Michelle Buteau Is Thriving

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Michelle Buteau contains multitudes. Survivor. Mother. Comedian. Wife. Author. And now, creator, writer, lead, and executive producer of her very own show. Co-created with writer-executive producer Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, Survival of the Thickest, now playing on Netflix, is a body-positive, ultra-inclusive dramedy that follows ambitious Mavis Beaumont, a recently single struggling assistant fashion stylist looking to overhaul her life. It’s an adaptation of Buteau’s memoir, a book of essays of the same name about coming up in New Jersey in a Catholic Caribbean home. Like the show, the book is candid and heartbreaking, covering themes of womanhood, body image, and the many experiences of navigating adulthood.

“I felt like I was always surviving something,” the 45-year-old tells ELLE.com about the inspiration behind her acclaimed book, “whether it was my 20s or 30s. Surviving was definitely in my vocabulary for a very long time…I was just out there, mixed [race], being thick and plus-size, and it was like, ‘It is what it is.’”

Though this is her first solo television drama project where she’s both behind and in front of the camera, Buteau is no stranger to the big and small screens. She’s been a scene-stealer in several shows and movies, including, Marry Me, BET’s The First Wives Club, Someone Great, Russian Doll, Always Be My Maybe, and Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens, and headlined her Netflix special, Welcome to Buteaupia in 2020, which won the 2021 Critics Choice Award for Best Comedy Special. She’s hosted two podcasts, Late Night Whenever and Adulting. In October, she’d perform at The Kennedy Center as part of her upcoming tour, dubbed Full Heart, Tight Jeans, which kicks off in Amsterdam on August 2. (The tour title came from a typical answer Buteau gives when asked how she’s doing. “I always say my heart is full. My jeans are tight.”)

In the feel-good series, we meet Beaumont as she reels from being newly uncoupled, losing trust and hope in just about everything. But her resolve shifts quickly into high gear when she begins making critical life changes with her two faithful besties, Khalil and Marley (played by Tone Bell and Tasha Smith), by her side. She journeys through many complexities to rediscover love, sexuality, and herself as she intentionally pursues her dreams.

The show skillfully blends humor and heartfelt moments as Beaumont and her circle navigate the ups and downs of life, finding laughter, resilience, and growth in the face of challenges. We see them survive time and again, finding beauty in the every day and in each other. Beaumont carries the same witty notes of Buteau’s belly-laughing comedic stylings and impeccable timing strewed with zingers, social critique, and life mantras, such as, “You know I’m too cute for public toilet.” And: “Sometimes we have to make the wrong decisions in order to find the right one.”

Survival of the Thickest is not all laughs, though. Beaumont, while dynamic and riveting, faces some relatable hurdles. Set in teeming New York City, we watch her helm the good, complicated, and ugly sides of the fashion industry, trying to dispel normative beauty standards. She also endures the circus of living in a cramped Brooklyn apartment with an eccentric roommate and her cat.

The show’s name is a double entendre. One definition refers to the idiom of having a thick skin—the ability to withstand criticism and life’s setbacks. The other is a colloquial Black American vernacular definition popularized by hip-hop culture that refers to a woman’s physical attractiveness, primarily curvy women. She’s ‘‘thicc”: voluptuous, shapely, and sexy. But the title, especially the “survival” part, cuts even deeper for Buteau, because she’s a survivor of a different kind. Years ago, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. A mass was found on her pituitary gland that altered her everyday life. No periods. Extreme fatigue. Headaches. All signs of pregnancy without the pregnancy. It was benign, and she’s been on the mend since, with frequent doctor check-ups.

Then came surviving the journey to motherhood. After Buteau and her photographer husband, Gijs van der Most, tried many times to conceive on their own, they decided on in vitro fertilization, IVF. The first time, she got pregnant, then miscarried weeks later. They tried again and got pregnant. She miscarried again. Rinse and repeat. After four miscarriages and several rounds of IVF, they finally had their twins in January 2019 through gestational surrogacy. At the time, paid gestational surrogacy was illegal in New York, where she and her husband lived, so the couple moved to Pennsylvania. Buteau went on to successfully advocate and lobby for New York to adopt a law allowing for paid gestational surrogacy. It went into effect in February 2021.

She’s been a survivor who knows the marrow and fullness of the word. Below, Buteau discusses her career trajectory and expands on her show’s origins and themes.

Watching Mavis live her fullest life in her thickness and glory, I found the show to also be an indictment of patriarchal beauty ideals. Could you expand on that underpinning message and the double entendre of the show’s title?

