‘How To Die Alone’ Wants Everyone To Live Their Best Lives

Natasha Rothwell in How to Die Alone (Photo credit: Hulu/Onyx Collective/Disney

Created by:

Natasha Rothwell

Directed by:

Shahrzad Davani, Renuka Jeyapalan, Tiffany Johnson, Jude Weng

Written by:

Natasha Rothwell, Jahna Ferron-Smith, Mamoudou N’Diaye, Kevin Yee, Kristen Bartlett, Jen Regan, Marquita Robinson, Vera Santamaria, Halsted Sullivan, Mara Vargas Jackson

Starring:

Natasha Rothwell, Conrad Ricamora, KeiLyn Durrel Jones, Jocko Sims, Jaylee Hamidi, Melissa DuPrey, Arkie Kandola, Christopher Powell, Michelle McLeod, Elle Lorraine, Glenn Fleary, Michael Hartney, Bashir Salahuddin, Ellen Cleghorne, Valarie Pettiford, Dhanish Kumar Chinniah, Gabriel Infante, Jessica Greco, Shaquan Lewis, H. Jon Benjamin

Synopsis (Hulu):

How to Die Alone follows Mel [Melissa], a broke, fat, Black JFK airport employee who’s never been in love and forgotten how to dream, until an accidental brush with death catapults her on a journey to finally take flight and start living by any means necessary.

Monique’s review:

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I sat down to watch How to Die Alone, but after a full binge of Season 1, I feel like Rothwell’s passion project gives viewers a lot to celebrate about themselves and their personal journeys.

How to Die Alone breaks through weight stigma

It doesn’t matter how much weight you have–if you’re a woman, society will deem your weight to be too big. That harshness goes double if you are a woman of size.

I’ve been going on my own health journey, so I’ve been thinking about how society treats women with regard to weight a lot. It is true that on the whole, men seem to not face the same withering scrutiny over their bodies that women experience. But something even worse than that, in my opinion, is how society’s messaging about women’s bodies can become ingrained in your own mind.

That’s what I know has happened to me over the years; I developed such poor self-esteem over images I saw in the media about what is “desirable” and “worthy” because too often, weight becomes synonymous with a woman’s entire worth.

For whatever reason, my child brain latched onto Saved by the Bell‘s Kelly Kapowski as a symbol of what society deemed as attractive. Race aside (because that’s it’s own kettle of fish as far as society’s vision of desirability goes), attractiveness seemed synonymous with thinness, and thinness seemed synonymous with perkiness, personal style, an outgoing personality, flirtatiousness, and whatever else we were trained to think men liked.

From how Rothwell’s character Melissa talks about herself in How to Die Alone, it seems like she also had a similar upbringing around attractiveness.

The series deals honestly with the warped mindsets women like Melissa struggle with, no thanks to society and the media’s constant reiteration that beauty, desirability and weight are linked. In reality, Melissa is surrounded by chances at love, and there are men who view her as attractive–men she thinks won’t give her the time of day. But her eyes are so clouded to how she has been judged in the past for her weight that she refuses any opportunity to open herself up to love. I feel like a lot of women can identify with that feeling, especially if they are also dealing with insecurity around their weight and appearance.

Just like how the famous doll tests by Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark found that repeated exposure to negative imagery and messaging about Blackness propelled Black children to view Black dolls as ugly and white dolls as beautiful, repeated exposures to messaging about weight and desirability can lower young girls’ self-esteem and raise anxiety about if they fit in with their peers.

There are studies on this phenomenon, but I don’t need any study to tell you that I know this from personal experience. I also know such exposure can lead to depression, disordered eating, body dysmorphia, and other maladaptive practices.

How to Die Alone isn’t the only show touching on this sensitive issue. Survival of the Thickest is another one that tackles how society wrongly puts plus-size women in a box of stereotypes. How to Die Alone is, thankfully, adding to the conversation about plus-size women and giving women and girls an opportunity to see a different type of representation than the types of plus-size stories I saw growing up–if I saw them at all.

How to Die Alone celebrates diversity by making it normal

Yes, How to Die Alone has a diverse, Black-leaning cast. But having diversity in a cast doesn’t make a show or film automatically good. The characters also have to mean something as well. We at Just Add Color have moved beyond championing mere surface-level representation.

What makes How to Die Alone laudable regarding its racial and cultural diversity is that it doesn’t make a big deal about either of those things. These are just intrinsic parts to the characters, not the characters’ entire identities.

Whether the characters are Black, Asian, white or Latinx, personalities, not stereotypes, are at the forefront. Even some characters who are comic relief are still lovingly crafted to be fun and likeable, without that humor being at the expense of their race or culture.

Also, as a show with Black romantic leads, How to Die Alone is showing audiences that Black stars (and frankly, any POC star) can be the big draws for rom-coms. Melissa’s arc is, in some ways, analogous to Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones’ Diary, but we know that someone like Rothwell wouldn’t have been cast in the title role back in the day. Instead, Rothwell’s character would be a sidekick comic character, even though she and Bridget would have the same struggles.

