In Hulu’s Shrill, Queer Characters Get Sidelined for a Straight Story
The Aidy Bryant-starring series is a triumphant exploration of self-love, but gives its supporting cast little chance to share the spotlight.
Since its debut, Shrill — Hulu’s new adaptation of Lindy West’s popular essay collection — has received a ton of positive coverage for its progressive messages, body-positive representation, and Bryant’s performance as the lead character, Annie. The praise is well deserved, and though it takes time to hit its stride, Shrill is easily one of the most exciting new shows this year. That said, as much as I loved it, Shrill isn’t perfect — and I walked away from its quick, six-episode first season a little uneasy with some of the ways it portrays its LGBT characters.
But first, let’s recap: In Shrill, we follow Annie — a budding writer who lives in Portland and works for a hip culture site — as she comes to terms with the way the world sees her, and the way she sees herself. The series quickly reveals that Annie has trouble standing up for what she wants and deserves in any part of her life, and over the course of the series, she starts to confront the fatphobia and poor treatment she faces every day — to mixed results. Annie is funny and easy to root for, thanks in no small part to Bryant’s endearing, down-to-earth performance.
While Shrill’s early episodes have compelling moments, they’re somewhat weighed down by the conventionality of one of the show’s main storylines, the relationship between Annie and her sort-of-boyfriend, Ryan. In short: he’s a man-child who treats her like a fuckbuddy and makes her sneak out of the back door when they’re finished, brings his roommates to their first real date, and forgets their second altogether. He’s a recognizable archetype, and while a decent foil for Annie, he doesn’t add much to the fabric of the show. Annie’s ability to accept and value herself is most aptly depicted in other areas, like in the series’ indisputably-best-episode, “Pool.” Written by Samantha Irby, the episode is a depiction of fatness and self-love unlike anything I’ve seen on TV, taking place at a “Fat Babe Pool Party.” While there, Annie goes from tentative, fully-clothed, and self-conscious to — with the encouragement of other women — dancing in a crowd, stripping her clothes off, and jumping in the water without hesitation. It’s a joyful moment, and watching Annie fight through her fear and find freedom offers a look at what this show can be when it’s at its best.
Unfortunately, much of the supporting cast aren’t given material that lets them live up to this potential. Instead of treating the people of color and queer characters in Annie’s orbit as complex and nuanced in their own right, it often feels like their role is to diversify the white/cis/straight romance which dominates Shrill’s running time. A collection of personal essays like West’s original book naturally forms through the singular perspective of its writer. But Shrill is not strictly autobiographical — it’s a fictionalized adaptation. This change of medium shifts the expectations for representation in storytelling; we’re no longer reading a memoir necessarily constrained to one woman’s thoughts, experiences, and inner life, we’re watching a show about a world full of other people, whose motivations, histories, and unique struggles are — sadly, in the case of Shrill — left largely blank.
Even the incredible pool party episode mentioned earlier shows, in small ways, the differences in how the series treats Annie and how it treats other characters. While Annie walks into the party timid and fully clothed (in jeans, nonetheless), her best friend and roommate, Fran, who is a Black lesbian woman, arrives clad in a bathing suit without the slightest hint of self-consciousness. In isolation, there’s nothing wrong with this moment — it’s powerful to see Fran embody her confidence. But in the broader scheme of things, the show takes Fran’s confidence for granted. We don’t learn much at all about her own path of coming to love and accept herself in a racist, homophobic, and image-obsessed culture — as far as we know, her journey is either finished or happening off-screen, which makes her role feel mostly limited to being a sounding board for Annie’s problems.
Sex and relationships are a key point where Annie and Fran contrast. It’s true that Annie’s love scenes are meaningful moments in her growth — particularly her tryst with Fran’s brother, Lamar. But rather than being similarly celebrated for her sexual agency, Fran is framed as sexually liberated in a lesser, almost womanizing way. This reaches its peak when Annie — in what is framed as one of the moments that mark her developing ability to assert herself — berates Fran for how she treats the women she dates. Annie compares Fran’s immature behavior to Ryan’s, while also somehow attempting to stick up for him. It doesn’t exactly add up, and it leaves the series’ most extensive conversation around Fran’s dating life as definitively negative. Fran — and the show itself — moves on largely unbothered, aside from a single line which references the conversation later, and we’re back to Annie’s story.
