Hot takes on hot flashes

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‘There’s no Are You There, God? It’s Me, Menopause.”

That’s an observation Jennifer Whalen’s character makes to Meredith MacNeill’s in the first episode of Small Achievable Goals, their new coming-of-middle-age comedy about menopause as experienced by two very different women.

It’s also something Whalen and MacNeill were thinking about as the show’s co-creators and writers.

“When I started to go through (menopause), I felt like there was no road map and I literally was like, ‘Where is Judy Blume?’” says Whalen, who along with MacNeill, starred and executive produced the sketch-comedy series Baroness Von Sketch Show.

“I remember before I got my period reading (author Blume’s landmark YA novel) Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, and I was so excited about it. It just helped me make that transition.”

“You really felt, with Judy Blume, you had someone that was speaking to you through that phase,” MacNeill adds.

“You could go to a local library, you could ask for it. You could always feel spoken to or seen. And I think with menopause, it’s happening more and more, this generation speaking about it more, but it was like, ‘Who is the Judy Blume for us?’”

And so, they decided to be the Judy Blume for each other — and for everyone.

Premièring tonight at 8 p.m. on CBC (and available today on CBC Gem), Small Achievable Goals follows driven, sarcastic podcaster Julie (Whalen) and outgoing “I’m a hugger!” beauty influencer Kris (MacNeill), total opposites who are thrown together to work on a new show and end up navigating menopause — and all the sweaty, bloody baggage that comes with it — as friends.

“We love an old-school odd couple like Laverne and Shirley, Cagney and Lacey, even Lenny and Squiggy — we’re big, big fans of that old-school dynamic,” MacNeill says.

“It was really fun for us to do, like ‘This would bug this person if they did that. We should build that character trait.’”

Small Achievable Goals is also very intentionally set in the workplace. On top of already having to navigate soaking hot flashes, torrential bleeding, anxiety, brain fog, insomnia, itchy ears (WTF?), mood swings and body odour — all of which can be totally unpredictable, by the way — many menopausal and perimenopausal women have to manage all that at work.

“The workplace for comedy makes me laugh, because we’re all agreeing to a set of rules,” Whalen says.

“You behave in the workplace in a very different way than you behave with your friends, or with your family — but it is a family of a different sort.

“I think there’s something interesting about those parameters, and what it is to be going through something that’s deeply personal in a public space.”

Whalen and MacNeill wanted to make a show that was real, relatable and funny — but also hopeful. So many conversations around menopause (if they happen at all) focus on life-upending symptoms or horror stories of medical gaslighting.

“I kept trying to research, like, what happens on the other side? What am I moving towards?” Whalen says. “And I could never really find the answer. So part of the show is looking for that answer.”

“And top tip, all of menopause isn’t bad,” MacNeill adds. “I think we always lean to the negative first, because that’s the human protective layer. And we should, because we need science to catch up to what’s happening to our bodies.

“But just so you know, there’s a lot of joy, there’s a lot of fun in menopause, as you’ll see from the show.”

Indeed, Small Achievable Goals shows us that this is a phase in life when women are most themselves — their most confident, their most powerful — and yet are made to feel irrelevant and invisible by a youth-obsessed, anti-aging culture. (In the first episode, Julie is passed over for a promotion; Kris is told she needs a younger co-host.)

“I think it’s pretty convenient in patriarchal society that when women are at their strongest and smartest and at the highest level of self-acceptance, they’ll be like, ‘Oh, you don’t count.’ So I would say I think we all need to ask ourselves that question,” MacNeill says.

“And then starting off with the positives that we learned: giving less of a sh—, I think, is a pretty exciting place to live.”

“I’m just deeply OK with who I am… not OK with; I love who I am,” Whalen says. “I think my priorities are better. I’m more about the things that I love and the people that I love, and I’m not doing things I think I’m supposed to do anymore.”

“I think women are finding out that they’re deeply sexy at this age,” MacNeill adds. “I think that’s terrifying for misogyny. I think that they know what they like in bed. I think they’re open to a lot more things in terms of their sexuality.”

There’s so much shame and control around being a woman, MacNeill says. Breaking away from that was a big reason why they wanted to make this show.

“We wanted the show to feel like a really dear friend,” MacNeill says. “The chipping away of shame — if that’s what this show can do, that would be incredible.”

The Judy Blumes of menopause have arrived.

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com