Blog 3: Insatiable, a polemic serie that you must watch

Hello everyone, today I'm going to write about a series that I like very much and that I think everyone should watch. However, I would like to clarify that even though I recommend it a lot, it can be hurtful for certain people.

This series is unbelievable, which was created and directed by Lauren Gussis and stars Debby Ryan. It premiered on August 10, 2018 and has two seasons.

The plot revolves around Patty Bladell, a girl who has suffered the effects of fat-phobia and his different forms of harassment. This girl after an accident that breaks her jaw can only consume food in a liquid way, so she loses a LOT of weight, which makes her environment go from hating her for being fat and ugly to adoring her for being thin, and therefore beautiful. With her new look and recognizing how different it is to live in a body that is socially perceived as beautiful, she decides to make a revenge on those who treated her badly and for those ways of the life, she meets a man who works in beauty contests and her career as a beauty queen begins. 

For this reason, the series has been criticized for being fat, sexist, and so on. However, I consider it a simplistic reading of its message, because the series, in my opinion, makes visible how ridiculous people are who believe in these beauty prejudices and through satire makes visible many critical knots to which we do not pay attention in our daily lives, for example: the psychological impacts of living with the pressure of these stereotypes, the bullying for not having thin bodies and how risky these situations are for mental health and the cultivation of psycho-emotional disorders such as body dysmorphia, self-instatement, the cultivation of eating disorders such as food binges, prolonged exercise routines for weight loss and even bullimia.

I insist to say, that as a person who suffered harassment because of his weight, this series reflects situations and development of complexes more real than one would want, the fantasy of thinness, for example, is another topic that is expressed clearly, this double idea that people love you for being beautiful and that if you lose weight they will love you more and, therefore, you are never satisfied no matter how thin you are. 

Therefore, I think you should see it, to problematize certain ideas that appear there. I only ask you not to see it from the morbidity or as empty content, but as a satire that makes visible several oppressions in an unconventional way.

I leave you here a picture of the series and below an image of my favorite scene, where the protagonist remembers the violence, insecurity and martyrdom she suffered and starts rationing about how much she still doesn't feel valuable enough.