Beyond Fran, the show features two characters played by queer Asian actors, something I’m not sure can be said of any other recent streaming titles. Tony, the partner of Annie’s boss, is played by Joel Kim Booster. We first meet him at his art show, which is essentially a series of gratuitous photos of his own nude, muscular body. It’s a scene that provides a stark contrast to Annie’s insecurities, and it’s certainly a recognizable trope: the gay “artist” who’s kind of just a narcissist is not new to any queer person with an Instagram account, but without any desire to even nod to the pressures that may drive a gay man, particularly an Asian gay man, to be obsessed with physical perfection, he’s left feeling like a caricature — another queer person whose potential story is flattened to make way for Annie’s.
Patti Harrison, who plays Ruthie, an assistant at Annie’s office, is one of the show’s most consistently funny side players. If you’ve seen videos of Patti or listened to her podcast, you know that she’s probably one of the funniest comedians working right now, so I was disappointed to see that her screen time is incredibly limited. It’s rare and wonderful to get to see a trans person simply exist and be funny in a well-written show, but it’s easy to question why an actor with so much charisma and potential to connect with themes of self-acceptance wouldn’t even get a story arc, while there’s a full storyline about Annie’s boyfriend doing shrooms with a dog. It often feels as if the show has no desire to explore the worlds of its LGBT characters — only to set them up as confident contrasts to the issues Annie’s working through. While Annie and Ryan both get the chance to grow and change, everyone else feels constrained to an uncomplicated, unchanging level of characterization.
When not managing her romantic entanglements, Annie spends much of the show dealing with the fat-shaming troll who comments obsessively on her articles. However, the primary antagonist — and another queer character — is her boss, Gabe. Played by John Cameron Mitchell, Gabe acts as a sort of gay, nail-polish brandishing Miranda Priestly, minus the elegance. Throughout the series, his mistreatment of Annie is constant. He attacks and demeans her for her size through language both coded and direct, which largely comes to a head when Annie arrives late to a mandatory work biking trip. His behavior is horrible but easily relatable to anyone of size, and his constant sparring with Annie creates some of the show’s most cutting, hard-to-watch depictions of fatphobia.
In the season finale, the two finally have a true confrontation over his behavior. The scene is a triumphant one, with Annie demanding better for herself by quitting her job at Gabe’s publication, even after how hard she’s worked to get there. But before that, Annie manages to slip in a somewhat questionable line. “You’re a gay man, shouldn’t you be sympathetic to this?” Annie asks Gabe.
In the broader context of the show, this line made me cringe a little. A narrative and a protagonist who have shown little attention to the struggles of its LGBT characters is only now, in the context of an accusation, acknowledging our experience of marginalization. It’s not that Gabe — like the many fatphobic gay men in the world — doesn’t deserve to be derided, but that the line encapsulates Shrill’s recurring flaw: it’s self-assured in its progressiveness, without ever taking the time to earn the goodwill of LGBT audiences through more than casting-level representation. The presence of queer characters doesn’t impact the narrative DNA of Shrill, which instead remains, aside from its powerful messages about self-love, a conventional story about straight people doing straight things, while LGBT people are just there — more fixture than crucial or complex part of the story.
Does that mean Shrill isn’t important, well-written, or worth watching? Not at all. I wouldn’t have felt dissatisfied with the show’s shortcomings if I hadn’t enjoyed its successes so much, and if I hadn’t believed in the potential of its writers and actors to give the audience more. This series is the kind of story we need to see more of on TV: honest, intimate, and empowering. But as a queer person who has struggled with self-image, who saw myself in many of Annie’s struggles, who got emotional at that pool-party dance scene just like everybody else, I hope this show can become a better, more expansive version of itself. People of color and the LGBT community, particularly gay men of color, trans people, and non-binary people all face unique variations of pressures around their bodies that a cis/straight woman like Annie never would. No show can be everything to everyone, but if Shrill wants to speak to broader experiences of fatphobia and navigating self-image, it needs to expand past a limited perspective and give its already-incredible supporting cast a true chance to shine.
