To feel nobody should watch the new Netflix show "insatiable"

[spanishrobot]

I'm a young woman who like many other young women in my generation has struggled with weight issues and ED's.

This new Netflix show is about an unpopular "fat" girl who becomes skinny over a summer break and goes on to become popular. There was a huge petition by a young woman named Florence Given who tried to get the show cancelled due to a huge proportion of young girls and women speaking out saying the advert for the show alone was enough to trigger their eating disorder. I believe it got over a hundred thousand signatures.

The show has gone on to be shown on Netflix and I honestly dread to think of how many young girls would be influenced by the poor story line. Why in 2018 are we still telling young women the only way they will be attractive and liked is if they are skinny and attractive? I find it horrifying.

I'm really fat and have suffered from Ed most of my life, I fucking love insatiable! It's funny and weird and dark.

People just need to get a grip

I just added this to my list the other day. I'm going to need another maternity leave to get through everything at this rate.

I don't plan to watch it, but I made my own mind up about that, not based on a petition. I've seen a few articles which obviously pick up on the most controversial parts and nothing else, but the premise itself doesn't appeal to me. Losing a significant amount of weight in a short time due to a serious physical assault seems an odd choice, and personally I loathe fat suits as they never look like a fat person, they look like a thin person in a fat suit for comedic purposes. Maybe worth watching just to see if she does that weird fat-suit walk actors do, like acting the weight of coffee in an empty cup they try and act the weight in a fat suit and it looks bizarre.

Other snippets I've read include a parent having sex with a school child and weird cancer jokes? I don't know how exaggerated that is by the article writers and reviewers, it may only be in passing but makes me not want to spend time watching. The unrealistic assault leading to significant weight loss and the fat-suit, along with I'm sure many fat puns and jokes, make me too uneasy to watch, the rest make me think I wouldn't be entertained so not watch. Either way, I made my own mind up. It'd actually be a lot worse for me if they went the route of a miracle pill leading to the weightloss, or anything that someone could find and emulate, it'd be terrible if someone vulnerable tried to copy a get-thin-quick and ended up with health issues. At least the show didn't go that route.

I watched most of the first episode last night. I thought it was very good and it’s got potential.

Ive watched a couple of episodes and really enjoyed it! It definitely had a strong message of behind thin doesn’t make you happy!

I’ve watched a few episodes, I found it funny. I think it sends a message that even tho patty has now lost weight she still suffers with her body image. I think it sends a positive message that you can lose weight be healthier but actually it doesn’t fix everything in you’re life. Mentally you need to fix you’re mental state and learn to love yourself as well eating healthier and exercise. I love the fact that patty still struggling with wanting to eat more as a former big girl this is very true.

We finished it in one sitting. Many of the reviewers still laying into it won't have watched it all as it takes 9 hours to do so. Many of them have jumped on the bandwagon to bash it rather than judging it on its merits. Some seem to have missed context and tone completely.
Having warned DD they probably won't get a second season because of all the fallout we filled the hole watching Miss Congeniality this morning
Dietland on Prime is excellent btw but the last two episodes are not as satisfying.

Other snippets I've read include a parent having sex with a school child and weird cancer jokes?

SPOILERS
The teenage boy is having sex with the pageant mom who falsely accuses the same boy's father of molesting her daughter. She is later arrested for statutory rape. She and her daughter are villainous cartoonish pageant stereotypes. The boy says he did it just to get laid but later concedes he was getting back at his father by sleeping with his enemy.
There is only one joke which is in bad taste - when the lead's friend warns her that her mentor - who she has a crush on - could be a child molester (he isn't) she says something along the lines of well, i might have a chance then.
The charity the pageant mentor and his wife throw a gala for is anal cancer. There are three things which could offend - the son comments that the ribbons are brown (''That was the only colour left'') the villainous pageant mom mentioned above heckles with inappropriate fart noises when the mentor is talking about symptoms (you are just meant to see how horrendous she is) and the mentor yells out is your tan really more important than my anal cancer when his other nemesis interrupts his speech.
It's up to you whether you watch it or not. Different tastes and the second season will be dead in the water now anyway.
The parody of teen girls-pygmalion-mean girls etc either appeals or it doesn't (and there's horror exorcism stuff later in the series). It is all very cartoonish, outlandish, OTT melodrama with some black humour.
I also thought (bearing in mind I am big) that one bingeing scene was very powerful. When the lead starts eating through a birthday cake filmed in one take and leading to silent credits, you feel it. It is absolutely not played for laughs.
The lead is damaged and has anger issues. Her behaviour is not because she was once fat (although long term bullying won't have helped her psyche) but because she was neglected. She reacts quickly before thinking through the consequences and blows up her mentor's life twice without pause for thought. But I don't need all my shows to have characters that are nice - here they are all flawed, irrespective of what they look like.

Sounds great 👍😁

I will probably watch it now OP due to your post. I hate censorship even more than I hate ridiculous programmes about ex fat girls finding happiness 'cos they've lost some weight.

