Last year, Netflix attracted controversy for the drama 13 Reasons Why, which some critics said romanticised youth suicide.
Now, the streaming giant finds itself in a similarly uncomfortable position over another series that mines the social pressures of teenage life.
On July 19th, a single one-minute-52-second trailer of Insatiable, a Netflix comedy-drama that has yet to air, was released, from which it can be inferred that the story concerns an overweight girl named Patty who is the victim of school bullying. Owing to a plot device, she has to have her jaw wired shut during a summer holiday. The side-effect of this is that she loses weight. She returns to school looking like the classic high school princess – and hellbent on bloody revenge.
From the looks of the trailer, chaos ensues. More than 200,000 people have signed a petition calling for Netflix to cancel the release of Insatiable over claims that it engages in “fat-shaming”. The petition argues that the show perpetuates “not only the toxicity of diet culture, but the objectification of women’s bodies”.
In its argument before it begins, the petition states that the show will "cause eating disorders." It also states that the trailer has already triggered people who actively suffer from them. That sentiment has been echoed on social media such as Twitter.
“The toxicity of this series is bigger than just this one particular series,” Florence Given, who started the petition, wrote. “This is not an isolated case, but part of a much larger problem that I can promise you every single woman has faced in her life, sitting somewhere on the scale of valuing their worth on their bodies, to be desirable objects for the male gaze. That is exactly what this series does”.
Another critic on Twitter said the show was “disgusting”, and argued the plot “endorses changing who you are, not eating ‘to be pretty’, and is just another story insinuating plus-sized people should lose weight to fit in”.
Members of Insatiable’s cast and crew have defended the show on Twitter. Creator Lauren Gussis said it was based on her own experiences as a teenager.
As the controversy was bubbling away, one of the show's stars, Alyssa Milano, also went live on Periscope to talk about the trailer.
"Of course fat-shaming is wrong … and disordered eating is bad and something that I have suffered with in my life, as well as being fat-shamed," Milano said, "We are not shaming Patty. We are addressing (through comedy) the damage that occurs from fat-shaming."
She added she hoped people did not judge a 12-episode series by its two-minute trailer, "like we judge people at first glance".
From the sound of it, Netflix has no intention of canceling Insatiable. Time will tell if the show treats the issue as respectfully as it purports: Insatiable drops on Aug. 10.
Source: Financial Times