Andrea on The Big C

The Big C is a Showtime show, like Weeds. It has the same brand of humor and essentially the same premise: suburbia is shaken by one ordinary woman's bold attitude. In this case, it's because Cathy Jameson (Laura Linney) has cancer, and is trying to live life to the fullest. (That's the Finnish translated title. "Living Life to the Fullest". Yeah, I dunno either.) The show is frank about cancer, sex, and any other possible issues. There's farting, and doctors telling patients they have "an awesome rack". There's a teenage boy who just wants to get away from his Mom, and a homeless eco warrior brother.

I have a relatively low tolerance for this type of humor. I can't really stomach Weeds at all, and even my Six Feet Under rewatch was lacklustre. I'm not sure why that is; at age 20 or so, I thought this was the shit:  honest and rude and open about sex. Maybe I'm so used to it by now that it no longer works on me; the rude brand of honesty has been in for quite a while now. It may be getting old. On the other hand, kindness is very imprortant for me personally, and I try to avoid confrontation, so maybe I feel a certain anxiety watching people be rude to each other. Maybe it reminds me of being bullied.

Either way, The Big C has somewhat sucked me in. I really care about Cathy and her family; I think there's a certain emotional honesty here, which isn't always achieved by shows like this. Cathy may be rude and crude some of the time, but she's essentially a kind soul who wants to help people. Maybe that's why the show works for me.

One of the people Cathy wants to help is her student Andrea, played by Gabourey Sibide of Precious fame. I was hoping her weight wouldn't be an issue on a show like this. Could she just be a fat character with no diet story? Apparently, that's a little too much to hope for.

In episode 1, Andrea comes into class late, and instead of being sorry, she makes fun of Cathy's haphzard way of teaching. Cathy calls her up to get her exam and whispers to her:

"You can't be fat and mean, Andrea. Fat people are jolly for a reason. Fat repels people but joy attracts them. I know they're laughing at your cruel jokes but nobody's asking you to the prom. So you can be a skinny bitch or fat and jolly, it's up to you." 

Cathy shows herself to be a class-A fatist here. She means well, but that doesn't make it okay to basically tell Andrea that fat people are repulsive, as if no one thinks otherwise. She doesn't know, she just assumes that no one's asking Andrea to the prom. (I know teenage boys are often scared of dating bigger girls, for fear of ridicule, but still.) It's ironic that she closes with "It's up to you", because her point is that it really isn't. She's saying that being fat puts you in a certain mold where you have to make amends by being jolly. She assumes you can choose to be fat or thin, and thus choose your role. Skinny girls can be kind or mean, but fat girls can only be kind. Instead of giving Cathy hell about this bullshit, Andrea just sighs and goes back to her seat.

Later, Cathy catches her having a cigarette. Perhaps genuinely and perhaps to mock Cathy, Andrea says that she'd rather be skinny and dead than fat forever: "Fat camp didn't work for me." She lists all the diets she's been on and how they didn't work. This I liked, because that's how it is for most fat girls. Of course, the show gets minus points for the idea that she just wants to lose the weight and would rather smoke than be fat, but it's realistic at least. At this point, Cathy makes her big offer: she'll give Andrea 100 bucks for each pound lost. "Well I guess this skinny bitch is up for it," says Andrea happily. Oh, groan.

I realize what's going on here: Cathy wants to save Andrea. She says as much in another episode: "I just don't want you to drop dead before you graduate." Andrea responds gleefully: "Way to dream small, Mrs J!" It bugs me that this idea is never questioned. Andrea has to lose weight or she will die. She accepts this, as does everyone else. Yet we're not looking at a person literally lying on her deathbed, unable to move. She can walk, jog, ride a bike, go to school normally, and there's no indication that she has any health problems at the moment.

So what's wrong with helping her lose weight? Well, for one thing, Cathy cannot guarantee that the weight stays off. She doesn't know why all the other diets failed; she doesn't know if Andrea is eating disordered. What will happen if Andrea doesn't lose weight permanently? Will Cathy be super disappointed in her and blame her for not working hard enough? Won't that just harm Andrea's self esteem? There are all kinds of things Cathy isn't considering. Motivating someone to diet is a huge responsibility, and Cathy's too focused on her own life changes to really be there for Andrea. Majorly bad idea.



Slim white teacher tries to help fat black student. I'm not going into the racism discussion here, but this seems quite familiar.



What's worse is that Andrea starts off badly - she has gained two pounds.

Andrea: "Fuck that shit, I've been starving myself."
Cathy: "Don't say fuck. And don't starve yourself, that always backfires." 

(This show tries to cram as many "fuck"s as possible into each episode.)
So we have here a slim woman who knows about dieting. She must, or she wouldn't be so slim, right? Andrea, who's been on all those diets, doesn't even know that you mustn't starve yourself. But really, can you blame her, when she's being PAID to lose weight? Of course she'd like to lose as much as possible right away. She probably needs the money. Cathy tells her to walk, "to school or whatever, just WALK!" Andrea says, "I think another bikini season will pass me by." Cathy claims, "The bikini is harsh on us all." Yeah, easy for you to say, slim. You can walk down the beach in a bikini without people laughing.