That has always been a struggle. My whole life, I’ve had to shrink and apologize if my boob grazed someone. Or, worry, “Oh, I’ve got the middle seat [on an airplane]. How am I gonna get out without hitting people with my booty.” Or, having anxiety when people tell me “I’ll get you an XL” when I know it’s not gonna fit, but I have to wear that shirt for that thing. Or 13-year-old me shopping in the Macy’s junior section with my mom and asking the sales associate, “Where are all the size thirteens? Can you just bring them to me?” Because even though I know they won't fit me, it’s the closest thing that could fit me. Or being out to dinner and people telling you you shouldn’t eat this or that because you’ll get fatter. Whatever it is, people in society feel like they are allowed to tell women about our bodies—that’s insane. Unless you’re a doctor and in my network, I don’t need to hear your opinion about my body.

So, “survival of the thickest” means loving your body, loving all your inches. It means to be happy with the body that you’ve been given. But it’s also all about thick skin. That means we’re gonna go through some stuff because of our bodies, and it’s not gonna be great. We’re gonna feel rejected. We’re not going to get the things we want or the person that we want, and bad things may happen to us, but it’s okay. We need to pull our size-ten shoes up, LOL [she actually says L-O-L]. And, we gotta put on our plus-size panties—I’m just kidding, that’s gross—and keep it moving.

The show is adapted from your memoir, which follows the same themes. What trends did you notice in society that made you respond with a book?

To be honest, I wasn’t thinking that big or far ahead. I was doing stand-up. I was acting. I was hosting. I was trying to have a kid, and I couldn’t. And in between all of that, I had an idea for a book about body positivity, being sex-positive, and growing up in a very religious family in Central Jersey. The kind of stories that couldn’t fit into a straight-up stand-up. I didn’t know who it was for but thought whoever enjoys it, it’s for them. And I didn’t write it to get on the New York Times bestsellers list or even with the thought, “Oh, this is gonna be a TV show.” I just wrote the craziest, funniest, most important, heart-wrenching stories in my life to make someone feel less lonely and to make myself feel better. The fact that it got into the right hands of a Netflix executive was just the maraschino cherry in the old fashioned.

I love Mavis’ liberation at 38—sexually, mentally, emotionally, and professionally. Her romance with Luca comes to mind. It’s all written in a way that at once feels organic to who she is and who she’s becoming, juxtaposed against the tyranny of beauty. It’s radical and felt intentional. As in, all women should be able to explore all their sides, their sensuality, without feeling inhibited by culturally sanctioned perceptions of attractiveness. Talk to me about what went into her character development. Any parallels to some realizations you’ve had?

Mavis is Mavis, and I am Michelle. But I thought about how I could pour into this woman. How do I pour everything I’ve known and learned from my 20s, 30s, and 40s? With any chapter in my life, and even as a married person—and I’ve seen this in my friends too—when you’re approaching 40, something clicks inside you. A lot of people think the big birthdays are 21 or 30. But in hindsight, you have so much time. But closer to 40? Something happens. It’s just like, “Oh shit! I gotta, ‘poop or get off the pot.’” So whether it’s body acceptance, or someone you’re in a relationship with who you secretly know you shouldn’t be with. Or it’s a job you’re stuck in or living in a neighborhood you don’t like. Or the thing you’ve been meaning to tell your parents so you can feel healed. Whatever it is, you just do it.

That’s the place I wanted Mavis to start from and properly live in. Most main characters we see on shows are hot messes. I didn’t want her to be a hot mess. Yes, life gets messy for her, but she knows who she is. She does what she wants. She’s gonna try and fight for it. Is she going to be insecure and anxious at times? Absolutely. Everybody is, but she has the support of her friends to lift her up. That’s also an area of Mavis’ life I wanted to showcase. Khalil and Marley show what real friends are supposed to do: constantly tell you you’re amazing, that you can do whatever you want, they’re there for you if something goes wrong, and they’re proud of you.

Along the same lines: One of the things that came to mind as I watched was the need for society to wade away from the misogynistic view that size zeros and twos are superior figures, that desirability can only look one way. How can more women be like Mavis and begin tapping into their full glory and owning their sexy? How have you done that and evolved to a place of self-love?

We have to do the work. It's work. That’s something we see Mavis go through. We have to do it within ourselves and for ourselves. We're so quickly willing to spend so many hours of our lives dedicated to a company to work. But then, what do we do for ourselves? What do we do about self-care? And mental health? And taking a risk and challenging yourself to get out there to the point you get comfortable with rejection. Putting you first—whatever that means for you—that’s how.

For me, it has been many things. The physical, for one. There’s this rumor that fat and thick people don't work out, and obesity shouldn't be mainstream. It’s just stupid. Some people just have bigger bodies. That’s that, “Honey, hush!” I love working out—in cute workout outfits, of course. So, I’d go to Target and get the plus-sized situation and end up feeling cute at the gym. And after a workout, I always feel good.

