Chubby Legal Beagle, Meet Your Inner Skinny Siren

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: July 9, 2009

Someone heard the old line about a thin woman trapped in a fat woman’s body and took it literally. In “Drop Dead Diva,” a Lifetime series that begins on Sunday, an aspiring model and airhead named Deb (Brooke D’Orsay) dies in a car crash and is transported — through a bungled act of divine intervention — to the body of a recently deceased lawyer, Jane (Brooke Elliott), who is smart, fat and frumpy.

The trading-places formula is put to use here in a weight-conscious comedy, a “Freaky Friday” mind-body exchange that measures the eternal contest between brains and beauty by the pound.

Deb, trapped in a Lane Bryant physique, doesn’t lose her own shallow, bubbly personality. When Deb awakens in a hospital bed and discovers that her once-taut stomach is now a pillowy protrusion of flab, she shrieks at her guardian angel, “You sent me to hell?” But she also assumes Jane’s high-powered brain and legal expertise. Deb discovers that while she now craves doughnuts and cheese dip, her mind also savors a complicated and compelling legal case. Basically she thinks like Elle in “Legally Blonde,” only she looks like Camryn Manheim on “The Practice.”

And while the presumption that a woman can be either brainy or beautiful, or in this case, good or thin, but not both, is a bit primitive, the series has humor and charm beneath its facile message, in large part (no disrespect intended) to a subtle, winning performance by Ms. Elliott.

It’s gotten harder than ever to find an imperfect heroine in a series who is actually flawed. More than ever these days, television suffers from casting dysmorphia; it repeatedly takes a slovenly, gluttonous, character and casts an exquisitely groomed, Pilates-toned actress in the part.

One of the running jokes of both “30 Rock” and “The New Adventures of Old Christine” is that the characters played by Tina Fey and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are disarmingly sloppy, out of shape and addicted to junk food — and wine, in the case of Ms. Louis-Dreyfus. It’s a strain when both actresses are so petite, pretty and fit.

Debra Messing may have started the trompe l’oeil trend in “Will & Grace,” since she too was a whippet-thin actress playing a slovenly overeater. But the hypocrisy grows ever more insulting — a cognitive diss. Even TNT, which takes pride in badly behaved heroines — a slatternly sot on “Saving Grace,” a sweetsaholic on “The Closer” — assigns those roles to improbably slender, well-preserved actresses like Holly Hunter and Kyra Sedgwick.

And when a comedy does feature a female lead who is not conventionally pretty, that becomes the raison d’être of the series, as in “Ugly Betty.”

Network executives have concluded, perhaps not unreasonably, that audiences don’t really want television characters that are too true to life. “Roseanne” was a huge hit and lasted nine years, but it didn’t spark a stampede for plus-size actresses. Neither did “Less Than Perfect,” which starred a larger-than-usual actress, Sara Rue, and a venti-size sidekick, Sherri Shepherd. Ms. Manheim won Emmys on “The Practice” and “The Ghost Whisperer,” without inspiring many imitators.

Reality shows, on the other hand, feast on fat people. “The Biggest Loser” proved there was an appetite for weight-loss competitions, and now imitations abound. Oxygen has the latest: “Dance Your Ass Off,” in which chubby contestants shed weight by dancing. (Their scores are based on both their footwork and how many pounds they’ve lost.) This month Fox will present a “Bachelor”-like dating reality show for ordinary, heavyset people called “More to Love”; there is no weight loss requirement to winning a rose.

About two-thirds of Americans are overweight, many of them dangerously so. But television reflects a funhouse mirror image of society; sitcoms and dramas hold out impossibly narrow standards of beauty, while reality shows seek out and exploit the more grotesque displays of obesity.

“Drop Dead Diva” owes a lot to “Legally Blonde.” Deb, like Elle, even has a signature strut, which she calls the “booty bounce” (“shoulders back, show the rack”) and demonstrates to buck up discouraged female friends. But Ms. Elliott has a harder task than Reese Witherspoon: She has to merge two antithetical personalities without blurring the distinctions. Jane was a smarter, better person than Deb, but she was also insecure and depressed. Deb, once she settles into her legal briefs and sensible shoes, brings a dash of flirty confidence and “Born Yesterday” ingenuity to her caseload.

In the most implausible of comic mixups Ms. Elliott is convincing, and even affecting, at every turn.

Lifetime is bold to cast an actress who is hefty, without the aid of a fat suit like Gwyneth Paltrow in “Shallow Hal,” and plays a woman who is not likely to slim down magically just in time to find Mr. Right. That may be one reason so many better-known television stars signed on for small parts or walk-on appearances, from Margaret Cho, who plays Jane’s assistant, to guest stars like Rosie O’Donnell, Tim Gunn and Elliot Gould.

“Drop Dead Diva” isn’t a public-service message, it’s a lighthearted romantic comedy on Lifetime. Yet for all the farce it is grounded in reality.

Head diva Brooke Elliott is ‘Drop Dead’ terrific

By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

There are shows and stars that catch you by total happy surprise.

Even with the participation of acclaimed Hollywood producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, there wasn’t much reason to expect a lot from Lifetime’s new comic drama, Drop Dead Diva. Diva’s creator, Josh Berman, is best known for two quickly dismissed crime-show flops, Vanished and Killer Instinct. And the head diva, Brooke Elliott, a young woman with little more on her credits than a few theater and TV roles, is hardly known.

That’s about to change. Berman’s script, despite a slight lean toward preachy empowerment, is surprisingly engaging. And Elliott is a find, a full-blown instant star and delight who makes you wonder where she has been hiding herself.

Of course, that’s fitting, because Elliott is playing the kind of woman we tend to overlook: a bright fat girl with a pretty face but no fashion sense or self-confidence. Jane Bingum may be the best lawyer at her small firm, but the only person who pays her any mind is her loyal assistant — played in a nice comic turn by Margaret Cho.

Diva being a fantasy, Jane’s life changes when she dies and her body is occupied by the also recently dead Deb (Brooke D’Orsay), a model with looks and confidence to spare, but no intellect. Now Deb has Jane’s brain and body, but her own personality and memories.

That’s a fairly standard fantasy plot, but what Diva adds to the mix is our obsession with body image and the way we allow how we look to define who we are. Deb is shallow because she has never been expected to be anything else. Jane is a wallflower because she’s used to people ignoring her.

Clearly, these two could teach each other a few lessons. And one of the many wonderful things about Elliott’s performance is that they are two people. Her transitions — like scrunching up her eyes when “Jane” is thinking, then opening them in wide, thrilled shock when “Deb” realizes that “Jane” has had a thought — are clear without seeming forced. There’s pain and pleasure in the situation for both women, and Elliott makes each emotion ring true.

Some of the lessons are laid on a bit thick. But the cast, including April Bowlby as Deb’s best friend, Ben Feldman as her guardian angel, and Jackson Hurst as her boyfriend, sells them with a minimum of fuss and a light touch.

A show to die for? No, not quite. But Diva is a very good reason to turn to Lifetime on a summer Sunday night, and it has been some time since there was one of those.

And that really is the nicest surprise of all.