It’s A Mad, Fat World

My Mad Fat Diary Yr 2

WORDS Ciara Forristal

“I don’t think I could do this if I wasn’t able to separate my teenage self from me now… So I can kind of let her go out there and do her own thing.” For many people, looking back on their adolescence can be excruciatingly painful, filled with embarrassment and angst, and intermingled with nostalgia and new forays into the adult world. For writer Rae Earl, her teenage self occupies the spotlight in the form of the central protagonist in the television series My Mad Fat Diary, based upon Earl’s personal diaries published in 2007 and 2014. The television series written by Tom Bidwell is a fictionalised account of Earl’s diaries and even though the fictional Rae undertakes and undergoes different experiences than the real Rae, Earl stated, “the fictional Rae does things that I haven’t done but she never does anything I wouldn’t have considered doing or wouldn’t have done in the parallel universe… She never strays from anything that I wouldn’t have considered doing and I think that’s very very important.”

The series includes typical teenage angst and drama, to say the least, in the increasingly changing dynamics within her circle of friends and her sexual trepidations. However, these tribulations are coupled with Earl’s struggle to gain a sense of normalcy having been released from a psychiatric ward at the tender age of sixteen. The diaries and series chart Earl’s continuous and tortuous battle with extreme anxiety, self-harm and obsessive-compulsive disorder, which Earl believed “reflects the reality of where I was at the time”.

Like most diaries, it is their confessional nature that resonates with audiences, providing a glimpse into the mindset and emotions of the individual in question and their relationship with the world at a particular moment in time. In Earl’s published diaries, it is noticeable that she feared a breach of privacy of her inner most thoughts. She provides food-related pseudonyms (Haddock, Battered Sausage) for the main players in her social sphere which highlights Earl’s struggle and her reliance on food as a source of comfort in difficult situations. Considering the cautious nature Earl displayed in her teens, was she at all apprehensive about the reaction of these people when her diaries were published? “I didn’t want to cause anybody any distress, so there’s a huge editing process and moral process involved in picking what goes in, and there’s some great stories I’ve left out.” The stories that are included, however, are extremely self-aware and painfully honest accounts of Earl’s perception of herself at a time when her relationship and food was crucially arresting her development and sense of self-worth. It is her candidness which makes these diaries a refreshing and memorable read, and as Earl stated, “a lot of people would have experienced the same thing, or been in the same position then… They would probably get a lot from it”.

“In a diary you can just slam it down, it’s for you, it’s a personal thing, nobody is going to see it… You can be totally honest and not always nice and not always palatable.”

Tom Bidwell’s television adaptation of Earl’s diaries retains the focus on Earl coming to terms with the stigma and perception of mental health in the adolescent realm where insecurity and difference are mercilessly exploited. Earl believes that the treatment of mental health and the stigma surrounding it still exists and she mentions her horror at a recent report that adolescents still get put in adult psychiatric wards like she herself experienced in the 80s. The importance of family and friends is something Earl could not emphasise strongly enough, especially the support of her mother, with whom Earl has a tumultuous relationship, “You need the support of your family and friends at a time like that, it’s vital.” Earl credited Sharon Rooney who plays teenage Rae and Claire Rushbrook who plays her mother, for bringing this complex and nuanced relationship to the screen in such a realistic manner, “I think the way they got that love in that relationship, the antipathy, that love, it’s very hard to get the balance but they get it spot.”

The show is set in 1996 at the height of Cool Britannia instead of the 80s in which Earl grew up. Earl believed that the show could be set in any era due to the universality of the issues at play, however the advent of the internet and mobile phones would inevitably alter the problems with which individuals like Earl would have to contend. The element of an audience is something which Earl believes affects one’s personal writings, and she dispels notions that blogs have replaced or will replace the diary as a confessional outlet. “In a diary you can just slam it down, it’s for you, it’s a personal thing, nobody is going to see it… You can be totally honest and not always nice and not always palatable.”

Moreover, particularly in the second series, a key message is the importance of self-love and confidence and Earl stated that this is something that she and Bidwell believe is extremely vital, particularly when romantic relationships are involved. “I think you’ve got to sort yourself out before you think about getting into a relationship. You can’t expect someone else to fix you, no matter how much they love you, they can’t, you have to fix yourself.” This is particularly evident in the constant bombardment Rae faces on a daily basis in the form of media campaigns such as the “Hello Boys” Wonderbra campaign which increases Rae’s already negative impression about her weight and bodily perception. Earl recounted seeing these ads in her youth and thinking “if I looked like that my life would be perfect and, of course, you know, many of these models, their lives are everything but perfect but we never get to see that, we just get to see what the advertisers want us to see.” It is Rae’s reaction to these images and their ability to release her deeper insecurities which poignantly highlight the deep-seated neuroses present with teenage girls, and the impact that such propagated perceptions can have on our mental health.

Earl herself consulted fully with Bidwell on the direction and writing of the show and praised Bidwell for understanding the emotions, mentality and essence of Rae in this formative period of her life. The series, Earl believes, is carried on the great acting talent of Sharon Rooney who plays fictional Rae, and Earl expressed no surprise that Rooney had been bestowed the honour of being named a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit. This accolade is even more impressive considering that Earl and Rooney had never met prior to the show being filmed, and Rooney was able to brilliantly and uncannily capture the mannerisms of Earl.

Although Earl stopped writing diaries in 1991 and has only recently recommenced, she believes that these diaries will be of no interest to the public as they chart the growth of her son Harry and “who wants to read that except his family and his mum?” However, following the publication of her latest diary installment, My Madder Fatter Diaries and the second series of My Mad Fat Diary, Earl’s teenage self will continue to remain a comforting and refreshing presence to countless individuals, providing a voice to those whose experiences have yet to be told in such an honest, hilarious and poignant manner.

My Mad Fat Diary can be seen on Mondays on E4 at 10 pm.

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