Seeing people who are different from us actually helps us learn we have more in common than we realize. Even from my Bridget Jones example, the point is that any woman can see herself as someone who doesn’t realize their worth. Therefore, it’s important to cast a multitude of actors from different races in roles like this, so we can see that despite what are perceived differences are, we do face similar challenges and experience similar successes.

(The show also gets triple points for having racially and culturally diverse directors and writers as well. It’s important to have as much diversity behind the scenes as it is in front of the camera.)

How to Die Alone wants its viewers to live freely

Melissa’s struggles to live authentically touched me on a personal level, since I am reconnecting with my own wants and desires when it comes to my own life. How do I take risks and live to the fullest when I’m scared of everything? How do I live boldly when I am still used to playing small in certain areas of my life?

Seeing Melissa figure out how to create her best life gave me the courage to start creating mine. I think it’ll also inspire other viewers to reflect on what kind of adventures they want to have as well.

Judeo-Christian wisdom states we only live once, and even if you go by religions that teach reincarnation, you only live once as the person you are right now before you become someone (or something) else. We don’t know what happened before we were born, and we don’t know what happens to us after we die. We only have this time in our consciousness to experience life as we know it. Isn’t it a scary thought to think that we might be too afraid to experience everything we can simply because we don’t know how it’s going to turn out? I know it’s a thought I’ve meditated on for a long time, especially after the death of my father.

It’s hard to live each day as if it’s your last when we have everyday worries like bills, work, family, having personal decompression time, etc. But, like Melissa, we can start making time each day to gear ourselves up for changes we want to see in our lives. For me, a lot of my YOLO anxiety stems around travel (like Melissa). Yours might revolve around something else. But we can use Melissa’s story as inspiration for us to start living our lives to the fullest, even if it’s scary.

Even though you might currently feel comfortable, it doesn’t mean you’re happy, and you have to weigh the comfort of living with your dissatisfaction with the discomfort of doing something you’ve always wanted to do but were too scared to try.

Some points of note

I won’t call these “cons” per se, but no project is perfect, and that also goes for How to Die Alone. The main frustration I have with the series is a frustration I have with a lot of series about dating and love–the portrayal of sex.

Something I wish a rom-com would consider is that not every woman is sexually active (if you describe “sexually active” as having intercourse with others). I don’t engage in sexual intercourse with people. Not for any religious reason, although that’s also valid if that’s why you might not engage. I don’t engage because I know that for me, such an act feels like I’m inviting someone else’s spirit into my body, and if I’m going to do that, I’m not just going to do that for everyone and anyone. It has to be someone special to me. In other words, my personal energy is very important to me and just some Tom, Dick or Harry (no pun intended) isn’t getting into my personal space.

People are different, so it’s also valid that some folks feel like they have enough of themselves to share with multiple partners. Some people even feel like sex is how they communicate with others. Do you. BUT, having said that, I feel like I’d love to watch a show in which the main character is someone who views sex as a more sacred, selective ritual instead of something you just do, either to be popular or fit in or just because that’s what people think adults are supposed to do once they’re 18 years old.

Suffice it to say, it feels like Melissa is one of those people who might have become sexually active just to feel a warm body. As she told her ex-boyfriend Alex (Sims), she was only with him because he would touch her. Of course, what she said was partially a lie–she was running away from love and she felt he would disappoint her because he might realize she’s too much, both literally and figuratively. She did love him. But what she said was also partially true, at least in terms of her negative perception of herself. She felt she was only worth a warm body, not someone’s heart. And that’s sad.

She also tries to have a fling with another co-worker, Carlos (Infante), and they end up having sex surrounded by confiscated, expensive food. It’s a funny scene played for laughs, but if they were having safe sex, I must have missed it. (Another pet peeve of mine–shows that have characters having sex often, but no condom or mention of birth control in sight.) Regardless, she’s having sex just to have sex, and it’s bad sex on top of that, among other things that add insult to injury. Again, it seems like Melissa is just having sex to say she’s had a warm body next to her. But that type of sex doesn’t fill any type of emotional hole (for lack of better phrasing).

Showing Melissa having empty sex is probably the point. But I’d love for there to be a main character in a rom-com that gives external validation to the journey of celibacy (or selectivity) and show that those of us who live like that aren’t prudes, do have sexual feelings and urges, and that we are (shock) just like everyone else.

Another little note–the series ends on a cliffhanger. I was surprised that it would be so bold as to do that, seeing how shows are getting cancelled left and right, sometimes without all the loose ends being tied up. I hope Hulu realizes the merit of the series and brings it back because we need to know how things turn out for Melissa and her evolving love life.

Final thoughts

Overall, How to Die Alone is a fun journey that can inspire its viewers to think more highly of themselves and their life prospects. We can all decide to reach for the stars within our lives, and we can feel empowered by knowing we are the architects of our wildest dreams.

How to Die Alone is currently streaming on Hulu.