Released only last year, My Mad Fat Diary has received large critical acclamation for its honest portrayal of adolescent turmoil.
The series recounts the life of a 16 ½ stone teenage girl, Rae (Sharon Rooney), who is released from a mental institution during the opening episode. The episodes track her progress from a suicidal state to one of tenuous optimism, and the key protagonist is loosely based on the writer herself, Rae Earl. Indeed, the themes which run throughout the series, namely related to self-esteem and social anxiety, reflect the writer’s own experiences when growing up.
My Mad Fat Diary incorporates other social-political issues such as abortion, immigration, and homosexuality, and bears light on the problems incited by an overly sexualised culture. There are also subtle implications of domestic or sexual abuse through the character Tix (Sophie Wright). This relationship in itself is heart-warming, if not a little over-acted, as is Rae’s professional relationship with her psycho-analyst Kester (Ian Hart) who, arguably, represents a symbolic substitute for Rae’s long-gone paternal figure (of course…what hard-hitting drama could resist a Freudian undertone?).
As for the filming itself, it varies from the classic reflection-in-the-frosted-pane-shot to more erratic ones which invoke Rae’s recurring spells of madness. The filming is also interwoven with doodles, all of which are depressingly reminiscent of Tracy Beaker’s Diary. This is not helped by such terms as ‘jaw-dropping’, ‘tyrannosauragorgeous’, and ‘gravity-defying breasts’. Any further, and we’d be in the ‘nunga-nunga’ realms of Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging. Its only saving grace for a post-adolescent age group, perhaps, is that it allows for a certain amount of 90s nostalgia, and serves to remind people that the answer to weight induced depression is not necessarily to lose weight.
For my part, I don’t quite fancy revisiting those god-awful memory archives of mine on a Sunday evening, as I’m sure most would agree. The blatant messages on weight and social issues, moreover, were a little too overt for my liking. For want of a better word, this series isn’t quite suited to a post-15 ‘age group’.
Polly Galis