Insatiable - How Bad is Netflix's Fat-Shaming Drama?

Last month, Netflix released the trailer for its new show ‘Insatiable’ and, as it appeared to fat-shame its central character, everyone kicked off. 

 

At least they did in my echo chamber. Who knows whether that’s illustrative of the web as a whole? I only really ‘like’ posts from Brian May’s Twitter account and a Usain Bolt fan site, which I think confuses the algorithms a bit. To be honest most of the reactions I saw to the Insatiable trailer had a Jamaican glam rock vibe, which I’m not sure is representative. 

Imagine 'coming of rage'.

Anyway, Insatiable is the story of an overweight teenage girl, Patty, who becomes thin, gains confidence, and wreaks revenge on the people who bullied her. It sounds simple, but having watched the first episode I can tell you that it is not.  

In fact, despite being an episode in, I don't really know what Insatiable is, in that I genuinely wouldn't be able to categorise it and can only just describe it. The closest I can get to a summary right now is 'Hannah Montana meets Desperate Housewives meets a set of Jimmy Carr one-liners from about 2008'. Maybe that's how it was pitched, I don't know. But it's as baffling as it sounds.

Basically, Insatiable has the 'feel' of a children's sitcom. One of those creepy Disney Channel shows aimed at 11-year-olds, but where all the characters are 16-year-olds played by 27-year-olds, and everyone's constantly talking about going on dates but no-one seems to have heard of sex. And it's called something like 'Random High!', and stars 'Corey Fishmore', and you just know that right now Corey Fishmore is, at best, in rehab.

I bet they've got 'gym class' next.

 
That's how it's directed, anyway. Brightly lit, badly acted, and seemingly cast by a grandparent to whom everyone under thirty looks the same. But, just when you think you've misread the press release and Insatiable is actually a kids' show, the plot gets going.

In the first episode, Patty, a teenage girl, punches a homeless man in the face, loses half her body weight, falls in love with an accused paedophile and gets him to coach her in a beauty pageant. I've never seen anything like it. It's like the final level in a Jeremy Kyle video game. I mean how are you supposed to process something that looks like CBBC's 'Kerching!' but is written like a Treehouse of Horror episode of Hollyoaks?

What's more insane is that it's basically all played for laughs. Child molestation, alcoholism, bullying, suicide. All gag-worthy, apparently. It's like watching someone prank-call Samaritans. There's even a comic sub-plot about Patty's secretly lesbian friend Nonnie (short hair, trousers - even her name sounds like a homophobic slur) being in love with her, which feels like it belongs in a misjudged 90s sitcom called 'Dick's Amoray', or 'Friends' (#satire #everyonethinksfriendsisproblematic #it'sactuallynotthatbad #surelythejokeisthatChandlerisuncomfortablewithhisdadbeingtransnotthathisdadistrans #ilovefriends).

A sub-plot is that people think this guy molests children. A sub-plot.

Insatiable is desperate to be 'edgy', then, but what struck me was how it still manages to be juvenile. The show attempts a cancer joke for no reason at all about twenty minutes in, and the best it can muster is the concept of anal cancer. That's it. They're at a fundraiser for anal cancer and the joke is that their nan had anal cancer. Imagine that. Cancer. Of the bum. Incredible. How do you set out to shock your audience and end up with a limp poo joke? It's like if Frankie Boyle started writing a stand-up routine but died halfway through, only for it to be completed by a struggling children's entertainer from the 1970s.

So Insatiable is incompetent and bizarre - but what about the fat-shaming? Well, if I'm honest, it wasn't as bad as I expected. Insatiable doesn't overtly hate fat people. It at the very least thinks the bullies who mocked Patty when she was overweight were wrong. However, its attempts at body positivity are undermined by its inconsistency. It's tough for us to believe the show cares about weight issues when we're asked, repeatedly, to laugh at fat jokes ("She broke his nose...he did try to take away her chocolate bar"). Likewise, moments that should pack an emotional punch (Patty producing a teary speech about being bullied) fail spectacularly due to their context (she is in court for having assaulted a homeless person).

She's about to make a joke about Parkinson's, probably.

As a result, it's one of those rare misfires that appeals to literally no-one. Woke millennials won't like it because it's fatphobic and insensitive, but insensitive fatphobes won't like it because there are more than three women in it and none of them are burned as witches.

You wonder how it got commissioned. These days you only have to glance at social media to get a clear view of what people want, and it's not whatever the hell Insatiable is. No. It's that clip of the Jamaican relay team singing We Are The Champions that's been trending for about four years. I mean come on Netflix, this is simple stuff.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again - My Review

I love ABBA, but hate musicals. 

Not only does this mean I scored 50% on Buzzfeed’s notorious, and in my opinion reductive, ‘How gay are you?’ quiz, but it means I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to see ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’. 

However, realising I could write a snide review, hopefully receive a few ‘likes’ from non-family members and thus harvest some dopamine for the coming winter months, I went for it. 

