Jessie Kahnweiler Tackles Bulimia In Her Groundbreaking New Web Series, ‘The Skinny’

It’s Thursday. Which means it’s almost Friday. Which means you get to slack off a bit during your lunch hour. Cue: Afternoon Delight: Decider’s own curation of the best of short-form content, including the Internet’s wittiest web series. This week, we’re spotlighting The Skinny, which hails from emerging feminist comedienne, Jessie Kahnweiler.

Playing a dramatized version of herself, The Skinny follows Jessie as Jessie as she tries and fails and tries again and fails again to beat her bulimia. And as if that isn’t near impossible enough, throw the pressures of trying to become a real adult into the mix and voilà, you have a recipe for self-destructive disaster. From Refinery 29 and Jill Soloway’s (Transparent) Wifey.tv, pitch black comedy The Skinny marks a pivotal moment in the pioneering ventures of web series: debuting at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival as a special even. Kahnweiler, who’s already garnering some serious buzz, spoke with me about channeling pain into something that can be laughed with, confronting self-hate, and working to damn pre-existing, sexist notions that a female lead needs to be likable.

Decider: Can you talk a little bit about how this show came to fruition?

Jessie Kahnweiler: I’m a filmmaker in L.A. and, basically, I wrote this pilot for really personal reasons. I was bulimic for ten years, I was in recovery, and I felt like there was such a lack of stories out there in the media that really spoke to the truth of my experience in being a strong feminist who also had an eating disorder. So being a broke, indie filmmaker it became about, What’s the story I have to tell? That I’m going to put my blood, sweat, and tears into? So I tried to shop the pilot around but nobody thought eating disorders were sexy enough for television. So I wound up going on Kickstarter and made the pilot by myself for like ten grand, got it to Jill Soloway — who I’ve known for a few years — and then she got that to Refinery 29 and here we are.

Did you have any other outside influences other than your own personal experiences?

Yeah that’s a really great question. I had Jill and a bunch of her producers who I worked with because I really didn’t want this show to just be therapy, you know what I mean? It’s not a documentary and I really felt like I worked to make a narrative that’s about a girl who’s trying to figure herself out and really go after her dreams, go after love, go after success, have the experience, but also have an eating disorder. While the show is really personal, I hope it speaks to the universal truth of trying to become your best self.

Being that it is moving, but also very funny, I’m wondering how you worked to achieve that tonal balance?

Lots of therapy and vodka [laughs]. Well, yeah, that’s a great question. Having an eating disorder, there is nothing funny about it and so,I really wanted to speak to the truth and the horror of what it’s like to have this. But, for me, personally so much of comedy is about pain. From my coping, from my family, from being a Jew: we tend to laugh away our pain and, for me, the humor kind of just came instinctively. I really wanted to make the show like life. Life is very layered and it’s dense and it’s never just funny or just sad — it seems to be everything all at once, so I really try to encapsulate that in the show.

It definitely comes across. How did you first get into comedy?

I started off making documentaries. I was never like, “Oh I’m going to do comedy and that’s what I want to do.” I really was very like, “I’m going to be a documentary filmmaker.” And when I was eighteen, I made my thesis in college for which I hitchhiked around the country with truck drivers. Then I moved to L.A. and started doing more scripted stuff. I did this web series about being Jewish called Dude, Where’s My Chutzpah? and for me, I don’t know if it was the Judaism of it all, but it just naturally kind of happened where, I try to live my life as a comedy. That’s how I feel like my life is… I like to start off each project with a really big question and the natural path to the answer for me is comedy.

In this series, you’re playing a dramatized version of yourself. But what do you hope viewers who have nothing in common with your character take away from The Skinny?

I really want the show to be about bringing to the surface this idea of shame and self-hate. That, for me, is something I still struggle with: having this part of myself be like, I’m never going to be good enough or I always feel like I could be better. What’s the better version of myself? To really open up the conversation and take the shame around shame itself because it’s such a normal human emotion. In fact, showing any kind of vulnerability to me has led to the biggest joy in my life. It’s confronting the sadness and knowing that it’s OK to be fucked up. Some of my favorite people are very fucked up [laughs].

Did you learn anything else about yourself along the way or during the editing process? Because I know that’s when things get real, real [laughs].

Oh yeah [laughs]. Yeah, that shit is really crazy. It’s been such an interesting process being in the show and also directing it. I was really surprised. I have a really hard time with always needing everyone to like me and I don’t know if that’s being a woman or what, but I would find myself being like, “You know like, if you don’t mind…” That’s something I’ve always struggled with my whole life: I need to be happy, funny, and nice 24/7 and that’s fucking insane, you know what I mean? That’s not how humans are, so I think I learned a lot about the need I have to be likable all the time. And it’s funny, when we were talking about marketing the show that word comes up a lot — is the character likable? I feel like I deal with that every day as a woman. I want to be funny, but not too funny. I want to be loud, but not too loud. And that so goes into my eating disorder of, you know, I don’t want to take up too much space as a woman. I’m constantly fighting that. Just the awareness of that stuff has been a really great learning experience.

The editing process is like my ego. You’re sitting in, watching a take, and I’m watching myself in a sex scene, and I’m like, “Oh my god, my arm looks fat,” or “Oh my god, my stomach, oh my god,” you know? And just like, putting that ego aside and trying to tell the best story you can tell — that’s fucking hard. I want to tell the story of how hot I look, but that’s not what this show is about.

Is that one of the reasons why you chose to partner with Wifey.tv? Can you talk a little bit about your relationship with them?

Jill [Soloway] is really like this magical person. She’s they type of mentor who gave me permission to give myself permission. She never told me what to do. She helped me develop my own voice in that she just gave the kind of support to trust myself.  She holds everyone who works with her to a really high standard to be more real — that’s her north star. It’s not about like, how could this be funnier or more likable? It’s like, how could this be the truest version of itself? And it’s just been incredible to be learning from her and everyone at Wifey. It’s just an incredible energy to be around women like that. I felt like I was learning so much each day.

Has The Skinny inspired any other ideas for you? What’s next on your passion project horizon?

I’m freaking out! You know, I’ve done sexual assault, I did eating disorders, I got nothing left [laughs]. Yeah, I’m excited about seeing where I can take the The Skinny and I’m really excited about where I can take this character because I’ve really just gotten started on the journey. There is so much more fucking up that I have to do.

What are some of your favorite web series you turn to?

There’s this new web series out on The Front called The New Deep South and it’s all about telling queer stories. It’s a short documentary series and it’s just so badass. It’s so real and it’s beautifully shot and it just has such a tender, funny way about it. It’s so exciting that you can go on the Internet and that’s the caliber of stuff you’re watching. I also really love High Maintenance. And Awkward Black Girl, of course. You can just binge that. Oh! I love The New York Times’  “Anatomy of a Scene.” I don’t know if that is a web series, but I didn’t go to film school and that’s like free film school for me [laughs].

Your production value reminds me High Maintenance in how these little series are changing the game.

Thank you. Yeah my DP Moira Maurel was really great. That’s kind of the thing — you say web series and everyone kind of goes, “Ugh,” you know? It’s like the ugly stepchild. But I really think for me, it doesn’t matter what it is. It can be a commercial, it can be an app — nobody cares anymore as long as it’s interesting content. We shot it on the Alexa. We shot it like a proper film. It was just about having a committed crew that was just willing to work their ass off.

[Stream The Skinny on Refinery 29 and YouTube]

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Photos: Refinery 20/Wifey.tv