In "Wake Up, I'm Fat!" Manheim leaves no dis unanswered, from the blind dates who bailed when they got a look at her to the caterer on the set of the movie "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion" who, thinking she was a lowly extra (such a fat girl couldn't possibly be a featured actress!), berated her for taking too much food at the lunch buffet. And then there were the prop people who wanted to put a huge bowl of candy on her character's desk in the first episode of "The Practice": "I turned to the director and said, 'Let me tell you a little secret, fat girls don't keep candy on the desk, they keep it in the drawer. So if you want to have candy on someone's desk, put it on the skinny girl's desk, and I promise I'll give it a little glance every time I walk by.'"

Manheim seems to thrive on disagreement and confrontation -- that's what her character on "The Practice" is all about. The show's law firm is a close-knit yet combative pseudo-family, and Manheim's Ellenor Frutt is the classic competitive middle child. She's overshadowed for the affections of "dad" Bobby Donnell (Dylan McDermott) by the brilliant (and thin) "older sister" Lindsay Dole (Kelli Williams), and unable to bond with Bobby on the guy-pal level enjoyed by "older brother" Eugene Young (Steve Harris). So she bullies the younger siblings/associates and passionately fights for every underdog client that comes her way.

Although Ellenor has had one grand opportunity to stand up in court for the rights of fat people (this past season, she represented a fat woman suing a carnival barker for making degrading remarks to her), her character is not reduced to a number on a bathroom scale. She has the same career and relationship issues as the rest of the characters on "The Practice" -- although, Manheim writes in "Wake Up, I'm Fat!" she had to complain to David Kelley in order to get a bedroom scene for Ellenor and her boyfriend. Kelley immediately acquiesced and wrote two bedroom scenes for Manheim and actor J.C. McKenzie.

In her book, Manheim thanks Rosie O'Donnell for opening doors for large women in the entertainment industry. But the in-your-face book jacket photo of Manheim in a bathing suit, high heels, tiara and beauty pageant sash emblazoned "Miss Understood" is more reminiscent of vintage Roseanne, who gleefully appeared in body-revealing get-ups in her sitcom's later seasons. Like Roseanne, Manheim celebrates success by flaunting her luxurious flesh and playing with our rigidly programmed notions of beauty. And maybe Roseanne, Manheim, O'Donnell and other realistically proportioned stars like Queen Latifah, fashion model Emme, Kate Winslet and Janeane Garofalo have succeeded in changing perceptions about what is an "acceptable" weight for a woman -- there's a piquant irony in the way Manheim's recent affectionate press coverage ("Camryn the Great," read the May 8-14 TV Guide cover) coincides with the media's open season on Calista Flockhart.

On "Ally McBeal" (coincidentally, also a David E. Kelley show), the wispy Flockhart has always looked as if a mild summer breeze could knock her over. But then she appeared in a backless gown at an awards ceremony, her shoulder blades and ribs quite prominent, and the whispers of anorexia turned to roars. Supermarket tabloids ran headlines like "Shocking new photos of 'Ally McBeal' star!" She became the butt of lame jokes on late-night talk shows. People did a cover story on the rumors, in which Flockhart denied that she had an eating disorder and was asked (and agreed) to list everything she consumed in a typical day.

Flockhart is now apparently expected to eat on cue in interviews. On her current publicity tour for the movie "A Midsummer Night's Dream," for example, she's been interviewed over lunch by TV Guide (alas, she only ordered a cappuccino and a glass of orange juice) and the TV newsmagazine "20/20." The latter interview had a painful moment when a defiant Flockhart asked Connie Chung, "Do I look unhealthy?" and Chung replied, "You look very thin." At which Flockhart raised her chin and in her most snappish McBeal tone said, "I was thinking that you look very thin." Recently, Flockhart canceled a "Today" appearance rather than face more questions about her weight and did a cover interview for the May issue of George in which she vented at the media for its intrusive and "incredibly vulgar" treatment of her. "If you're thin and you're healthy, there are certain people in the world who are going to be pissed off about it," she told George. "It's discrimination. There's a double standard. In my life, a lot of people have said 'Uchhh! You're skinny!' As if they're just disgusted by it. But nobody would walk up to someone who's overweight and say, 'Ughhh! You're so fat!' It would never happen."

But Flockhart is wrong. As Manheim details in "Wake Up, I'm Fat!" people do walk up to fat people and tell them they're fat, all the time. Sometimes the comments are made out of cruelty and sometimes they're well-meaning -- the same things that motivate remarks about Flockhart's weight. It seems that you can be too thin, or too fat, and the screaming headlines and media "concern" and the prospect of Joan Rivers circling you like a buzzard on awards night can wear down even the most powerful of stars -- look at Oprah, dieting at the request of the editors of Vogue so she'd photograph better for a cover. Is Manheim's self-esteem made of tougher stuff?

Maybe. In "Wake Up, I'm Fat!" Manheim quotes a newspaper column by fitness guru Kathy Smith, which took issue with her "fat girls" Emmy speech. Under the headline, "If Fat Becomes Hip, We Are in Extreme Trouble," Smith wrote, "The desire to look good and be sexy is usually the most powerful motivator to keep extra weight off ... But if the motivation were eliminated by a growing acceptance of fat as desirable or even just ordinary, we'd lose vanity as a weapon in the health wars."

Manheim's response is straightforward -- and mouth-watering: "If I am presented with the choice of a rice cake or tiramisu, I know that Ms. Smith would so desperately want me to choose that rice cake ... But that's not living. That's merely existing. And I want to live in a world with tiramisu."
salon.com | May 17, 1999

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