Fresh Air - Reflections on Being Fat in a Thin World

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

As a comedy writer for shows like The Late Late Show with James Corden, Ian Karmel spent most of his life making fun of his weight, starting at a very young age. His new memoir is called T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories of Being Fat in a World of Thin People. It chronicles how he used comedy to cope growing up, and now that he's lost hundreds of pounds, what he's discovered about himself and society. Also, David Bianculli reviews season three of The Bear.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Ian Carmel, stand-up comedian and former co-head writer of The Late Late Show with James Corden. He's written a new book about his life as part of the T-Shirt Swim Club. The criteria for this club? Being a fat person in a skinny world. Growing up in Oregon, Ian describes being a chubby kid in elementary school, weighing 300 pounds by middle school and weighing over 420 pounds by the time he was 30. For years, much of Ian's stand-up comedy centered around his body size. Here's a clip from the 2018 Netflix special, The Comedy Lineup. I matched with a woman on Tinder and we were messaging back and forth. It was very flirty and fun. I was excited about it.

And then she sent me the following message. She said, you're cute. You're like a chubby Jack Black. Jack Black is a fat person. She told me I was cute like the chubbier version of an already fat person. And the worst part is she's 100% right. I do look like a fatter Jack Black. That's what I look like. Like if you saw me on the cover of Us Weekly, you'd be like,

Ah, Jack, get it together, man. Come on. That was our guest today, Ian Carmel, performing in Netflix's The Comedy Lineup. Since then, Ian has lost over 200 pounds. But being a smaller body size is a new identity he's still trying to get used to, because so much of who he was is tied to his experiences as a fat guy. The humiliating experience as a kid navigating gym classes, airplane seats, and a relentless barrage of fat jokes from friends and strangers and pop culture, all of which fueled his comedy. Ian wrote this new memoir along with his sister, Aliza Carmel, who also cycled through fat diets, eventually pursuing a master's in nutrition and a doctorate in psychology to change the narrative on fatness.

Ian has worked as a writer on Chelsea Lately, The Grammys, The Tonys, and Who is America with Sacha Baron Cohen. And Ian Carmel, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to be here. Okay, so you're a slimmer man now. Yeah. On the other side, some would say, of obesity. What prompted you and your sister to write this book now? You know, you say on the other side of obesity, and for me, it's a constantly evolving relationship with obesity.

I just got back from like a two and a half week road trip, right? And I had a very active relationship with obesity on that road trip. What do you mean? You know, it's hard to eat healthy on the road. And I feel, though I have lost all that weight, I definitely felt, you know, demon is too strong of a word for it. But I definitely felt like old habits creeping back in. 15, 20 pounds later, you're like, oh, this is a lifelong relationship. Right.

And, you know, that was honestly part of what inspired my little sister and I to start thinking about this book and having these conversations and start writing that book. Is because once we lost, you know, a bunch of weight and went through that process as well, we were kind of standing on the other side of it looking back. And we realized we'd never had these conversations about it with each other. We'd never talked about the experiences of growing up fat. I think it's so interesting and also really great that you all had each other to be able to talk about this stuff because most people, their relationship with their bodies, it's a singular thing. So, so singular. And even amongst my sister and I, you know, we both had such unique experiences. Certainly the differences for a man and a woman going through being fat in America are very different and the pressures are very different.

And even the ways we dealt with it were different, which was interesting because, you know, we were both these fat kids. We were fat adults. And, you know, she got a doctorate in psychology. She's like does nutrition counseling. She has devoted her life to this pursuit. And you're a comedian. The opposite of that. The opposite of that. Do you think both of you growing up as fat kids was the reason for what you do? Without a doubt. Without a doubt. I mean, definitely you see a straight line with my sister with what she's doing. You know, she went through that as a kid and now she does nutrition counseling with kids, teenagers, adults, and wants to help them through it. Help them through

all the pitfalls that still currently exist for fat people in America. You know, she will, for example, prep people on going to the doctor. You know, fat people, it's very scary. Which we're going to talk about. We'll talk about that. Yeah. But so she will, she will sit and prep them, you know, and like do sort of a pre-doctor's appointment with them. So she definitely was affected by that. And for me, you know, the first place I learned to be funny was like on the schoolyard trying to diffuse this weird tension around my body, both from active bullying of people like making fun of me, making jokes about me, and also this vague sense that like there was something wrong with me, that I held all of my insecurities on the outside of my body.

