The trailer for Netflix’s new show Insatiable was released last week, and the internet was not impressed. Nor was I, frankly, and despite my best efforts to avoid things that I know will annoy me, I familiarised myself with the show, the critiques, and even the defences of it (mostly coming from the cast and crew, unsurprisingly).
Thanks to the trailer, we know some of the things we can expect from the show. Star Debby Ryan in a fat suit, check. Offensive stereotypes about fat people, check. Perpetuating dangerous ideas about weight loss, check. No actual fat people seemingly involved, check.
The trailer starts with Debby Ryan’s character, Patty (which conveniently rhymes with Fatty!), being bullied for her weight. It also shows her eating on the couch with her best friend while everyone else is enjoying high school by attending football games, making out with each other, etc.
Over the summer, Patty has her jaw wired shut after she gets punched in the face, and as a result, she loses a tonne of weight. Now that she’s no longer Fatty Patty, she decides to get revenge on everyone who bullied her. It’s a fairly common tale of revenge, with an added element of appearance-based bullying.
The show’s creator, Lauren Gussis, who previously worked on Dexter, defended the show, saying “This is my expression of my own process. My own pain. And so I would never mock myself in a way that wasn’t loving. It’s my way of sharing my own experience with the world. So it’s not coming from an outsider’s perspective pointing a finger, it’s from inside.”
This is my truth. @insatiable_ pic.twitter.com/xbs3YtueCQ
— Lauren Gussis (@GussisLauren) July 21, 2018
Ryan’s defence of the show also talks about her own issues with body image, as well as the usefulness of comedy as a coping mechanism.
— debbyryan (@DebbyRyan) July 21, 2018
Alyssa Milano, who also stars in the show, defended it on Twitter too:
We are not shaming Patty. We are addressing (through comedy) the damage that occurs from fat shaming. I hope that clears it up. Also, this article does a good job of explaining it more: https://t.co/WoR8R7TjqR #Insatiable https://t.co/GFkDdsn1uh
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) July 19, 2018
Unfortunately, while their intentions may have been noble and born from a desire to reflect her own experiences, the ways we talk about and frame our own experiences doesn’t exist in a vacuum. We’re all influenced by a society that tells us fat people are unworthy of respect and unlovable, and shows that depict fat people as victims of bullying who are only capable of standing up for themselves once they lose weight and ‘get hot’ do not help challenge these notions.
Ryan, Gussis and Milano aren’t the right team to bring a story about the damage fat-shaming can do to a mainstream audience. Conventionally attractive, thin women with little active experience with feminism that deals with body image issues are not the right people to do a story like this justice. If a single fat woman had actually been involved in the show’s production, the decision to use a fat suit would not have left the drawing board.
Ahhh yes, a fat girl could never stand up for herself while fat and of course she has to be assaulted and have her mouth wired shut before she becomes her best self, her skinny self. Good to know!
— roxane gay (@rgay) July 22, 2018
I’ve been fat my entire life, from before I started kindergarten until now, at the ripe old age of 24. I was bullied for it, amongst other things, as a kid, but I never underwent a transformation that allowed me to ‘get hot’ and therefore get revenge.
They say the best revenge is living well, and I’ve largely found that to be true. Perhaps that will end up being the takeaway from this show: that losing weight, becoming ‘hot’ and getting revenge don’t actually help Patty, or anyone, feel any better. I hope I’m right.
But in the meantime, I’m worried about what messages this show is sending vulnerable people; that their worth is determined by those around them, that it’s determined by how much they adhere to traditional beauty standards, that their story is best told by someone wearing a comically unrealistic fat suit.
I won’t be watching the show to see if my prediction comes true. Instead, I’ll be rewatching My Mad Fat Diary – a show that treats its fat protagonist as a real person, not a plot device – and I recommend you do too.