Mental health is another one. Everybody should be in therapy. If you can’t do it every week, do it once every two weeks. Do it once a month. Just find a place you can go talk to someone. It helps.

So much of the show examines trying to make it after the trials and turbulence of life. When you look at your career to date, what have been some powerful lessons you’ve learned about navigating Hollywood and the comedy scene as a woman of color?

The main thing is there isn’t just one way to get where you want to go. It’s not a linear process. If you’re looking for that one job to change your life, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. You should just be playing the lotto instead because life is a struggle. This is a lifestyle. If you love it, you’re gonna be doing it for a long time. So wrap your mind around being patient with the process and not listening to people because everyone’s got an idea of how and what you’re supposed to do. Just because it worked for them that way doesn’t mean they have to put that on you.

Then there are the people who ask, “Can I pick your brain? How did you get that? How do I do this?” That’s not always the best approach. It could help, but the beauty of your own journey is figuring it out. Some people remain in self-sabotage mode for a long time because they don’t figure it out. They don’t figure themselves out. Most of my talented friends never put themselves out there and never get to see what they could be. [In the show,] Khalil says to Mavis, in episode 1, “Don’t tell yourself, ‘No,’ before someone else tells you no.” I love that. Because why not try to get out there? What’s the big deal? If “they” say no, you’ve already been telling yourself that, so you might as well do it anyway.

Sticking with your career for another beat: I know you once wanted to be a journalist and worked as a newsroom editor, covering 9/11. What first piqued your interest in the field, and at what point did you decide to deviate from that plan and get into comedy?

I wanted to be an entertainment reporter, but a professor told me [while studying television production at Florida International University] I was too fat to be on camera. And back then, I thought, “Oh, he’s right,” because I hadn’t seen anyone that looked like me on TV. So I ended up working in production and loved it; it was fun. It felt like you're doing a recipe from scratch with different people every day. But then, I realized I was working with on-air talent that didn't love their job, and I felt, “Why wouldn’t you love your job? Get some pep in your step. Look down the barrel and make people feel like you’re talking to them.”

It got to the point where I became exhausted trying to make people joyful. I’ve always been this goofy, sassy, warm, big titty bitch, and a lot of my co-workers were always like, “You should just do stand-up comedy.” It felt a bit misplaced for me then because I never grew up hoarding copies of George Carlin or anything like that. When I started, I didn’t know what I was doing. I’d go to comedy shows, and these comedians were sad. They were broke. They were high. They didn’t have sex. I was like, I’m happy. I like sex. I like money, money, money! So I first felt, “Maybe stand-up isn’t for me.” But after 9/11 happened, it was like, “Maybe we just might die one day. So maybe we should just try some shit!” And so I tried it, fell in love with it, and was like, “This is nice. I like this feeling.” [Editor’s note: In her book, Buteau says she did stand-up for the first time on September 14, 2001.]

In the show, your character aims to break barriers and redefine what it means to work in fashion. When you think about what it means to be in your field today, as someone that breaks from conventional ideals that many still fall prey to, what has been your secret sauce to breaking through?

I’ve bet on me. I’m glad people have opinions and critiques—good for them; they’re supposed to. But I listen to my gut. I know who I am. I know what it is. I know how it’s gonna work. I’ll try some shit, and if it doesn’t work out, I knew in the back of my mind I shouldn’t have done this in the first place. I’ve learned to maintain a sense of self. That’s the most important. If I had gotten this show in my 20s, I don’t know how I would have stood up for myself, my opinion, my beliefs, and my values and pushed for the themes of diversity and inclusivity. But in my 40s? I’m just like, “No, not in this world. Not today. This is what's gonna happen. Period.” Sometimes that confidence comes with time. But you still have to practice at it. It’s a little like fake it till you make it. And bet on yourself. You know what’s good for you.

In 2020, when you wrote for us, you spoke about IVF, surrogacy, and your painful journey to motherhood. Now you’re a mother of twins, adjusting to the balancing act that is parenting. How would you classify what motherhood is now?

It’s wild. My friend Jordan Carlos told me that when you become a parent, you have to parent yourself. I didn't know what he meant then, but now I do. It’s like, I have to be the shining example for them. So I gotta get it together. When raising little kids, and they’re your everything, you see things more clearly. Because you literally don't have time for bullshit. Like I always say, I have no idea what I’m doing, but I know that no one could do it better than me. Because how could you fully say you know what to do if you’ve never been in that position? So, we all need to give ourselves some grace.

Recently, I took my kids to Amsterdam [where my husband is from]. And I’m so used to telling them to be quiet. Don't be loud. Don't act up. Basically, telling them that other kids they see acting up and being kids can do that, but they weren’t allowed to. Now, I’m like, I need to let my kids be kids, and everybody else just has to deal with it. It’s a process.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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