Those thoughts happened at the exact same time. that like there was something wrong with me, that I held all of my insecurities on the outside of my body, right? Those thoughts happened at the exact same time. You learned you were fat and then you also learned that it was bad. That's how you find out? Because when you're a kid, you know, there's just like vaguely different shapes of kids, right? You know, there's like kind of a little chubbier kid,

skinnier kid, none of it really matters. And then you find out that you're fat and that it's bad when somebody makes fun of you for being fat. You find out those two things at the exact same time. And that was that's terrifying because you're like, oh, I'm that. Oh, and it's bad. OK, let me work on trying to distract people from that or diffuse the tension.

And when you're a little fat kid, you're learning that you're going to get made fun of. And for me, I was like, well, if that's happening, I want to be in on it. Right, right. I'm going to beat you to the joke. It's a defense mechanism. It's a defense mechanism. I'm going to make fun of myself first and I'm going to do it better and I'm going to be in on it. So at least if we're destroying me, I will be participating in my own self-destruction so I can at least find a role for myself. Being a kid is terrifying. And if you can be the funny fat kid, at least that's a role. To me, that was better

than being the fat kid who wasn't funny, you know, who was getting, who was being sad over in the corner, even if that was how I was actually feeling a lot of the time. The title of the book, The T-Shirt Swim Club, anyone who has been fat, it immediately, you immediately know what that means. It is this unspoken thing that fat kids and fat people wear a T-shirt in a pool. And where did it even come from? Because it doesn't help. It doesn't change the fact that you're fat and people could see that you're fat. It accentuates it.

Yeah. It's also this thing. Thank God for learning about, I guess, the damage that the sun does to our bodies. Because now all sorts of people are wearing T-shirts in the pool. But like when we were growing up, I don't think that was happening. Yeah. It's absurd. We wear this T-shirt because we either want to protect ourselves, I think, from prying eyes.

But I think what it really is is this internalized body shame where we want to – like where I'm like, hey, I know my body is disgusting. I know I'm going to gross you out while you're just trying to have a good time at the pool. So let me put this T-shirt on. And it's all the more ridiculous, you know, because it doesn't change anything. It doesn't actually cover you up. Instead, it's like a thin. Right. Once you get in the water, it accentuates every single roll, every single.

Every curve. There are people, there are Italian men in Milan who have been looking for that form fitting, you know, science of a wet T-shirt for their entire lives, crumpling up papers, right? There's nothing like a wet t-shirt. And so now you're just a fat kid with, you know, like your torso peeking through a wet big dog logo as you stand in the shallow end of the pool. And it becomes all the more ridiculous because a t-shirt in a pool sort of becomes the calling card of a fat kid. This book is about your formative years, growing up as a fat kid, and the impact that it had on you growing up. And then there is, towards the latter half, your sister Elisa really contextualizes it and gives folks who are reading the book an understanding of actually how to understand and how to interface with young people and older people who are

experiencing, who are fat. And you know what? Every time I say fat, Ian, I feel like I'm saying a bad word. I know you. There's that little twinge in the back of your head, right? But you claim it, like you claim it. You say, I mean, we should say what it is. There's actually in the book, there are these little notes where like the funny names we use, overweight, husky, heavy, like just say fat. Well upholstered. All of these, Rubenesque, there's all these different terms. And you know, early on when I was talking to Elisa about writing this book, we were like, are we going to say fat? I think we should say fat. And we had a conversation about it. We landed on the determination that it's not the word's fault that people treat fat people like garbage. And we tend to do this thing where we will bring in a new word. We will load that word up with all of the sin of our behavior,

toss that word out, pull a new one in. And then all of a sudden we let that word soak up all the sin. And we never really changed the way we actually treat people. It becomes the word's fault. I've been called fat, overweight, obese, husky, big guy, you know, any chunky, any number of words, all of those words just loaded up with venom. You know, you could call me like obese. Obese actually became worse than fat at a point because like obese had this weird – obese was like fat with a doctorate where it was like – Connected to death almost. Connected to death. Absolutely.

Morbidly obese. It has that word morbid in front of it. It hurts way more than fat. Fat is like connected to, I don't know, the contents of almond butter or John Candy, right? And yeah, so we decided we were going to say fat because that's what we are. That's what I think of myself as. And I'm going to take it back to basics because what we're hoping to – I mean, even if that fat person happens to be themselves, that would be this book succeeding in every way that I would hope for. One of the things that's so powerful among many things that you write in this book is that when you're a fat kid, you learn to anticipate the cruelty of people.

