I know I'm not the only one who thought it was comical when TV sitcoms would attempt to camouflage the pregnancies of their leading ladies. Clair Huxtable almost always had grocery bags in her hands or was sitting at a desk when Phylicia Rashad was pregnant. But she was lucky because her belly was about the only thing that looked pregnant about her.
Not so for Daphne Moon. When Jane Leeves was with child on "Frasier," she showed it everywhere. But since pregnancy didn't fit into the plot line, the writers came up with some over-the-top stress-related weight gain. It was quite something to behold -- how many pounds this dainty Brit could pack on in a season.
Carrie Heffernan took a similar route. "King of Queens" wouldn't be "King of Queens" with a baby in the mix, so Leah Remini's condition also was not addressed on the show. And it was like watching a balloon inflate. Except this time the writers were smart enough to not even address the unaccounted-for weight gain. And why should they? As if people in the real world don't bulk up and slim down without cause? Geez, Hollywood, cut a girl some slack.
Alas, I am learning quickly that when it comes to pregnancy, I'm no Clair Huxtable. There will be no sticking me behind a counter and calling it good. I am doomed to the same pregnancy fate as Carrie and Daphne. Of course my frame wasn't as petite as theirs to begin with, but you get the idea. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will be roughly the size of a house for the duration. (When I told my almost 5-year-old nephew this, he laughed, and reminded me that's impossible -- "but people can be as big as dog houses." How true.)
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3 comments:
I have actually contemplated this very subject. Mainly, the strange need we have as humans to keep reality separate from fiction. Why can't a show just completely ignore when a female lead has a bun in the oven, but her character doesn't? When we watch a tv show, we know the characters are not real people. When I watched Friends, surely I knew on some level that Monica was really Courtney Cox and that she was married to David Arquette. But I only saw her as Monica. So when she started to show (albeit, ever so slightly), I was annoyed. I don't want to think about Monica being pregnant with another man's baby!
What's that about? We humans are a strange species.
I need some proof of this belly, Lois!
Ditto on the proof, yo.
Tiner, what the heck are you talking about? Why can't I follow it?
Hilarious post Lois.
I'm saying we should be more like Shakespeare days, and accept that any actor can play any character, because it's acting (and no, I'm not advocating eliminating women from the acting profession). We should only focus on the character, not the actor. Then there wouldn't have to be absurd stress-related weight gain plotlines, or silly grocery bags hiding baby bumps. But we don't, we focus on the actor. Maybe this is because most things are poorly-written, and we know too much about stars nowadays, so we can't separate the actor from the character.
I probably just confused you more.
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