The most aggravating scene follows: Cathy spots Andrea - eating chips. "What are you doing?" she exclaims. Andrea gleefully explains that she walked all the way home and got hungry, "you told me not to starve myself." EXACTLY. Cathy basically just told her to eat. But of course, the fat girl will combine walking with eating "junk food", thus ruining the effect of the walk. That's what us fatties do!

Cathy's brother Sean jumps in and tells Andrea that she's a product of a "gluttonous society". It's not a personal judgement, I'll give him that, but. Fat=gluttony, even if you're saying it's the whole culture and not just the fat person, is still "low thinking" in my book. There's worse to come: "Our excess is killing you!" She's not dying, people. At least Andrea takes it calmly, with amusement, although I wouldn't have minded a little anger here.

Cathy grabs the chips and tells Andrea it's not nourishing, "you should be eating something your body knows how to burn off, like a fruit or a vegetable". Oh dear. Chips may be fattening, but they're not completely without nutrition, and isn't potato a vegetable or something of the ilk? It's not like she's eating candy with nothing but sugar and chemicals. More importantly, even if she did choose to eat pure sugar and chemicals, that would still be OK. She should be able to choose her own food. This "save the fat girl from herself" bullshit needs to stop.

Of course, when we next see Andrea, she's walking and drinking a slushie or soda. "What are you doing?" "Excercising!" This time, Cathy throws her drink down on the ground, in the street, in front of everyone. Way to humiliate the fat girl. Andrea demands to know why. "Because I like you, Andrea." So because you like her, you limit her choices and bribe her to diet? Cathy's a buttinski of the worst kind, but of course no one calls her on it because diets help fat people.

Also infuriating: Cathy invites Andrea for a dinner party and offers her pigs in a blanket. "You can have one," she says, "just don't have three." In front of the other guests, she says that. How nice, so you offer her food but tells her how much she's allowed to eat.

Cathy's husband Paul (Oliver Platt), who is fat but not as big as Andrea, keeps making remarks about his weight in the same vein. E.g. "I'm a big guy, my heart could explode at any moment". When they see Cathy's doctor, he tells him first thing: "What's going on in here, you've got a heart attack in there with your name on it."

I'm not necessarily mad that this type of behavior is shown. It's realistic. People assume all the time that fat people are going to die, and they treat fat people in a humiliating way, but do it with a smile. What I'd like to see is one of the writers to realize that there's a thing called fat acceptance; that some fat people live long healthy lives; that fat people can also be happy with their size, etc. Is this too much to ask?

In the spirit of the show, Andrea is not meek and gentle but tells Cathy some truths as well, but they're never about this. So while Andrea's eating habits are under constant scrutiny, Cathy's meddling and concern trolling are just seen as "caring".

An issue glossed over on the show is that Cathy is rich, and rich people have an easier time eating wholesome foods. Despite what Sean says about a "rich and gluttonous society", fat is the "problem" of the poor more so than the rich. There was one episode where I got hopeful; Andrea is jealous of Cathy's affair with a black man, so she tells her she has it easy. "Try growing up in the ghetto and having to go to drive-thru for breakfast because your Mom used your grocery money on her morning fix." This was a step in the right direction, but then it was botched, because turns out Andrea is lying! She's the youngest of six children, her parents have a house almost as big as Cathy's, they're obviously loving, etc. So much for any social criticism re: food distribution in the ghetto.

Andrea is at least expanded (pun intended) beyond this point and becomes a friend of Cathy's, but it's hard for me to overlook this aspect. Every time she comes on, I start cringing: no more diet talk! This is a good show, and Gabourey Sibide is awesome, and I'm glad she's getting roles. I just think that with her talent, she deserves a role where her weight is NOT an issue. I find myself asking: why can't the protagonist be fat? Why can't the woman with cancer, the everywoman suburbian mother who's been nice too long, be fat and learn to be proud of it? You could take this who-cares attitude, this spiky type of humor, and bring in fat acceptance. Or you could have a female character for whom weight is not an issue. I'd like to see them battle that taboo.

EDIT: I'm adding this, because I just thought of his scene. Andrea goes jogging and sees Cathy's son Adam. "Stop staring at my titties, I'm trying to jog!" she says, completely confidently. Adam claims he's seen bigger. "Bet you haven't touched them though," says Andrea. "No, so?" says Adam. Andrea asks him to touch hers, and when he doesn't do it, she takes his hand and lays it on her boobs. Adam's face shows that he's turned on.

I did like this scene, because Andrea is being openly sexual and unphased by a boy, who might or might not like fat girls. She isn't diminishing her sexuality because of her weight. Of course, it's slightly ruined by the fact that she's motivated to work harder because of a cute black guy. Also, one might make the case that this scene presents fat (and black?) women as sexually intimidating. So we've got mixed signals here, but I liked Andrea's spunkiness. She doesn't go around assuming people couldn't find her attractive. More of this, please.