That's why you became a comedian, because you're able to step in there. Before you get to me, I'm going to make fun of myself. Has the anticipation of cruelty changed or shifted at all now as a thinner person? I did anticipate that cruelty, but I think I anticipated the cruelty to my own detriment. And I think there's something really odious about bullying. And this is probably true across the board. For me, it was about being a fat kid. But it's when it happens a few times, you start to wince.

You do start to anticipate it, right? And you think it's going to be everywhere. Even if it's like four or five kids at a school. You think the world feels that way about you. You think everybody. You think like if four or five people are saying this to my face, then there must be vast whisper campaigns. That must be what they're huddled over there talking about. Anytime somebody giggles in the corner and you are in that same room, there's a part.

You become paranoid. You become paranoid. There's a part of you that thinks like, they must be laughing at me. Yeah. One of the things you talk about is the way that your parents, the way that the adults related to you as a young person who was fat. My mom and my dad, our mom and our dad, me and Aliza, they were wonderful. You know, they, I think, did the best they could. Given everything. I mean, given the onslaught of popular culture,

given the nature of food in the 1990s. Yeah, because it was processed food heaven back then. That was like peak process. Everywhere, and it was delicious. It was so good. And it was marketed to you as a kid. Specifically. Even the health food was like, that was the era of Snackwell's cookies, right? That's when you were like, the box was green. So we thought it was healthy. They were like,

no fat. And we were like, okay. So I guess that was before we knew about what sugar was because they were loaded with that. And we didn't really know. I think people were doing the best they could, especially my parents, you know. My parents were divorced, but they were both very active in our lives. My mom would work nights as a nurse, and that involved a lot of, like, sticking a frozen lasagna in the oven

and then heading off to work for 12 hours. And she was gone, so if I ate four more pieces after she was gone, she couldn't have done anything about that. Pop in a hot Pocket in the microwave. All the time. And there were four kids in our house, so what, is she going to line us up like the Von Trapp family the next day? Like, all right, who had how many Hot Pockets?

My dad had us involved in sports and all that stuff and checked was, you know, checked in with us about it. But more than anything, I think there was this drive to make our home a refuge from how cruel the world could be to fat people and specifically to fat kids. So they didn't talk about your weight. We never talked about it. What you do in the book, though, with this is really you're able to see that there would have never been a world where they would have had the language to be able to talk to you about it. Absolutely. You know, you write a book and it's weird. You write it and then it comes out in a year and a half later, right?

Like you go through this process like a year later. It comes out and I didn't really think about how my parents would take this. And they've both kind of taken it a little harder than I had hoped and certainly intended. How have they taken it? You know, my mom and my dad in his way and my mom in her way, which is very honestly and very, you know, vulnerably, it said, like, I wish I could have done more. I wish I would have been there It said like, I wish I could have done more. I wish I would have been there to protect you. I wish I would have known, you know, I did the best I could. And not only did she do the best she could, she did the best. So many fat kids, so many people

I've talked to just in like the few weeks since the book has come out and I've had all these conversations. I went on the road and got to talk to like so many people at these shows who went through similar things. And oftentimes worse, so many people did not have the support at home, even if that was just, you know, in the form of it being a place where we didn't have to talk about it. So many people got shamed at home. Right. Because your parents thought the best way to build confidence in our children is to not be another voice. And a lot of people are in homes where they're constantly shamed about it as a way to get them to lose weight. I learned about this term almond moms in the last month or so. Oh, what's an almond mom?

An almond mom is the mom who like smacks the cheese that's out of your hand and replaces it with a bag with five almonds in it. Yep. smacks the cheese that's out of your hand and replaces it with a bag with five almonds in it. And who's like, oh, you're getting a little chunky, or we're going to have to get new clothes for you, like that kind of stuff. And we didn't have that. That is why I attribute my parents to whom I attribute having a happy childhood. And I had, I know it's going to seem morose,

and if you read this book especially, I try to point out that I was having a great time while all of this other stuff was going on. You were being a kid. You were also being a kid. I got to be a kid. I got to – every now and then I'd get to the front of the roller coaster line after two hours and the bar wouldn't close. And that was horrifying and humiliating and terrible.

But I was still at the amusement park. My parents still took me there. I still got to ride the other rides. I still had an elephant ear. There was an incident where you got on a ride and you couldn't close it. Yeah, absolutely. Where I was waiting in line and I got up for two hours, got up to the front, couldn't close the bar over my stomach. It just wouldn't close. The guy kind of tried to jam it in like you were trying to close luggage in the back of a hatchback, and it still wouldn't go.

