Killer looks: how Dietland confronts the violence of beauty culture

The Beta Switch Review

June 10, 2018
By: Jean-Marc Vercruysse

Based on the hit book by Sarai Walker, the brand-new series takes on the severe expectations put on females with rage, vengeance and eventually murder

I n among the saddest minutes of the brand-new black funny series Dietland, the program’s heroine, Plum Kettle, adoringly embellishes a cake and bakes. She sings passionately, totally immersed in her work, which is plainly a real labor of love. She dabs a bit of icing on her finger and takes a small taste when she ends up the last touches. For a really quick minute, she looks blissfully pleased and material, up until she recognizes that she is not permitted even such little extravagances inning accordance with the extremely limiting diet plan she is on in preparation for getting weight reduction surgical treatment. An appearance of scary appears on her face and she right away goes to the sink to wash her mouth out.

Scenes like this one show the depths with which Plum has actually been advised that she does not should have happiness. Throughout the series, Dietland questions how our present charm culture’s focus on “excellence” motivates self-harm. This is seen from the opening credits where an animation Plum, looking dejected and unfortunate, begins a journey up a mountain of confectionary deals with. As she goes up the mountain, she drops weight and has a remodeling with a red gown, catching the attention of numerous male admirers, however she keeps climbing up and climbing up getting skinnier and skinnier, till ultimately a skeleton of herself succeeds and passes away.

Dietland’s visual is biting and at the same time candy-colored, which might, in the beginning look, appear disconcerting, however it’s likewise the manner in which charm items are offered to ladies: one part shiny shine, 2 parts you much better usage this thing, otherwise. Based upon the 2015 book by Sarai Walker and brought to life onscreen by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Unreal’s Marti Noxon, the series skewers the objective of womanly excellence by showing not just that it is basically unattainable, however likewise that the pursuit itself is downright terrible. In the opening scene of the very first episode, for instance, when Plum explains her task as a ghostwriter for a guidance column called Dear Kitty, we hear the voices of women asking concerns about whether required sex is ever that bad, if it’s possible to repair their skin, their hair and their bodies, and exactly what it implies that they want to cut themselves. All the while, we see closeup pictures of females poking, prodding, weighing, gagging and otherwise taming their bodies into submission utilizing Spanx, hair straighteners and makeup. “I’m all set to eliminate myself or perhaps someone else,” one letter author states, as the scene moves to a picture of a guy with his hands connected and mouth taped shut, a weapon to his temple.

Dietland does not simply argue that charm culture is violent, however likewise asks the upsetting concern of whether the violence that females invest causing on themselves is really a coy screen of anger, not at ourselves, however a deeply misogynistic culture. During the very first 3 episodes, Plum discovers herself at different type of support system, each which proclaims individual empowerment of different kinds, typically through severe techniques. The weight reduction programs stress a stringent calorie programs that appears hazardous, the secret ladies’s groups preach secrecy as well as advise a rather susceptible Plum to quit taking her antidepressants (called “Y”) in order to stop feeling numb. And we have continuous suggestions that there is this unusual “feminist” group called Jennifer that is playing around and eliminating male predators, leaving bodies all over the streets of New York.

In numerous methods, Dietland’s expedition of womanhood feels extremely fresh. In specific, Joy Nash does a terrific task playing Plum as equivalent parts shy and driven. We comprehend who Plum is not just through her character’s revealed ideas, however likewise through her subtle body movement, her way of speaking, and the method which she holds her body in a different way in personal and public areas. It is Plum’s desire to be part of a world that she feels as though she is constantly on the borders of due to her size that is eventually the heart of Dietland.

Other characters are less expanded, a minimum of at this point. We generally see them through their interest in and interactions with Plum, so it’s often tough to see them as completely established characters in their own. In a program that markets itself about ladies’s problems, I typically wished to see more interiority in its expedition of how various female characters populate this image-obsessed world. I likewise wished to comprehend their inspirations beyond their issues about how they looked. I understand, I understand: the point of the series is that we reside in a culture where ladies are frequently minimized to their bodies and I definitely do not indicate to recommend that Dietland should not concentrate on the terrible impacts of appeal culture. By the exact same token, I likewise hope the series ultimately enables its female characters to use up area in all sorts of intriguing manner ins which surpass the experience of female injury. In the very first couple of episodes a minimum of, ladies are mad or typically unfortunate, however very little else, and problems surrounding psychological health in specific are typically steamrolled in the interest of keeping our concentrate on the manner ins which appeal culture is harmful.

These problems are definitely prompt in a culture that appears as though it is lastly all set to face female rage, which’s how the program will definitely be marketed. At the very same time, it’s difficult to state that Dietland is actually about awareness about any of these concerns. Who does not understand that ladies are held to difficult, uncomfortable charm requirements that affect us from birth to death? That message is continuous, and the message that we need to in some way have the ability to simply amazingly increase above this harmful culture is simply as common. There are consistent advertising campaign informing us to like ourselves simply as we are, all the while hawking us brand-new items.

Dietland is most subversive in its persistence that not succumbing to these messages is in fact efficient instead of useless. In my preferred scene up until now, Julia, the head of an underground feminist company that wishes to dismantle this culture, informs Plum that the “discontentment commercial complex” is keeping females connected to distress, constantly having to purchase the next finest thing to feel great about themselves. “It’s not a conspiracy,” Plum argues with her, “it’s humanity. Individuals like quite things.” Julia looks surprised. “You’re not a thing,” she states strongly. “You are a lady.”