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Insatiable on Netflix: fat shaming or good entertainment?

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Replies

  • fruitily
    fruitily Posts: 75 Member
    @amusedmonkey the strange thing is that it has very little to do with high school. It's more about the pageants. And yes, there are pageants. Didn't expect that from the trailer.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,894 Member
    fruitily wrote: »
    How about an option 3; Neither.

    Because it is not fatshaming. At all. The weight loss is a plot device to make an unpopular girl popular. But she is still an insecure, and terrible person. That said there is more there for people who have lost a lot of weight, about how former fat people see their own bodies and their worth as people.

    It's not good. It has good moments. But all in all it tries way to hard to be edgy. There is too much things just happening, and just situations that are just happening to have wacky things happen.

    I'm about 3 episodes in and agree.

    Loling about the gratuitous male toplessness, and the NSFW nickname for the shirtless guy.
  • Floatingpencil
    Floatingpencil Posts: 25 Member
    I actually really enjoyed this show. In fact, I thought it could have gone a bit further, been a bit darker. My only problem with it was that it seemed to dither between whether to be a teen comedy or a properly dark comedy. Focussing on the latter would make it way more fun.
  • Candyspun
    Candyspun Posts: 370 Member
    Floatingpencil wrote: »
    I actually really enjoyed this show. In fact, I thought it could have gone a bit further, been a bit darker. My only problem with it was that it seemed to dither between whether to be a teen comedy or a properly dark comedy. Focussing on the latter would make it way more fun.
    I totally agree. The main character has turned 18 by the end of season one, so hopefully, they move on a little from the teen angle in season two. I'd definitely love to see it go darker.
  • ashhope94
    ashhope94 Posts: 12 Member
    My fiance and I are both over 300 lbs but we enjoy the show. A lot of the time it feels heavily satirical, but I could see how it could be harmful to someone who's overweight, sensitive and has self esteem issues. Regardless, I dont think its worth demonizing. It's one of those "sounds like a you problem" issues for me.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    Curiosity won me over and I finally watched. I was planning to watch one episode because I don't enjoy teen and high school stuff, but turns out it's not that. I actually enjoyed the mentor character more than I thought I would. I ended up watching it all and I still can't understand the outrage. I found it charming in a dark humor kind of way. Being fat was handled more like a background for the character than the main focus of the show. All kinds of people and personalities got "shamed". Can anyone who felt offended explain?
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,967 Member
    I half-watched most of this show and I can definitely answer it is neither. Lol. I agree with others, like it can't decide if it wants to be a teen drama or a dark comedy type show.
  • Candyspun
    Candyspun Posts: 370 Member
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    Curiosity won me over and I finally watched. I was planning to watch one episode because I don't enjoy teen and high school stuff, but turns out it's not that. I actually enjoyed the mentor character more than I thought I would. I ended up watching it all and I still can't understand the outrage. I found it charming in a dark humor kind of way. Being fat was handled more like a background for the character than the main focus of the show. All kinds of people and personalities got "shamed". Can anyone who felt offended explain?

    A lot of fat acceptance types complained that it used a fat suit. However, I don't understand what they would have preferred the show did? Would they prefer they hired an overweight actor to play Patty, then go on a regime to lose a lot of weight? Or film the actress in all her scenes as a thin person, then get her to put on lots of weight, just so they could film the small handful of fat scenes afterward, for the beginning of the show? I personally think using a fat suit was the healthiest option for the actor.
  • alexa0ne
    alexa0ne Posts: 90 Member
    I haven't seen it yet, but I have seen a lot of ads on Youtube.
    Anyone who has watched Sierra Burgess Is a Loser?
  • Candyspun
    Candyspun Posts: 370 Member
    alexa0ne wrote: »
    I haven't seen it yet, but I have seen a lot of ads on Youtube.
    Anyone who has watched Sierra Burgess Is a Loser?
    I watched it about two nights ago. I loved it.
  • mbaker566
    mbaker566 Posts: 11,233 Member
    alexa0ne wrote: »
    I haven't seen it yet, but I have seen a lot of ads on Youtube.
    Anyone who has watched Sierra Burgess Is a Loser?

    i enjoyed it
  • tbright1965
    tbright1965 Posts: 852 Member
    hesn92 wrote: »
    I half-watched most of this show and I can definitely answer it is neither. Lol. I agree with others, like it can't decide if it wants to be a teen drama or a dark comedy type show.

    I realize it's been a LONG time since I was a teen. But isn't being a teen both drama and, at least from the teen's perspective, a dark comedy?

    It's not always an either - or relationship :wink:
  • RonyMack
    RonyMack Posts: 131 Member
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    It's a fictional series about a girl who loses a bunch of weight and decides to get revenge on the people who were cruel to her when she was overweight.
    Ah. so a fat version of Prom Night?
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    RonyMack wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    It's a fictional series about a girl who loses a bunch of weight and decides to get revenge on the people who were cruel to her when she was overweight.
    Ah. so a fat version of Prom Night?

    But with less stabbing (I think).
  • vanityy99
    vanityy99 Posts: 2,583 Member
    I’ve watched every episode I didn’t find it offensive.
  • kiela64
    kiela64 Posts: 1,447 Member
    jennk5309 wrote: »
    I'm about 7 episodes in and here are my thoughts - it's trashy as Hell and I love it.

    Exactly! This is a soap opera comedy, where everything and everyone is over the top and unreal and I love it!

    And I honestly can’t understand the body shaming issue because they have actual realistic characters interact with the main and contrast, like the girl who was also plus sized in the pageant & dating her bff was very much a realism counter, showing that the characters and the situations are not following logic. And there are so many moments of “your logic is messed up”.

    Maybe it’s just how the trailer was edited? But the show itself I think is very PC and ridiculously over the top. Think Scream Queens, Riverdale, teen-comedy-horror-soap. if those things aren’t your jam you won’t like it, but it’s not ever saying being fat is bad - it makes a ton of points to show that it’s how people treat fat people, and also the main character is not a good or bad person for being fat/thin. She doesn’t get any pity moral points for being fat either, she’s still terrible!
  • Evelyn_Gorfram
    Evelyn_Gorfram Posts: 706 Member
    edited October 2018
    I've seen the first two episodes and I'm enjoying the series. It's a cerebrally light, comedically dark, satire expressed through the teen/trash/soap opera milieu. It's painted in broad strokes, and some of the humor is very crass, but there are some subtleties here and there. It's entertainment and not much more, but what else should we want from entertainment to be?

    (The one bothersome thing about it for me is that it recalls my childhood fantasy, as a real-life fat kid, of having to have my jaw wired shut for a few months.)

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