And I had to get up in front of all these people and walk away. And in doing that, some guy from the back yelled, get in my belly, like a fat bastard. From Austin Powers. From Austin Powers, which was the other thing. I mean, this was also an era when our finest comedic minds were devoting their energy to making fun of fat people. The 90s were all about fat jokes. Vicious. Yeah. And hilarious.

I should also point out, it's hard to, they were funny. That's kind of what killed so much about it is I would go to Austin Powers, you know, the spy who shagged me, the second one. And you were laughing at Fat Bastard because this is Mike Myers. This is one of the funniest people of all time, devoting his brain, his genius, to creating this character who is funny but also devastating and heartbreaking. In one of the Austin Powers movies, you know, he says, like, I eat because I'm unhappy and I'm unhappy because I eat. And that was the first time I'd ever heard that concept. You know, because I'm like in my teens. You know, nobody says that to you.

And that was the first time I'd heard that concept ever laid out like that. And it was like, oh, my God. And then five seconds later, he farts for 20 seconds. Right. And that's the punchline. That's the punchline. Is that even this like this big fat idiot can't even hold a concept in his head without later doing something disgusting, you know, in the same breath.

And that is funny. I'm a comedian. I was probably laughing in the theater, but there was another part of me at the same time that was like, ah, damn it. And also you leave these movies and you're like, well, I'm going to be hearing that for the next two, three years. You're going to be fat bastard to all the classmates and stuff like that. I was fat bastard.

I was Eric Cartman. I was fat Albert. And it sucks because it's funny and it hits. And that was what memes were. That's how we, you know, when I was growing up, that's how people communicated with one another was through quotes, at least little boys. Yep. It was a Simpsons quote followed by a South Park quote followed by a quote from a movie.

And you had everybody, Eddie Murphy and the Nutty Professor, you know, like doing – putting on a fat suit. Everybody was putting on fat suits and they were all hilarious. And it was all pretty devastating partly because you didn't really have alternatives. You didn't have that and. You didn't have any positive role models. No. Yeah. It was, you didn't have Fat Bastard and there's this like cool character in, you know, in Blade Runner.

Is there one today? No. Yeah. No. No, that hasn't gotten any better. There are less bad, but still, I mean, pop culture has evolved. Like, fat people, I think, are still one of the groups that it's definitely okay

to make fun of. That's absolutely true. But they have figured out how to, they, I mean we, I'm part of this industry too, and I've done it to myself. We have figured out how to continue doing that in maybe it's less on the punchline and more on the pity. You know,

you have Brendan Fraser playing the big fat guy in The Whale. And at least that's somebody who is fat and who has dealt with those issues. Maybe not to the extent of like a 500, 600 pound man, but still to some extent and good for him. I mean, an amazing performance, but still one where it's like, here's this big, fat, pathetic person. Our guest today is stand-up comedian and writer Ian Carmel. We're talking about his new memoir, The T-Shirt Swim Club, Stories of Being Fat in a World of Thin People. We'll be back after this short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Hey there, Fresh Air's Anne-Marie Baldonado here with another promo for our latest Fresh Air Plus bonus episode. Do you remember the Shell Bank Junior High alma mater?

No, I don't. Do you? Yes, I'm not going to sing it. Would you sing it for me? Yes, that's singer-songwriter Carole King trying to get Terry to sing. To find out if Terry sings and to find out more about Fresh Air Plus, visit plus.npr.org. You have very strong feelings about the body positivity movement. Yeah. You're not 100% on board like, oh yeah, we're all self-love because you feel like there's

a lot of things we're not considering in this movement. I do think there's a lot of things we're not considering in this movement. I think one is that it is a way for people to sell things to us. And I think it will always be the case. I mean, we live in America, for God's sake. Right, corporate body positivity. There's corporate body positivity. And that's where you see like the fat person in the Gatorade ad where they figured out that fat people drink Gatorade too. And they're like, oh, we should put a couple of them in the ads. But it's never fully representational. It's always us doing something slow. It's always us doing yoga or something like that or Tai Chi

because God forbid we jiggle in one of their commercials. So they don't let us – you're never going to see like a fat person doing a high-impact interval training in a Gatorade commercial. When we do, that will be progress too. But one thing that you point out in the book is that the places that fat people actually go and the products that they actually use, we never see fat representation in those commercials. Never. I have yet to see the Olive Garden commercial where there's a fat family enjoying themselves at dinner. Never. It always looks like people who just stepped off a yacht at the Cape

and they're like, oh, shall we go to the Olive Garden for dinner, honey? Like that's like those are the people we see. Why do you think that is? Because, I mean, if a population is bringing in the profits, why aren't they shown? I think because unless a fat person is seen to be working towards something and inspiring and like trying to throw off the yoke of being fat, then we're still thought of as disgusting. Even though we're the people who go to the Olive Garden, walk into an Olive Garden, walk into any one of these restaurants. I worked at one.

