Rebecca Howe: a late-1980s introduction to workplace weight gain humiliation

Maverick’s “The Middle Manager” hits on one of my favorite tropes: weight gain the workplace and all the awkward situations that can surround it. 

As a child of the 1980s, my first serious introduction to this sort of thing came from none other than the classic sitcom “Cheers.” Specifically, I’m speaking of the “Rebecca Howe” character portrayed by Kirstie Alley, and how the show evolved its treatment of that character across seasons. If you’ve never seen the show before (apologies for the 80s-era shoulder pads), or if you’d just enjoy a bit of slightly-perverted reminscing, check out the video links in my text below and you can view several of the scenes I describe for yourself.

Kirstie joined the cast of Cheers at the start of season 6, in 1987. At the time, Kirstie was in her prime, quite a hot number. 

Kirstie’s arrival on Cheers marked a major transition point for the series. Shelly Long had just left the show, taking with her half of the “Sam and Diane” dynamic that up until then had defined Cheers. In Diane’s place was now “Rebecca,” the new corporation-assigned manager of the bar Sam used to own. 

In her first episode, Rebecca is introduced as an impeccably (perhaps intimidatingly) confident and beautiful business woman with a no-nonsense approach to management. Her good looks and self-assurance leave notorious womanizer Sam disarmed. She also trades barbs with waitress Carla Tortelli effortlessly, adeptly handling that ever-troublesome employee. Here’s a link to season 6, episode 1. Rebecca’s introduction occurs at around 8:49. 

For context, this was a bit of typecasting. Following her breakout role as the Vulcan “Lt. Saavik” in “Star Trek II,” Kirstie had already demonstrated a knack for “unapproachable hyper-competent hottie” roles.

Kirstie’s longevity in that function proved to be amusingly short-lived on Cheers, though. Kirstie began gaining noticeable weight even before season 6 had wrapped. During that time the writers gradually toned-down Rebecca’s mystique of aloof efficiency. Instead of being “the boss” she became more like just another member of the staff, equally fallible and flawed. Working with what they had, partway through season 7 the writers started honing in on one particular “flaw” in Rebecca’s character: her expanding waistline. Season 7, episode 6, seems to be the first time Rebecca became the butt of a “fat joke” on the show. Check out the scenes at around 1:24 (a stranger assumes Rebecca is pregnant) and then again at around 10:47 (Sam offers Rebecca a brownie only to snatch it away with a snarky quip; Cliff compares Rebecca to Rubenesque paintings).

Weaving mention of Kirstie’s increasingly obvious weight gain into the storylines for Rebecca became a staple of the show—no doubt at least in part because Kirstie just couldn’t stop packing on the pounds. Sometime during these later years of Cheers, while watching an episode with my parents one evening, I recall my dad grunting a dissatisfied and entirely unprompted observation about Rebecca/Kirstie: “She’s really porked out on this show.” Funny how memories like that can stick…

By season 10, the originally posh, cool, and collected Rebecca Howe had turned into an awkward, emotionally and physically vulnerable chubmuffin. Sam and Carla—subordinates she dominated easily during her first appearance—now casually mock and bully her for their own amusement. No longer intimidating or desirable, Rebecca’s weight gain and ensuing character changes have downgraded her into little more than a soft chew toy for entertaining the workplace dogs. Check out season 10, episode 9, wherein Rebecca reveals deep insecurities about her weight and how susceptible she is to getting fat. At 3:54 Rebecca clumsily lets slip a story about how she apparently got massively fat as a child. Also, at about 11:00 there is a scene where Carla effortlessly tears Rebecca apart with comments about Rebecca being a greedy fat little girl. The contrast between that scene and the early interactions between these two characters is quite stark.

This progressive expansion and degradation of Rebecca continues into the final season, reaching its remarkably blunt apogee in season 11, episode 10, wherein the once-confident, successful, beautiful young career woman has been reduced to a petulant, helplessly incompetent, tubby joke being sent home to live with her parents so she can “get herself together.” The scene starts at around 15:00, culminating in Rebecca’s pitiable ‘farewell’ speech at about 18:45.

Although I was too young to fully understand it at the time, the themes sprinkled across the Rebecca Howe character arc cover a large range of what turns me on about the intersection between weight gain, disempowerment, and humiliation. I see these themes come up time and again in my favorite stories, illustrations, fantasies, and real-world observations. Were the writers for Cheers “hip” to this stuff? Part of me wants to say “of course not,” but then again, folks with our kink can turn up in all sorts of unexpected places. If you were in a similar position, with an up-and-coming sexy startlet on your TV show suddenly starting to burst the seams of her costuming-department-assigned attire, what would you have done with that…”opportunity?” 

-Riptoryx