Dark comedy ‘Dietland’ seems timely in #MeToo times
If there’s any TV show this summer that seems to have both anticipated and fed off the #MeToo movement, it’s “Dietland.”
The AMC dark comedy that debuted this week features as one of its story lines a mysterious group of vigilante women who murder sexual predators and drop their bodies from rooftops and freeway overpasses.
Show creator Marti Noxon said the 10-episode first season was still being shot when sexual misconduct allegations against high-profile men began making headlines. Her team rewrote parts of the show to reflect the rising societal fury.
“Those of us who have been activists and mindful about what’s happening in the culture weren’t shocked,” Noxon said. “But the
fact that it took on such momentum definitely was something that we needed to address in the show and we have.”
“Dietland” is a hard-to-categorize show, an often surreal stew that includes a ripped-fromthe-headlines feel, elements of rom-com, quirky animated interludes, a takedown of the world of beauty, absurd exaggerations and deep humanity for its lead character, lonely writer Plum Kettle.
Kettle, played with soulful pathos by Joy Nash, is a 300-pound woman - “fat,” Plum tells us in the first episode, “I’m allowed to say it” - who answers letters to the editor at Daisy Chain, a glossy fashion magazine led by a self-involved editor played by Julianna
Margulies.
Kettle is preparing for weightloss surgery when she is recruited by a feminist collective dedicated to overturning the beauty-industrial complex. Meanwhile, another shadowy group has taken matters into its own hands for some bloody revenge. Passive at the beginning, Kettle grows more assertive.
“She thinks her life is going to start at this far-off date when she’s thin. So she’s kept herself from experiencing life at all, because what’s the point? She’s not thin yet,” said Nash.
“And I think that once she meets the people that she does and gives herself the freedom and license to find out who she is, she tries on a lot of different personalities and costumes.”
The series is based on the novel by Sarai Walker. Noxon said she read it fearing it would end up like so much Chick Lit, with Kettle finding the man of her dreams and then learning to love herself. “That kept not happening. It’s such a devious book in that it just keeps pulling further and further into this story of revolution,” Noxon said.