£15 it cost me. £15.

Now, just a quick disclaimer: it’s very hard to come off well reviewing a film like Here We Go Again. You don’t want to be one of those joyless pricks who hates it, but you also don’t want to be one of those smug, artsy culture critics who gives it four stars then goes home to have a wank about how he isn’t a snob. I’m aiming for a third option where I end up reviewing society as a whole but then brilliantly link it back to the film with a clever metaphor, because I did a sociology degree and feel like I need to justify the £34,000 of debt.

So, what goes on in this year’s all-singing, all-dancing, all-white summer blockbuster? (It is genuinely all-white, apart from, I think, a line-less black waiter. I’m not sure I’m the person to properly discuss racial representation in musicals, but I am confident enough to declare that this ‘seems bad’.) 

Basically, despite having two plots - one set in 1979, the other in the present day - nothing actually happens. There’s more jeopardy in eating a packet of Revels than there is in the entire first hour and ten of Here We Go Again, and the only suspense occurs when it rains a bit and Pierce Brosnan has to try and move some plates beneath a gazebo (he manages it). 

This happens a lot.

Due to there being no tension whatsoever, the singalong moments are spectacularly unearned, emerging from nowhere like a flash mob in a gastroenteritis treatment advert from 2010. And here the film encounters its dilemma: can a big musical set-piece make you feel good if none of the characters have overcome anything to achieve it? To be honest, because the songs are so great and there’s no graphic of a tiny gorilla climbing into a stomach and putting out a fire with a hose, your brain sort of goes along with it. 

Multiple times I started feeling good, which instantly made me feel bad. I was just so angry with my brain for being impressed by all the colours and the sounds and the symmetrical faces. Pathetic. I went to Cambridge. I shouldn’t be enjoying films that don’t have subtitles. And I certainly shouldn’t be enjoying films that don’t have subtext. But fucking hell, there I was, enjoying it, my brain feeding me endorphins against my will as I scrabbled around trying to find something to be snarky about. 

And it’s not even like the set-pieces are well-done. None of the men can sing, everyone’s auto-tuned, and the songs become further and further removed from what’s happening on-screen until it’s some sort of twisted in-joke. The penultimate set-piece, for instance, involves Cher snogging a Spanish hotel manager called Fernando to the song ‘Fernando’, which in the words of ABBA’s Björn is about ‘two old and scarred revolutionaries in Mexico sitting outside at night talking about old memories’. 

 

She looks like the dragon from Shrek IMO.

Yet, still, these atrocities made me smile. It seems the human body has evolved to respond to certain stimuli whether it likes it or not – in this case chord progressions. You wonder why films bother with a plot when in reality we’re just bin bags of DNA that react to anything that might vaguely help us have sex or not die, which apparently includes the music of ABBA. (That said, I sort of feel like my love for ABBA has been more of a contraceptive in the long run). 

So Here We Go Again is a stupid but irritatingly functional feel-good film, and interestingly it’s been argued that this is exactly what we need right now. Because with the news being dominated by Trump, ISIS, and The Labour Party (I’m aiming for balance here), watching someone beautiful cartwheeling through an orchard singing I Have A Dream (she’d had a dream about apples) is the only way of forgetting how sad you are, which is the 2018 equivalent of being happy.

But I disagree. Part of the problem with a film so preposterously escapist is that when you do return to your life, everything seems worse than ever. When I left the cinema I discovered some bird poo on my bike saddle which I cleaned off with a glove, then without thinking threw the glove in the bin. I’d normally shrug this off as a fairly standard bird poo/glove incident, but after watching Here We Go Again I just wanted to cry. There I was, fishing a glove out of a bin, and no-one even broke into song. ‘Bin’ rhymes with ‘win’ so it could have easily justified a rendition of The Winner Takes It All. But no. Nothing. It’s just depressing. 

I've never been this happy. It looks fun.

What we really need is the opposite. A musical about starvation or genocide. Something to give us a bit of perspective. Nickelback could do the songs, just to really ram it home. It would be perfect. People would leave the cinema utterly buoyed: laughing in the face of bird shit, bursting into song about how much clean running water there is.

What I'm trying to say is, right now the world is a bit of a mess. But things could be worse. A lot worse. So even if we're feeling down about the way things are going, it's important we don't make a song and dance about it - NAILED IT.

Why did John Lewis release their Christmas advert on the day of Trump's victory?

This week, John Lewis released their new Christmas advert on the same day the US election was decided. This has confused some. However, my dad works for John Lewis and he’s got hold of some of the emails that led up to the advert’s release. I think they explain everything.

The release date of the advert has puzzled some.

-------06/10/16 14:32-------

 

Hi Patrick,

Just to let you know, I've updated the ending of option 3:

The polar bear crawls out of her cage to mourn her lost babies. As she is mourning she slips on the ice and accidentally CRUSHES Zookeeper 8.

