“Insatiable”, a Netflix Original series, aired on Aug 10th. The show is based on the life of Patty Blasdell(Debby Ryan) and her transformation from “Fatty Patty” to a Southern beauty queen. Photo fair use of Spoiler TV.
Sophomore Naomi Hendershot shares her dislike for the new Netflix show Insatiable, finding the acting dull and the storyline too chaotic.
From Southern beauty queens to a lawyer with a passion for pageant coaching, the new Netflix Original show “Insatiable”, released on Aug. 10, has brought fat-shaming and terrible Southern accents together into one awful show.
Debby Ryan stars as Patty Blasdell, a girl who was bullied for being overweight. After being fat-shamed and punched in the jaw by a homeless man, she is placed in the hospital with her jaw wired shut and put on a liquid diet for three months. This leads her to lose 70 pounds and to become the “ideal figure” to fit society’s standards. With her new-found figure, she has a taste for revenge on all those who previously bullied her.
This sounds like an intriguing show but, in reality, ¨Insatiable¨ barely sticks to its own plot. Instead, within the first episode, it trails off into a completely different storyline compared to the start of the show. The show is already hard to watch with the terribly scripted jokes and amateur acting, so the last thing ¨Insatiable¨ needs is a confusing storyline.
Besides the poorly timed humor and amateur acting, this show also hits many sensitive topics in a misguided way. The protagonist Patty has an obvious eating disorder and after she loses her weight, there is a clear difference in the way she is treated. Instead of learning to love herself even when she wasn’t the “ideal” body type, she is constantly told that her body defines her–no matter her weight.
It’s obvious the show is targeting a teenage audience, and with a very impressionable audience comes responsibility. Shows like this create a negative stigma around the issues and controversial topics they display. Shows like “13 Reasons Why” and “Insatiable” can create a warped reality of those sensitive topics and issues for young teens which is not the message Netflix shows should be sending to its targeted audiences.
