The first thing to know about “Maddie’s Secret” is that you have permission to laugh.

Writer-director-star John Early’s melodrama may “play it straight.” But this satiric farce is a direct parody of a “Disease of the Week” TV melodrama starring Meredith Baxter (“Kate’s Secret”) way back in 1986.

Comic actor and writer Early of TV’s “Search Party” and “The Comeback” dons drag and stars as a married chef and aspiring food influencer washing dishes and doing prep at a foodie streaming channel — GourMaybe — hoping for a break, hoping her “secret” doesn’t derail it.

Maddie endures the insults and fat-shaming of the channel’s British star, Emily (Claudia O’Dougherty) and their sexist producer-boss Zach (Conner O’Malley) because someday, she hopes to get her recipes and culinary stylings out there for the world to see.

“I’m tired of being such a good girl” and selfless employee, she breathlessly whines.

But meeting her as she’s jogging to work gives us our first clue of what “Maddie’s Secret” is. Her husband (Eric Rahill) and lesbian bestie at work Deena (Kate Berlant) may ogle and flatter her looks. But this foodie has “issues” with food.

The stress of being “discovered” when adoring hubbie Jake videos and edits her creating a dish at home — she goes viral — amps up anxiety over her secret “shame.” And the hot restaurant-set TV drama “The Boar” (“The Bear,” anyone?) needs a culintary consultant. This could be Maddie’s moment.

But lying to Jake and Deena, dealing with her bitter, fat-shaming mother (Kristen Johnson of “Mom” and “Third Rock from the Sun”) sends Maddie over the edge and into the hospital.

“She just couldn’t be happy for me!”

Early utterly commits to this role, mastering every exaggerated affectation of femininity that drag is famous for. Hair-tosses to winces of hurt at every slight and insult, most captured in overly-emotive TV movie close-ups, just heightens the melodrama and underscores the TV movie behavior this movie is mocking.

Early’s script digs for laughs in the fact that the phrase “healthy body” when “complimented” to a weight-sensitive woman is the most cutting insult of all. He trots through “group therapy” tropes — bitchiness and evasion rendered in deft question-and-answer cuts as a baton is passed from patient to therapist to patient denoting who is allowed to “speak.”

“Maddie’s Secret” reminded me of assorted John Waters pre-and-post “Hairspray” parodies. But Camp King Waters rarely pulled his punches. Touchy subject matter aside, Early’s focus here is more on playing it “straight” and on accurate mimicry than cutting edge satire.

A man in drag vomiting as a woman suffering from bulimia may be funny in exaggerated form as a running gag. Once or twice? That plays as insensitive. And Lifetime, where “Disease of the Week” female filmed fiction migrated, is beyond parody at this point.

The pacing is “Disease of the Week” deliberate, for the most part. The third act hospital./therapy and group therapy “types” send up is a grind and the finale as perfunctory as any Lifetime Original Movie, only less amusing.

Johnson, Early, Berlant and “SNL” alumna Vanessa Bayer (as a too-perky patient) turn this into a thumb-wrestling match for this lady chef’s soul, worth the occasional grin and a guffaw or two, but not really delivering on the camp and cringy possibilities.

And as for subjects the out-actor Early has permission to mock, I’m not sure bulimia sufferers signed off on his drag farce on foodies and eating disorders. One person’s puking punchline is another’s “punching down,” and that isn’t as funny as he seems to think.

Rating: Unrated, sex, profanity, eating disorders

Cast: John Early, Kate Berlant, Claudia O’Dougherty, Eric Rahill, Conner O’Malley, Gordon Landenberger, Vanessa Bayer and Kristen Johnson

Credits:Scripted and directed by John Early. A Magnolia Pictures release.

Running time: 1:38