I was a fat waiter and I was serving fat customers. It was a real fat on fat situation. But they're afraid that people will see that and associate their food with being fat and being disgusting. And here's the flip side of that coin and what makes it so tricky and what makes body positivity so tricky to me is that, you know, one of the big impetuses, I started my journey towards trying to be a healthier person. And this is the part where I think it's very important to point out that there are all sorts of fat people and a lot of fat people are healthy. There's a lot of people who like on the BMI are considered obese. There's that word again. Or any number of things who their blood pressure is under control.

They have a good blood sugar. They go to the gym. They work out. But I was not one of those healthy fat people. I was very unhealthy. I had already started trying to get to a healthier weight and eat healthier and move more. But there was a point when I went to the doctor, because I woke up one morning thinking I was having a heart attack. I was like 35 years old, 34 maybe.

And I'd been eating healthy for a couple months. And I took a break from that. I went out with my friend and I had some drinks. I went to my favorite chicken wing restaurant. I had a bunch of chicken wings. And then I went to bed and I woke up at four in the morning with my heart pounding so fast and so hard against my rib cage in a way I'd never felt before. And I thought I was having a heart attack. You thought you were going to die.

I thought I was going to die in that moment. And while I was having that thought, oh, my God, I'm going to die, was also, well, here it is. It felt like... It finally caught up with you. It finally caught up with me. It wasn't a matter... In my head, still I have these thoughts.

It's not a matter of if but when. What also struck me, though, about this story is that when you felt that and you thought you're going to die, you called 911, but you also went out to the front of your house because you didn't want them to have to come in and carry you out. I didn't even call 911. I went downstairs because I didn't want them to come carry me out. I didn't want like three paramedics to get underneath me and I didn't want people to come carry me out. I didn't want like three paramedics to get underneath me and I didn't want people to see that. So I walked down and I went and stood on the sidewalk and I put 911 into my phone and I didn't even hit send because I knew if I hit send

and at this moment I'm like, I'm having a heart attack. But if I hit send, that means it's over. Then an ambulance would come and they would examine me and they would be like, all right, if I wasn't having a heart attack, they'd be like, show's over. You at least thought you were going to. Now you need to get your head out of the sand. Because you had been avoiding doctors all this time. For more than a decade. And at that point, that was such a traumatic, horrifying experience where I kind of felt like I didn't pull my head out of the sand. My body was ripped out of the sand and my head went with it. I was like, it can't get worse than that day was. So I started going to the doctor and that sucked. The first doctor I went to was like, all right,

we're probably going to do bariatric surgery, but it's going to take six months and you're on blood pressure medication. You'll probably be on that for the rest of your life. So just like very callous, very direct in a way where it hurt. But I was like, oh God, okay, I'm going to get that surgery, I guess. And no shade on anyone who gets that surgery, but I think that's any way you can address these kind of health concerns I think is good. But he was just very blunt and very callous and didn't treat me like a human being, treated me like a problem, which was the fear I had had my entire life. And what many people who are overweight say they experience.

It's to the point where it is more unique if they're not. There was a switch though that went off in you. You didn't do bariatric surgery. No. But you ended up over the last few years losing a considerable amount of weight. Yeah. Do you find that people are oddly suspicious of your weight loss, especially in the, you know, we're in the time of Ozempic and weight loss drugs. Definitely. I was in Boise, of all places in God's green earth, doing shows a few weeks ago.