She doesn't find happiness...she isn't happy. It is made absolutely clear that losing weight does not improve self-esteem, make a damaged person whole or change a person's self-destructive tendencies nor does it change the reasons they comfort ate in the first place. Also that external beauty means fuck all if the person acts in an ugly way.

YAbu. Reading other pps take on the program is interesting to see different views on the weight story line. It sounds dark but I want to watch it now.

I just googled it. I wouldn't say she was very skinny, I haven't seen it so I do not know how she lost the weight. She looks a normal weight to me.

I watched the trailer for Insatiable. I would not go as far as ban it (primary because we would then have to ban 2/3 of cinema/telly as a logical extension). But it looks utterly shit.

The plot looks shallow. But the worst thing is the overall message that a woman can act only when she is fuckable. Why could the main character not have her revenge when she was fat?

Dietland, on the other hand, is a great show. Totally different mentality. It has depth, comexity, realism, and a smashing main character who is totally not defined by her weight even though the show is anchored around it at the start.

By all means be annoyed.just don’t expect me to be annoyed.im not

op. You need to watch the show before “shaming” it.

If you want to avoid seeing thin people, then stopping watching tv would be a good start.

Weight issues all my life here. I'm liking it, didn't even equate it to my own life. It is a very obviously far fetched comedy drama. It is also on Netflix which means if you have a sensitive child it is easy to control their viewing.

Why could the main character not have her revenge when she was fat?

Because - and do not come for me, I didn't write it - her revenge lies in the goal of winning beauty pageants as a fuck you to all her detractors.

She does not actually avenge herself properly on her peers (eg the orchestra) throughout the whole series, only in her interactions with one other prom queen and the homeless guy who punched her. The trailer does not reflect the show accurately.

There is one pageant contestant who is a black, lesbian larger lass who does them to show younger girls you can be big and beautiful but the has always gone to two other thinner girls, - one is biracial, the other asian - but they are both slim because in beauty pageants outsize does not win.

I guess you could have gone for a plot with a large beauty queen winning but that would have been criticised too, and could not have been a vehicle for Debbie Ryan unless she wore the much criticised fat suit throughout. Whether you could have had a pageant-coaching plot with a different plus-size actress entirely, as talent, interview and poise are as important as physicality and it not getting flak for a condescending deceipt I don't know. The series is camp and bitchy in tone.
The source material (very loosely)for anyone interested was
www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/magazine/the-pageant-king-of-alabama.html

Now taking general revenge when she was fat, I could get behind but even then you might have had criticism for the portrayal of a plus-sized girl as a vengeful bitch. Even She-devil got some of that iirc (and she had surgery ffs as part of her revenge on her ex).

I always watch a show before I judge it. I fucking love Insatiable. Onto Episode 9 right now. The trailer doesn't represent the series at all.

Those saying not to watch or judging before watching it are similar to fat shakers IMO. Just like you don't want to judge a person based on looks, don't judge a show just based on initial premise and trailer.

Oh and if someone tells me.not to watch something, I'll bloody well try it to see what it's really about. I don't take another's word for it. If I then don't like it I won't watch. So if you don't like, don't watch it. That's your best way of getting it canceled.

I watched the first episode last night, partly because of all the hype. I didn't enjoy it at all, nothing to do with the storyline, just that it was horribly overacted. Not my style of show, but not everyone is me, and I don't dictate what other people can choose to watch based on my viewing preferences.

Oh god, it’s terrible. Is it supposed to be funny/a satire?

Although it’s probably perfect for the posters here who are watching it just to stick it to the OP. 👌

I'm on the fence with this one. I've had an eating disorder and I know shows like this can be triggering, but then if you know your triggers then you control what you see. For example, diets and fitspo trigger me, so I unfollow or mute any one on social media who speaks about dieting, etc and I defo don't watch shows about diets.

There will always always be shows like this and although there does need to be more fat positive films and series, you can't censor or ban everything you find offensive. Netflix are going to show this programme and some people will love it, some will hate it, as with every other series out there.

There will always always be shows like this and although there does need to be more fat positive films and series

I agree in that larger actors should be cast as there are many overweight actors now. I think there needs to be positive body images though at the same time been overweight is very unhealthy. We are all excepting it. I recently watched an reality ambulance filmed in Ireland. I was shocked how over weight the staff on the front line are, garda and paramedics. I think it is only going to get worse and excepting it as normal is not the answer.

I thought the joke about the girl having a crush on the alleged child molester “I might have a chance then” was excellent! But there is a lot of things people can be offended by. The stuff on anal cancer is obviously done for laughs, as is the eating disorder stuff.

A bit like finding things in “Unbreakable Kimmy Scmidt” regarding being kidnapped, locked away for a decade and sexually abused, the mocking death in “the good place”

I’ve still only watched the first episode but yes it’s great, 4 stars!

Thanks to the op I stuck it on last night and I'm three episodes deep. Can't wait till dd is in bed so I can watch some more. It's really funny. There's a reason she's loses the weight too and its not all a happy 'ending' (beginning??) because of the weight loss..