TV’s unhealthy obsession with fat shaming is disturbingly Insatiable™
Anu Olayebo
On the 10th of August 2018, Netflix released the first (and let’s be honest, what should have been the only) episode of their new show, ‘Insatiable’. Being a personal lover of revenge plots, as well as an undeniable and devotional stan to my childhood Disney hero, Debby Ryan, it was only right for me to give the show a fighting chance. This was, in fact, despite the few things I had heard here and there by certain individuals, but whatever, I didn’t really care. At any rate, I was determined to properly divulge into- what seemed to be at the time- the next series I’d be hopelessly in love with for a significant chunk of my life. But before I could fully commit, I decided to watch the a few trailers as well as read some of the things people were saying online and my, my, my what a mess.
At first, I wasn’t all that bothered with idea of ‘Fatty Patty’, the cliche high school outcast, turning into skinny Patty, the girl admired by literally everyone for her dramatic, yet admirable, change. Honestly, like everyone else, I love a good makeover plot, and a lot of other people do, which is why timeless classics such as ‘Clueless’ and ‘The Princess Diaries’ are still praised even now. Rather, the problem began when I searched Twitter afterwards, only to find a few, real-life ‘Fatty Pattys’ who felt incredibly disrespected and wronged. Was this show telling them that losing weight is the only way to become confident and respected? Even though they were perfectly fine and healthy as they were?
But seriously, we all know that society is pretty messed up in a lot of ways, yet, that’s exactly why people should complain whenever things like this pop up in the public eye- to make sure it doesn’t happen again and so that, baby step by baby step, society can change into something that’s a bit better to live in.
To be honest, it probably would’ve been all fine and dandy if skinny Patty at some point learned that revenge wasn’t the only answer to her bullies and that losing weight wasn’t the only way she could confront them. But according to Jenna Guillaume from Buzzfeed, throughout the entire first season, the show makes no effort to improve upon its fatphobic message, which is rather disappointing to hear. Sure, it’s easy to put a skinny actress in a fat suit and then take it off when the cameras are off and the scenes done. But in real life, losing weight is not that easy and takes an incredible amount of will and effort to do so. Nobody should be forced to do such a strenuous thing by any bully, show or movie if they don’t personally want to.
The problem is, that though there’s been more than enough backlash against ‘Insatiable’, there will be another show or movie, like this, or even worse, at some point. For some reason, those big guys in the entertainment can’t seem to stop making fat shaming movies and plastering their narrow ideals for beauty everywhere, despite all the hate it gets every single time. Why? Because any publicity is good publicity and people can’t stop watching fat shaming movies either- the public feeds the gluttony of these greedy producers with their money and time, ironically complaining all the while.
So here’s an idea. Maybe, just maybe, if we all just stop watching these kinds of demonising shows and telling ourselves not to care and to just laugh along, they’ll eventually stop appearing, and then maybe society can finally change for the better.