Because Zookeeper 6 is using a WEAK stick bought from House of Fraser, it breaks in two when he uses it to try and sound the alarm. The ghost from earlier laughs in his face: he was warned.

Zoo catches fire and although we do not see its full effects we see it spread to the bird enclosure. 

On screen emerges the phrase #whyletthemdie.

Let me know what you think.

Cheers,

Daniel

-------06/10/16 20:09-------

Hi Daniel,

Yes that’s a nice update, but I still feel like option 3 is a little too dark and emotionally manipulative.

Also, just realised something: our current release date is the 9^th, and obviously if the polls are to be ignored there’s a strong chance of some pretty bad news that day. I’m just worried a lot of people will be feeling awful and might not want watch a CGI animal go through a two-minute emotional voyage.

Maybe we could produce something a bit more sensitive to the occasion?

Pat.

-------08/10/16 12:30-------

Hi Patrick,

Yes obviously I’m aware of what’s happening that week, but upon drinking I’ve decided that option 6 is perfect, whatever the outcome. Here it is again to jolt your memory:

Christmas Ad - Option 6

British road covered in snow to remind everyone that it is nearly Christmas and that they should be shopping.  

We join our family. They are black, but they’ve got a big house so it’s fine.

The daughter is bouncing on her bed, exercising her thighs. 

CGI dog looks at her bouncing up and down. At this point we don’t know what CGI dog is thinking and sceptical viewers may assume it is about dog food or sex – THEY WILL HAVE EGG ON THEIR FACE COME THE EMOTIONAL PAYOFF.

The mum enters to put the daughter to bed. She comments on how strong her thighs have become.

Note: The mum is really attractive but in a sort of realistic way so that women watching still feel like it’s their fault they don’t look like that.

Camera shows the garden and it is revealed that DAD has bought daughter an outdoor gift (not sure on specifics yet but I am thinking either jacuzzi, swing, trampoline or lawnmower) and begins to assemble it in the garden, while ungrateful wife looks on. At one point he loses his arm but carries on, in a moment that will echo Armistice Day and also act as clever wordplay on Armistice Day.

CGI animals emerge and play on the trampoline as if it were some un-emptied bins. CGI dog watches on potentially still thinking about sniffing bums or whatever.

Daughter wakes up and sees the trampoline. She uses her thighs to march towards it but CGI Dog pushes her over with its claws and gets to the trampoline first (Egg/Face).

On screen we see the social media hook: #gotojohnlewis

Cheers,

                               

Daniel

-------08/10/16 19:45-------

Hi Daniel,

I do see that Option 3 is the strongest we’ve got, even if the hashtag needs work. But, I really think we need to consider the effect the potentially awful news might have on people’s reaction. How about something where people of all different races and nationalities come together on Christmas day to buy each other gifts?

Pat.

-------09/10/16 09:12-------

Hi Patrick,

I don’t think you quite understand. We are talking about a DOG on a TRAMPOLINE.

Obviously if it was just a dog NOT on a trampoline, or a trampoline ON ITS OWN, I would be able to see where you were coming from. But for Christ’s sake this is a FUNNY and WACKY scenario and I’m starting to think you haven’t even tried to picture just how crazy a situation this would be.

Yes I have thought about the fact there might be some bad news that week but what I’ve also done is I’ve bothered to imagine a canine bouncing on a piece of rubber designed specifically for HUMAN USE. And you know what, I chuckled. 

Please don't talk to me about this again until the advert is out.

All the best,

Daniel.

-------09/11/16 08:13-------

Hi Daniel, 

Obviously we’ve all seen the news.

Really think people aren’t going to want to watch the ad given what’s happened – if anything it’ll feel like a bit of a piss-take, us trying to emotionally manipulate people given how they’re most likely feeling. Maybe we should maybe change our strategy or just delay the TV release.

Pat.

-------09/11/16 11:20-------

Patrick,

Yes I’ve seen the news but I don’t know how I can make this any clearer!! Listen:

DOG IN PARK - NO REACTION.

TRAMPOLINE IN BIN – PEOPLE CONFUSED.

POLAR BEAR CRUSHES ZOO KEEPER – WILL KNOW NOVEMER 2017.

DOG ON TRAMPOLINE – EVERYONE FEELS MIDDLE CLASS AND BUYS OUR STUFF.

I don’t want to hear any more from you on this.

Daniel.

-------09/11/16 13:02-------
 

fuck have you seen whats happened in America!! oh my fucking god

Daniel.

-------09/11/16 13:39-------

Patrick can you reply to me please! The US election happened YESTERDAY and it’s the worst result imaginable! No-one is going to give a flying toss about the dog on the fucking lawnmower!! why didnt we think of this!!

Daniel.

-------09/11/16 14:01-------
 

Okay just re-read all our emails. 

You weren’t talking about England playing India at cricket at any point were you.