From 2013 to 2015, every time we heard the iconic opening of The Charlatans’ ‘One to Another’, we couldn’t help but associate it with E4’s. My Crazy Fat Diary. Filled with ’90s nostalgia, the angsty tones of Blur, Oasis, and The Stone Roses, to name just a few, provided the perfect soundtrack for this teen coming-of-age drama. My Crazy Fat Diary follows 16-year-old Rachel ‘Rae’ Earl and her struggles with her mental health, weight, body image, relationships, friendships, sexuality, and general attempts to grope through life. Other TV shows and movies dealing with these topics include girl, interrupted, 13 reasons why, Advantages of being an outcast, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest and many more. Of these examples, some are loved, some are hated, some are good at it, and some are not. However, they all focus on the ‘fall’ into mental illness, the descent into depression and institutionalisation. Where these examples document the downward spiral, My Crazy Fat Diary he challenges them by telling us about how to get back up.
From her very first episode, we see Rae coming out of institutionalization and trying to get back to a “normal” life. Set in Stanford, Lincolnshire, the series feels small-scale and intimate. The main locations are the therapist’s office, the local pub, the school, the chippy and Rae’s house, most places familiar to those of us who grew up in a small British town in our youth. The aesthetic and art style of the show continues this intimacy: the visuals take on the style of drawings and doodles, we are actually allowed full access to Rae’s diary, her inner thoughts and feelings.
As mentioned, the show is about adjusting to the world, after you’ve already felt ‘broken’. We’re seeing Rae trying to control and navigate her mental illness, in addition to all the other struggles of adolescence. We see her reconnect with old friends and make new ones, all with her own issues and dramas. Ultimately, we sympathize with Rae, even if she gives us a hard time most of the time. However, the writing of the show is careful to always maintain the fact that we are all human. Rae’s illness is not used as an excuse or a “get out of jail free card” for bad behavior, but as motivation and a reason to get better. There are moments of conflict, particularly with her mother, but they are always followed by a genuine and sincere apology. Also, her mental illness never defines her, as she comes to discover.
There is the overwhelming fear of her time in the institution and, by proxy, that her problems will be discovered and that her friends will label her a “weirdo”. Yet she finds that doesn’t detract from what they love about her: her impeccable taste in music, her wry sense of humor, her compassionate loyalty to those she cares about, her ability to drink a pint in seconds. It is these things that form the fabric of her personality, the fact that she has a mental illness often overshadows this in his mind, but never in the mind of the viewer.
Of course, any show about mental health deals with difficult topics. My Crazy Fat Diary deals with topics such as binge eating, self-harm and suicidal ideation. However, the show is always careful to strike a balance between showing the audience openly and hinting at it: it does a masterful job of making these themes forceful, without depicting them in a potentially raunchy or triggering way. The sound design that goes into these particular moments is immaculate. It is not romanticized or exaggerated. In our eyes, these traumatic moments are triggered by something mildly embarrassing. But the show is always true to Rae’s perspective, we empathize and understand that Rae finds these moments paralyzing and making the world implode.
The themes of the series are never melodramatic. The writing really does itself a lot of favors: she never tries too hard to be deep or relatable, Rae swears, she’s angry, she’s witty, she is a teenager, not just a weak and vague representation of one. Also, from a female perspective, it touches on issues that are relevant today: plus-size women struggling with their physical appearance and sexual attractiveness, the objectification of women, platonic friendships between men and women, women’s openness, women and femininity. These are all issues that women struggled with in the 1990s and are still with today.
Yes, the show does have a satisfying ending, but it’s not really an “ending” at all. Rae’s life will continue and she will continue to have ups and downs as a normal teenager. However, she now has the lessons and the tools to better manage her emotions and dispositions. What That’s what mental health is all about: it’s not about eradicating or “curing” emotions, it’s about learning to deal with them in a way that works for us. That is the central message that the program leaves us and presents us from the beginning. Rae still has her problems, but she can face them, she’s ready to face the world as an adult.
The fundamental parts of his personality have not changed, but he has matured. She still loves her music, she still has her wit, but she is more serene and aware of other people’s problems as well as her own. It’s a bittersweet conclusion, but one that maintains the realism of the show. Plus, Rae can focus on the good times and memories and cleanse herself of the bad ones. My Crazy Fat Diary is truly some of the best of British television, reminding us that we don’t always have to keep our cool, but we can always carry on.
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