And I had found that amongst the Boise comedy scene, there was like a consensus that I got that surgery. And everyone was like, so you did the surgery and then you look fantastic, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I didn't get the surgery. And then it's this weird thing where I'm like, but I also don't think there's a problem if you do get that surgery. And everyone was like, so you did the surgery and then you look fantastic, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I didn't get the surgery. And then it's this weird thing where I'm like, but I also don't think there's a problem if you do get that surgery. But it is weird to have people be suspicious of you and look at you askance. My guest is standup comedian and writer Ian Carmel. He's written a new memoir called The T-Shirt Swim Club, Stories from Being Fat in a

World of Thin People. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. The T-Shirt Swim Club, stories from being fat in a world of thin people. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. You were a writer for James Corden for several years, and there is this cool moment in 2019 where you decide that you all have to do a rebuttal on something that Bill Maher went in on about how we need to bring back fat shaming. How did you and James address what Bill Maher said? Bill Maher did one of his, you know, and I don't think Bill Maher's bad. I like some of the stuff he does, but he can be very condescending, and I think that's why a lot of people like him. And he had one of his condescending videos where he was talking about wanting to bring back fat shaming. And it was laden with all these tropes that I've been hearing my entire life, like put down the donut, pick up a kale chip.

Being fat is bad for you. You're stressing out the health care system in America. Blaming America's health care problems on fat people. And I hated it. I saw it. I watched the whole video. I watched it a couple times. And it really made me angry.

But you and James sat down. Yes. And you thought about how are we going to offer a rebuttal to this. So I want to play a clip. Yeah. From some of what you wrote. And in this clip, James Corden offers a rebuttal to Bill. So I want to play a clip from some of what you wrote. And in this clip, James Corden offers a rebuttal to Bill Maher. Let's listen. We're not all as lucky as Bill Maher. You know, we don't all have a sense of superiority

that burns 35,000 calories a day. I kick because I love. Bill, I sincerely believe that what you think you're offering here is tough love. And you're just trying to help by not sugarcoating reality for fat people, even though you know how much fat people love sugarcoating things. But the truth is, you're working against your own cause. It's proven that fat shaming only does one thing. It makes people feel ashamed and shame leads to depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior. Self-destructive behavior like overeating. When I watched that clip, I got up, walked to the freezer and grabbed a pint of ice

cream. I'm kidding. I was already halfway through the pint when I started watching, but Bill may have made me finish it. He might have done. That was a clip from The Late Late Show with James Corden from 2019, where my guest Ian Carmel was the lead co-writer and helped write that rebuttal to Bill Maher's fat shaming comments. And Ian, what's so interesting to me about that rebuttal is also you're making fun while also saying, hey, it's not right for you to call out us. So it's kind of like doing both those things. Yeah, it's fun.

Listening back to it now, I'm like, oh, this is full of fat jokes. Yeah, exactly. But it's, I mean, I guess it goes back to that thing you were saying, the wanting to apologize. It's – you do feel like you have to apologize for being fat or even for like sticking up for yourself a little bit. And the other part of it is we're a comedy show. And I wrote all those jokes in there. James and I sat down in an office and I wrote the sugarcoating and the sense of superiority and the two of us sat there and figured it out. Now, going back and listening to it, I guess I am a little embarrassed.

Really? I had to put so many fat jokes in it. But, you know, part of what I think what Bill Maher's message failed in doing, and I think what we were hoping to do, was using some of that, having a fat person make those jokes to get that message out to as many people as we could. And if they were laughing every five or 10 seconds, you know, if you're sugarcoating the medicine, hopefully it'll go down and hopefully those words will get out there. But I was struck a little bit listening to that back, you know, being like, oh, geez. I was really training on the system, participating in my own self-destruction.

During your time working for James Corden, you earned an Emmy Award. Congratulations for your work on Carpool Karaoke when Corden met McCartney live from Liverpool. We tried to add a few more words to the title, but the Academy cut us off. Right, right. You only have so much space. You've also been nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special for your writing for the Tony Awards. Who was hosting? James.

Corden both times. James both times. He was hosting? James. Corden both times. James both times. He was hosting. Which, if you could host the Tonys for a living, that would be his job. He's really, really good at it. You all have a great relationship. You're able to see each other. I noticed that even when you're on his show, when you've done some stand-up, and he's looking

at you almost like a proud papa. He's, I mean, he's amazing. He's a dear friend, first of all, but also like getting to work like in the industry for a fat dude, for a guy who grew up fat and like made it in the industry as a fat person was very cool. Even when we were doing like fat jokes on the show, I'm like, at least it's us doing it, man. Like at least it's you and I making these jokes. And I could write things for him that he would implicitly understand without having to explain it to him the way I would have to maybe to another host. And, you know, I think like a lot of his sensibilities were defined either by being fat or raging against it. Going back to the Tony Awards, what's the process of writing for a show like that?

Were you writing during the show? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Grammys, the Tonys, you are in a room underneath the stage, and the host comes running back every now and then. And you have to respond to stuff happening in real time on the stage. If something crazy happens, you need to be able to comment on it or else your host is going to look oblivious and like completely out of touch.

