More than 120,000 people have signed a Change.org petition begging Netflix to cancel the release of its upcoming show “Insatiable” because the show commits the unforgivable error of suggesting a girl might be more attractive if she loses weight.
Deadline describes the show as a “dark comedy,” starring Debby Ryan as “Patty, a high school student who has been bullied, ignored, and underestimated by those around her because of her weight. But life changes quickly after she has her jaw wired shut following a punch in the face, and finds herself suddenly thin.”
The show is reviving a pretty tired cliche: fat girl gets picked on, fat girl loses weight, fat girl suddenly becomes popular among everyone who doesn’t recognize her, fat girl teaches everyone a lesson about acceptance and how we’re all beautiful on the inside. Approximately 234% of all mid-1990’s teen movies followed this exact plot.
“Patty,” though, from the show’s trailer, doesn’t seem to be the hero. Once thin, she becomes the show’s antagonist, apparently obsessed with exacting her — often violent — revenge on everyone who made her miserable.
As a culture, we’re now conditioned to view all entertainment through the lens of social justice, so the show immediately became the subject of scorn regardless of plot.
“For so long, the narrative has told women and young impressionable girls that in order to be popular, have friends, to be desirable for the male gaze, and to some extent be a worthy human … that we must be thin,” the petition says.
Netflix, the signers declare, perpetuates “not only the toxicity of diet culture, but the objectification of women’s bodies,” and they will accept nothing short of cancellation. “The damage control of releasing this series will be far worse, insidious and sinister for teenage girls, than it will be damaging for Netflix in their loss of profit.”
Netflix has yet to respond to the petition, but it hasn’t responded well to similar pleas before. Parents groups who requested that the series “13 Reasons Why” be age-controlled were ignored. Conservatives who requested Michelle Wolf’s comedy series be pulled off the air after she participated in a “star-spangled salute to abortion” were similarly brushed off.