Time will tell what happens with Maria Lark as she grows up. She might lose the chubbiness as she grows or grow up to be fat. She could be forgotten as a child star of yesteryear, or become a famous actress, in which case there will be more pressure on her to be slim. I wish the industry, like her parents on the show, would let her grow up to be who she truly is, but I have my doubts. At least she has a good example in her TV Mom.