In Netflix's latest original series, "Insatiable," the trailer leaves much to be determined. You get the general plotline: a girl used to be really overweight until she's punched in the mouth and has to get her jaw wired shut. While she's in the hospital with her jaw wired shut, she remains on a pure liquid diet and loses over 70 pounds. At the beginning of the following school year, all her classmates see her and realize how hot she is now. By the end of the trailer you see that she's going to use her new attention to get back at all the people who used to bully her, and that's where they leave it.
Based on the trailer alone, hundreds of thousands of people were already upset with Netflix, stating that Netflix had once again not understood teenagers and created a show that revolves around body shaming. Over 200,000 people signed a petition demanding that Netflix cancel the show and not release any of the episodes. Netflix responded by saying that viewers needed to wait until the show premiered so they could see for themselves how good the show truly was. Well, surprise surprise! The show was exactly as bad as everyone thought it was going to be, and here's why.
1. There are no solid relationships between the characters.
Let's Just Fight.
https://giphy.com/gifs/vh1-basketball-wives-xUA7bhz139D3kTIowg
In any show there are always those relationships where the people never get along and they are constantly on the rocks. Well, this show took that concept to a whole new level. Literally no relationship stays strong throughout the show. Even people who you thought were okay ended up getting some unnecessary drama, even sometimes when it didn't make sense. It was like Netflix saw how "Grey's Anatomy" got so popular and put that popularity plan on steroids. The drama was just too much. Dear Netflix: chill.
2. They checked off all the boxes even if it didn't make sense.
Mad Comedy Central.
https://giphy.com/gifs/workaholics-comedy-central-season-3-episode-5-l0ErSyAnTJImztbwc
It felt like Netflix wanted to make sure it hit all the bases. It had demons, vampires, murder, polyamorous relationships, transgenders, bisexuals, gays, biracial couples, adopted children, someone from every racial background, someone from every financial background, teen pregnancy, talk on abortion and a whole lot more. If you wanted romance, you got it. If you wanted action, you got it. If you wanted horror, you got it. If you wanted anything, you probably got it.
Netflix just wanted to cover their asses and have everyone included, but it didn't even make sense half the time. Like at one point someone falls in love with both a man and a woman, and because apparently choosing one person isn't an option, they randomly made all characters bisexual and had them be a "thruple." Then we also had a potential teen pregnancy until we found out it was actually the remains of a twin that was "eaten" in the womb. And Netflix couldn't just leave it at that, oh no. The twin had to be a demon and causing this girl to be possessed and in need of an exorcism. The list goes on and on as to all the random sh*t Netflix shoved into this show.
3. They really offended bisexuals. Like at every turn.
Drake Hurt.
https://giphy.com/gifs/snl-drake-hurt-feelings-l0K4fIEZ1FFiWFJPq
As a bisexual myself, I'm really pissed off about how this show handled bisexuals. For about the first eight episodes bisexuals were like unicorns; they just couldn't possibly exist. One of the characters was kind of showing interest in both boys and girls and then Netflix was like "Oh no, can't let that happen!" So they just made her a lesbian to explain her interest in girls and pretended she was never even in to guys to begin with. *Inserted confused emoji here*
Then another character, this time a guy, kissed a man while he was married to his wife and went into a deep confusion as to how he could have possibly enjoyed kissing the other guy. Right, because bisexuals are just people on their way to becoming full-on gay or merely going through a phase. And then once he discovers that it might actually be possible for him to simultaneously like men and women, *gasps*, he doesn't know what to do with himself. Seriously Netflix??
4.They tried to backpedal on their mistakes but just flopped instead.
Nicki Minaj.
https://giphy.com/gifs/mrw-website-notifications-vukqNXzsk7PuE
There were several times where you could tell Netflix knew they had made a mistake and were just trying to correct it by doing the complete opposite. But honestly the damage was done, and there was no going back. For example, the main character who loses all the weight becomes obsessed with beauty pageants and winning. And for a while it's only tall, beautiful, skinny women in these pageants. Netflix seemed to be pushing this idea that they were the only kind of woman pretty enough to be in pageants. So then they got an overweight black woman to join the pageants to show how the pageants are for anyone. They even went as far as to put her in the top five, but then she doesn't win and we never really see her in the pageants again.
5. Characters got a change in personality at the most random moments.
I Love Changes.
https://giphy.com/gifs/mic-drake-hotline-bling-t-mobile-JFawGLFMCJNDi
It seemed like you could never be sure what a character was going to do. For the first few episodes, this one character was in love with an older, married man, and she said she'd do anything to be with him. And then two seconds later she was in a love triangle with his son and this other kid in her class. Like what happened?? What did I miss?
Next, this character started bonding with the wife of the man she used to be in love with, and it seemed like they were gaining a real mother/daughter relationship until the wife pulled a 180 and ditched the girl without a second thought to go be with other socialite moms. Stuff like that just doesn't happen in two seconds. Sure it's possible it could happen, but it's not going to happen at the drop of a dime without any warning.
And lastly, these two teenagers were really falling in love when the boy's dark past was revealed, and he all of a sudden started stalking the girl and putting trackers on her. I mean come on.
6. It seemed like all their jokes were at the expense of Asians.
Confused
https://giphy.com/gifs/asian-steven-yeun-asianmen-l4FGInrYQvC9qrmJq
I don't know if Netflix thought they were being funny or if one of the writers has like a personal vendetta against Asians, but it really felt like Asians were the target of every punchline. There were only two main characters that were Asian: one girl who was adopted by a white woman and one boy whose family owned a local food place. At one point, the two start hooking up together, even going as far to make fun of the fact that out of all the people in this town, the two Asian people managed to get together. But the bad jokes really come in when the woman who adopted the Asian girl talks about how she found her daughter in China in a ditch because her birth family didn't want a girl, which is actually a very serious thing in China. Thousands of girls are left in dumpsters or even killed just because their families think boys are better. Then the mother takes it even further by saying that the girl had her teeth filed down into spikes like a savage, as do all Asians. I think we can all agree is an awful thing to say about any one person, let alone an entire race. Netflix makes the mistake of then showing this off in the following episode when the girl gets in a fight and it is shown that the girl had been wearing caps on her teeth to cover up her "fang teeth," which come flying off in the fight. Once again, Netflix is just digging themselves a hole deeper and deeper.
7. Their message of body positivity was positively awful.
Brendon Urie, No.
https://giphy.com/gifs/panicatthedisco-panic-at-the-disco-brendon-urie-l0MYQLUe1kuJUUSHu
The whole point of this show was supposed to be about how this girl loses weight and gain all this confidence in herself. Netflix said it was going to showcase body positivity and how we should love our body in all shapes and sizes, but that rarely happened. There was the one overweight black girl who was preaching body positivity for about two seconds, but then she was used as a toy in another relationship, and we forgot all about how she was supposed to be an advocate for loving yourself. The main character who loses weight spends about five seconds in the entire show loving herself before she went on an emotional rollercoaster of loving and hating herself and becoming obsessed with being beautiful, which of course was only shown as tall and thin.
Overall I think it's clear that Netflix really missed the mark on this show, and it's not hard to tell why. They've had controversial shows in the past, such as "Thirteen Reasons Why," but this show shouldn't even be seen as controversial because no one should be able to find the good in it. It's all pretty bad.