Mike & Molly - Where It Fails

I haven't done this in a while, but I feel like blogging about this show. So you know, I will. Here we go. *plunges*

I wanted to like the new CBS comedy Mike & Molly. It's about fat people, and it has two actors I really like, the adorable Melissa McCarthy and Swoozie Kurtz. Here, however, they have nothing to work with. The premise is that a fat cop and fat school teacher who meet at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting - start dating. Well, it has "fat people" and "dating" in the same show. That's a plus. On the other hand, the show also takes for granted that fat people=overeaters. Almost all of the jokes are based on fat, so it seems to assume fat = hilarious too. Sigh. 

This is not a hateful show. It's well meaning and tries to be kind, and it didn't trigger any of my issues. But if you're going to make a show specifically about fat people, it would be nice to see something a little more... well, revolutionary? This is the kind of show that scratches on the very shallow surface of fat acceptance, but falls short because so many things should be addressed, and most of them went completely undiscussed here.

The first episode circles around fat jokes, sassy Black friends, brainless sisters who get high. It's not very ambitious as far as sitcoms go. Mike meets Molly, Mike tries to ask her out, but then he breaks a table and injures his pinky, and there's commotion. And then they meet again and he chickens out again. And then, as he comes to investigate a robbery at Molly's house, he finally asks her out. End of episode 1. In episode two, we have Mike and Molly's first date. Mike shops at the Big&Tall store, cue more fat jokes. Molly tries on some clothes, fat jokes again. Then Molly, who's sneezing constantly, takes too much cough syrup and is completely high for their date. Her mother makes fun of Mike's new sweater, about twenty times. Molly yells at the waiter that they may be fat but don't make any assumptions that they're "dessert people". Then she orders a creme brulee. At the end of the date, it's a bit sweeter and they obviously like each other. But really, after a long episode of fat jokes, who's still watching? 

So in the end, it is just a sitcom, and it commits the gravest crime of sitcoms: it's not funny. At all. I didn't laugh once, and I laugh easily.The laugh track, of course, couldn't stop cracking up. Most of the jokes are puns - about being fat, at that - and this kind of humor rarely works. I'm a little confused; if they can't write a funny joke, why not make it a drama? Or a dramedy like Gilmore Girls - no laugh track, witty banter, warm moments, ordinary people?

The good thing is, they have obviously tried to dust up some of the clichés. The Black sidekick is the slim one. (Albeit still sassy and talkative.) The fat people are aware of their weight and talk openly about it. There's no scene with a fat girl overeating as her thin friends look on with disgust. In fact, there's a scene where the fat girl watches her thin mother and sister eat, and they tell her to indulge.

Let's stop there. They. Tell her. To indulge. And her mother says she's not fat, just big-boned, it's in the genes.

This was the point where I realized I'm not in the target group. I would have killed to have that mother. My mother made me feel bad for my weight throughout my childhood. (And I wasn't even overweight, let alone fat.) Even if she's chubby and my father's fat, she wouldn't admit it's in the genes. Even if a doctor once told her it is. It's all about eating and/or exercise, and it's my fault. 

Now, I'm trying very hard to not make this about my own Mommy issues. But Molly's Mom on the show is made to look like an old-fashioned idiot who knows nothing about fat. Molly shoots her down with "Bones don't jiggle, Ma", and gripes about not getting enough support. It's obvious that we're supposed to think Molly's the enlightened one, realizing it's all about her own effort. Meanwhile, her pothead sister and carefree Mom eating the cake are being ignorant and irresponsible.

Suddenly, this sounds familiar: women eating and being scolded for being bad examples. The eating one is oblivious/ignorant, the one on the treadmill is the smart one. It's just that they have the fat girl on the treadmill this time. Therein lies one problem with the show: a simple role reversal isn't enough. You need to question the underlying values. Maybe I'm asking too much of a sitcom, but still.

There isn't even enough role reversal going on. It's like they looked at a list of fat clichés - Black fat sidekick - and turned it into a slightly turned-around version - Black THIN sidekick. Fat woman can't be desirable - fat woman is the object of attraction. The fat guy, however, is still shy and socially awkward. And it's up to him to ask her out because he's the man. Of course, there's a flurry of issues here - why doesn't the thin sidekick get interested in the fat girl too, why are Mike and Molly both single to begin with, why is Molly living with her mother and sister, why does she dress in incredibly drab clothes..? All of these things scream "fat cliché" to me. 

The scene I found the most offensive: in episode one, Mike starts to overeat because he's so depressed! Oh, dear! Of course, he does this in a public place where everyone can see him. The thin sidekick shows up to take away his food - "a suicide with meatball bullets" - because he already lost three and a half pounds and has to keep it down. Mike says, "Big deal, my farts weigh three and a half pounds." Which is so self-loathing that it doesn't register as funny to me. It's true though, three and a half pounds is not much, you can gain and lose that much from eating/digesting one heavy meal. And if he has overeating issues, it shouldn't be about how many pounds he loses; it should be about dealing with the underlying issues. This isn't The Biggest Loser. 

So the show has, at the very least, a problematic attitude on fat. It's your own fault, it's something you have to work on, it makes you depressed, it means you have food issues. You can still have a decent job and a love life, but you can't forget for a second that you are fat. It's not very funny to me. In fact, it's kind of depressing. I think I'll stick to Roseanne.