So it's usually, it starts probably about a month out, maybe a little bit longer. That's when you start the big swing ideas. I'll give an example of something that I wasn't able to get to happen on the Grammys, even though we got it right up to the goal line, is Miley Cyrus and Elton John were doing Tiny Dancer at the Grammys. I remember this. It was amazing. I love Elton John. I love Miley Cyrus.

And they were doing it together. And we knew James was going to come out afterwards and throw it to a commercial break. So I'm like, okay. You get that run of show. You see what all the performances are going to be. I spotlighted that one. I was like, I have the dumbest idea on the planet.

I think after Tiny Dancer, James should bring Tony Danza out. And then once the camera cuts to them, he looks at Tony. He's like, oh, I'm so sorry. I completely misunderstood. A joke we've all made. Like a joke everyone has been like, I thought it was hold me closer, Tony Danza, right? It's one of those, it's like as soon as you hear the song, it sounds like that. It's not very smart.

But to me, it would have been very cool if you got Tony Danza to actually participate in it for the very first time. And James was on board. Elton John and Miley Cyrus were on board. They were like, we're going to get them to be like, it actually is Tony Danza. You know, like we have this big moment with them. And we got it right up to the goal line and Tony Danza's lawyer shut it down. I'm like, come on. Like the world would have loved it.

That's an idea that like you have a month out and it keeps getting, the closer it gets to feeling real. It evolves, right, in the moment. It evolves in the moment. How do you keep the high when it doesn't happen? So I can imagine as the jokes hit, as you hear the crowd into it, that just fuels you to come up with more and more stuff. But when you hear the bombing, when you're like, oh, that's not going to work. Oh, like in stand-up? In stand-up or even during an award show where you're hearing the feedback from the crowd on what you're doing.

Well, hopefully you have a good host and a good host will know, a good comedian, a good anyone like a live performer will know to acknowledge the bomb. A really good comedian or host can own the bomb. When a joke doesn't hit, you acknowledge it and that makes you seem self-aware and charming and then that helps you win the crowd back. The worst thing you can do, and when things truly get out of hand, is when someone is bombing, and then they just try to fight through it. Right. And don't ever acknowledge it. And then you see the sweat forming on their forehead and at their armpits, and you're like, oh, no.

Right. Then you're feeling pity. Then you're feeling pity, or you're feeling disdained. As a writer, in the back, I've been on both sides. I've been a writer and a performer, and it is the worst feeling on earth because you can lose. We've seen it happen with award show hosts. I will never name names because I like to continue working. But you see it, and you're like, uh-oh.

They lost them early. And then the audience just resents them more and more throughout the night. Corden, and I don't think I'm telling tales outside of school, I think he's said this publicly before, it is a hosting an award show is a job that you can only really lose. If it goes well,

you get a few nice phone calls and a couple of emails. And if it goes poorly, it can like really tank you. Yeah, it can change your career. So anytime anyone actually goes out there and does a good job, it's like, oh my God, that's amazing. Has your vision for your career shifted? Of course, you're a comedian, you're a standup comedian, but now you could be a leading guy in a show. Like you could be on a sitcom or a movie and be a leading guy.

The love interest. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And I long for a life when, a world when the 400-pound me could have done the same thing. I, strangely, have found myself less interested in being on screen than ever

now that I have lost weight. I loved writing this book. I love writing for television. I'm currently trying to write a television show featuring a fat person, going through a lot of the stuff I went through and letting that person being the leading man. And, you know, I think about what I want for myself and what I want for the people at home, you know, watching these shows is for something better. And I think the way I can do that the best is with a keyboard now, you know, and I think through writing these things and communicating my experiences that way. Is it funny, though? I think it is funny. I think it is funny. Being fat is being human. And it is very funny to be human. Ian Carmel, thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you for having me. This has been a dream come true. Ian Carmel, stand-up comedian and author of the new book, The T-Shirt Swim Club, stories of being fat in a world of

thin people. Up next, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the third season of the FX series, The Bear. This is Fresh Air. The TV series The Bear stars Jeremy Allen White as Carm, a gifted chef who has dreams of building his Chicago restaurant into a Michelin-starred dining establishment. The show has earned 10 Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series. Our TV critic David Bianculli says it's just as great as ever, even though, he insists, it's competing in the wrong Emmy category. Here's his review. If you've seen the first two seasons of the Hulu series The Bear,

you probably agree with me that it deserved every Emmy that it won. Christopher Storer, who created the show and won Emmys for both writing and directing, is back again and serving up just as brilliant and beautiful a concoction as before. Jeremy Allen White as Karm, the chef with as many demons as dreams, is almost impossibly intense in a James Dean sort of way. His restaurant colleagues, Eben Moss-Backrack as Cousin Richie and Io Adebri as Sidney, are equally deserving of their Emmys too, just not for the category in which they competed and won.

