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 Excerpt
from Wake Up, I'm Fat!
Foreword
by Rosie O'Donnell
Tucking.
There. I said it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I tucked
once. I'll never forget it. It was 1982, "An Evening at the
Improv" hosted by Cicely Tyson, and there, on national television,
you could see it. The unmistakable line of the top of my pants as
my shirt discreetly disappeared below. I had tucked. Not only had
I tucked, I garnished the entire experience with a belt. Shocking,
but true.
For most people, tucking is a nonevent. But for those of us who
tend to the round, it isn't so simple. To tuck or not to tuck? That
is the question. It comes loaded with issues of self-perception
and self-acceptance.
Camryn Manheim is a tucker--a proud and consistent tucker. To me,
her tucking is emblematic of her journey to be defined and, most
important, to define herself on her own terms. In her hands, tucking
is a celebration.
Wake Up, I'm Fat! is the work of a loud and independent spirit that
ultimately refused to be constrained by shame. The push-pull of
weight as an armor or albatross, the internal deals and monologues,
the yearning to be on the inside while eternally feeling on the
outside are explored with a courageous honesty. We see her struggle
to shed the layers of self-loathing and replace them with a sense
of her own value. We see her slowly accept herself. The story here
is of a heart, mind, and soul that learned they deserved to be held
in equal measure to their external package--no matter who or what
said otherwise. The achievement of that exquisite balance is exhilarating
and inspiring. In short, a great read.
I watched Camryn win her first Emmy Award and, along with millions
of women, cheered as she dedicated it to "all the fat girls"
out there. When she asked me to write the foreword to this book,
there was no way I could refuse. Camryn Manheim is a compassionate
maverick. She built the bandwagon and she is pulling it. I, for
one, am jumping on.
--Rosie O'Donnell
Author's
Note
For most of my life I was waiting for my life to begin. When I was
ten, all I wanted was to be thirteen . . . so I could finally be
a teenager. When I was thirteen, I was just waiting to be sixteen
. . . so I could drive. Then I was waiting to be eighteen . . .
so I could vote. Then I had to wait three more years to be twenty-one
. . . so I could drink. When I was twenty-one, I was waiting for
college to be over, so my life could finally start. And then there
was graduate school, and life certainly couldn't start there. And
then I was twenty-eight, thinking now my life can finally start.
But then another year passed and I was twenty-nine, waiting for
a great apartment, then I was thirty and waiting for a great job,
and then I was thirty-one and waiting for a great boyfriend so my
life could finally start.
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. All my life I was waiting for
my life to begin, as if my life were somehow way up ahead of me,
and one day I would just arrive there. I've wanted to write a book
for ten years now, but I was waiting. Waiting to be thin, so I could
write about what it was like to be fat and how I emerged the righteous
champion: the conqueror of my fat!
But a few years ago I finally realized something. My life was not
way up ahead of me. I was standing smack dab in the middle of it.
In fact, I was standing on the corner of "Life" and "You
better get going, Camryn," and the way I saw it, I had two
choices: I could either cross that street or just keep waiting for
a few more years of green lights to go by.
I no longer wanted to be a bystander, a spectator watching my life
unfold. I wanted to be the writer, director, and star of my story.
And so, in August 1993, I began work on my one-woman show, Wake
Up, I'm Fat! Despite that chronic, nagging feeling that I had nothing
particularly special to offer, I realized that there was one area
in which I was an expert. I knew every nook and cranny of what it
was like to grow up fat in America. And guess what, it's no fucking
picnic. To make matters worse, I was cursed with a singular passion
for acting. Not astronomy. Not veterinary medicine. Not haberdashery.
No, I was in love with acting, a profession that is all too often
based on how you look. It didn't matter what an agent or a casting
director actually said when they rejected me, all I heard was "You're
too fat."
This book, however, is not the whiny lamentation of a girl who was
never asked to dance (well, maybe occasionally whiny). It is a celebration
of ass-kicking. It is my enthusiastic rejection of the beauty myth
and a call to arms in the fight for self-acceptance. This is my
journey, from victim to victor.
The following anecdotes are true. I think. Over the years, after-dinner
stories tend to bend and twist and become more colorful and dazzling
than they originally may have been. A flourish here, a double entendre
there, a wee embellishment for emphasis. Sometimes the truth is
drab, redundant, and ludicrous and needs a little decoration or
refinement. This has been my greatest challenge: to be precise without
boring you to tears, to be honest without making enemies, and to
be candid without getting sued. Wish me luck.
Copyright© 1999 by Big Whoop, Inc.
--From Wake Up, I'm Fat!, by Camryn Manheim, Rosie O'Donnell. ©
May 11, 1999 , Broadway Books used by permission.
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