Is this ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ for 2018?
‘Dietland’ is the latest TV show to channel women’s anger about sexism and abuse. Jane Mulkerrins reports
Stories about women are proliferating on television. In the past two years, female-driven projects have led the way, and this swing has been given extra momentum by Harvey Weinstein and the rise of the #Metoo movement. The Handmaid’s Tale, currently in its second series, has come to represent the increasing rage felt towards society’s misogyny. And now a new show – albeit a very different one – is tapping into the same wellspring.
Dietland, which began yesterday on Amazon Prime, tells the tale of Plum Kettle, a 20st woman awaiting gastric band surgery who replies to readers’ letters on a glossy teen magazine (the editor of which is played by a formidable Julianna Margulies). Meanwhile, a vigilante group called Jennifer is kidnapping and torturing men who have sexually abused and objectified women, throwing them off motorway bridges and out of planes.
The latter part of that storyline sounds fantastical but Joy Nash, the 37-yearold who plays Plum, insists the series has a serious point to make. “People are saying, ‘Gosh, men are so nervous now. They are questioning everything, and asking what they are allowed to do or say.’ Well, I have been constantly questioning myself every day of my life. ‘Is my neckline too low? Is it too late at night for me to walk around the block?’ Everything has been a question. So welcome to my world, men.”
Even two years ago, Dietland would have struggled to get commissioned. But shows that used to be branded “women’s interest” dramas are now not only mainstream, but agendasetting and award-winning. At last autumn’s Emmys and this January’s Golden Globes, the biggest winners were The Handmaid’s Tale and Big Little Lies, the hit drama starring Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Shailene Woodley about, among other things, motherhood and domestic abuse.
“In the time since I created Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce [about a woman in her forties navigating single life in LA, post-divorce], things have changed exponentially,” says Dietland’s showrunner Marti Noxon. “I would pitch it as an idea, and the women in the room would be, like, ‘Mhmm’ [she makes a noise of recognition], and the men would be, like, ‘I would be nervous to have my wife watch this’. That was not that long ago”. She laughs. “Now, we are murdering men and throwing them out of planes.”
Dietland is also about Plum’s journey to “fat acceptance”. “I am prepared for people to come at us, accusing us of promoting an unhealthy lifestyle,” says
A vigilante group kidnaps and tortures men who have sexually abused and objectified women
Noxon. “But women’s bodies are such public property. And when you are fat or, as was the case when I was way too thin [Noxon spent years battling serious anorexia], people will put their hands on you, and give you advice. It is as if you are walking around with a big ‘Fix Me’ sign.”
Indeed, we see Plum miserably enduring meetings at Waist Watchers, during which she is advised to curb “bad behaviour” such as eating. “I really want to say, ‘Get your hands off my body, get your hands off Joy’s body’,” says Noxon.
Nash herself has plenty of experience of this. A newcomer, with only five minutes’ TV experience, she remembers one of her first acting teachers telling her to consider “audiobook narration”.
“And what I took that to mean was, ‘You’re very talented, but I don’t want to look at you’,” says Nash.
Consequently, her career thus far has been limited to said audiobooks and small character roles. Now, thanks to Dietland, she has been named by The Hollywood Reporter as one of 10 breakthrough stars of 2018.
Unlike Plum, Nash came to “fat acceptance” almost 20 years ago. “I read [activist] Marilyn Wann’s book, Fat!so? when I was 18, and it blew me away.
“I was suddenly really angry thinking about the fact that nobody had ever suggested that you might be OK as you are. The idea was that you have got to get ‘fixed’, or otherwise nothing good is ever going to happen to you.”
Talking to both Nash and Noxon on this subject does feel revelatory, not least because both use the word “fat” freely and unashamedly.
“That is something I learnt from the fat acceptance movement – to just call it what it is,” says Noxon. “Every once in a while, I will stumble over it, and be like, ‘Am I really allowed to say that?’ But Joy really gets me comfortable with it – she will say, ‘It’s fine, you can say it, I am fat’.”
“If people are constantly using euphemisms to describe me, then it’s clear they think that there’s something wrong with me,” adds Nash. “I use the word fat – and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being fat.”
Dietland is available now on Amazon Prime Video