Let me put it as plainly as I can. The Bear is not a comedy. Oh, it's laugh-out-loud funny in spots, and some supporting characters play more like comic relief. But that's like calling Hamlet a comedy because of those early jokes by a gravedigger. The Bear is more dramatic than almost any drama series on television. It dives into the inner emotions and fears of its characters to an ocean floor depth,

and most of the show is about tension and about conflict. Last season's finale was set during opening night for Carm's fancy new restaurant, called The Bear. In the front of the house, where the diners sat, it was a triumph. But in the kitchen, Carm spent the evening accidentally locked in a walk-in cooler. Sidney kept the kitchen running, but by the end of the evening, Carm had lost his girlfriend Claire, and after a massive shouting match, also alienated Cousin Richie, who ran the front of the house. Lots of fun, right?

Season 3 picks up the very next morning. The dominant emotion, as Sidney talks quietly to Carm, is regret. Listen to the tone here, and you tell me whether the bear is a comedy. We made it. No, you made it. With everyone else. I left you alone. So don't let it happen again.

It's never going to happen again. Almost immediately, Karm continues his apology tour by making a phone call. Only at the end, with his sign-off, do we realize he's talking not to his girlfriend Claire, but to cousin Richie. I don't really know what I said, but I know I didn't mean it. And I know you didn't mean it. And, um... Yeah, I think we just, um... I'm sorry. And I love you.

And I'm sorry. And, um sorry and I'll see you tomorrow. Okay, bye. It certainly doesn't sound like a comedy or that Carm will even make it through his restaurant's day two. But he bounces back with a vengeance announcing his bold new initiatives to Sidney and the rest of his troops.

It's just some adjusting of the plating. The scallop is perfect. We don't need the six other fishes. The ribeye was too big. This is a cleaner plate. And instead of the bucatini, we're going to do a large raviolo. Yolk inside? Yolk inside. And pinch out of dust. And, oh, I put potato chips on the sea bass. And boulinade?

Boulinade, yes. And we're going to ditch the cavatelli. Better for service. Right. We're going to change it going to ditch the cavatelli. Better for service. Right. We're going to change it every day. The cavatelli or the raviolo? Everything. We're going to change everything every day?

Yes. I made a list, sugar. Why? So they can see what we're capable of. Who's they? They are the critics. The ones with the power to bestow upon the bear a coveted Michelin star. So they can see what we're capable of. Who's they? They are the critics. The ones with the power to bestow upon the bear a coveted Michelin star.

Season three is all about the pursuit of that level of perfection. And it's a goal that brings out the best and the worst in every single character. In addition to the actors already mentioned, I absolutely adore Oliver Platt as Uncle Jimmy, the restaurant's chief investor. Now he's funny, but he's also imposing and, when he wants to be, deadly serious. I've seen way, way too many TV cooking shows and cooking competition shows, and The Bear is more inspirational and instructional than most of them. It's the best food-oriented TV series since Julia Child's The French Chef, and Christopher Storer and his other writers and directors present montages of food preparation that are beautiful, exotic, and mesmerizing all at once.

The central message of The Bear, and it's no laughing matter, is that all those stunningly plated entrees and desserts come at a measurable emotional cost. So why invest in a show called The Bear that features so much high-wire tension? For the same reason Uncle Jimmy is investing in the restaurant called The Bear. The results are delicious. David Bianculli is professor of television studies at Rowan University. On tomorrow's show, David Tatel, a former civil rights lawyer and judge on the D.C. Circuit. He says he became tired of having his work reviewed by a Supreme Court, a court that didn't seem to share the value he dedicated his life to.

We talk with Tatel about his new memoir chronicling his career and losing his eyesight. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salat, Phyllis Myers, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Teresa Madden, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi,

and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley. This message comes from NPR sponsor Grammarly. What if everyone at work were an expert communicator? Inbox numbers would drop, customer satisfaction scores would rise, and everyone would be more productive. That's what happens when you give Grammarly to your entire team. Grammarly is a secure AI writing partner that understands your business and can transform it through better communication. Join 70,000 teams who trust Grammarly with their words

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