Tanya Singh
Netflix’s comedy, Insatiable, has met with harsh criticism
from many organizations for its poor portrayal of eating disorders and lack of
body positivity. The show follows the life of Patty Bladdel who is mockingly
called “fatty patty”. She has an undiagnosed binge eating disorder (BED). She
is constantly bullied by people for being fat. Bob, a lawyer cum pageant coach,
takes her under his wing and starts preparing her for pageants.
Patty binge eats to cope with extreme emotional turmoil. She
is stuck in a vicious cycle. She hates being fat because she is bullied for it.
She eats to cope with this. She hates herself for eating and in turn, putting
on more weight. The show never talks about the fact that she binge eats because
she has BED. It perpetuates the shame and disgust which is usually associated
with a fat person eating, regardless of it being excessive or not. Everyone
around her reinforces to feel ashamed and disgusted with her body. Even if she didn’t
binge eat, they would have judged and bullied her. But the message the show
gives is that binge eating is what vile, fat and lazy people do.
The scenes where she starts binge eating are portrayed in a
grossly disgusting manner with food all over her face. Most people are ignorant
about mental illnesses and very few have correct information about them. When
it comes to eating disorders, information about BED is almost nonexistent in
media as compared to bulimia and anorexia. The creators of the show had the
opportunity of spreading awareness about BED. They could have let Patty
acknowledge that being fat doesn’t make her gross. And if they would have let
her acknowledge that she has BED, she could have sought for help from medical
professionals. By not making anyone in the show even acknowledge her eating
disorder, they trivialize it. Inadvertently, the message they send is that she
is at fault for being disgusting, lazy and fat and resorting to binge eating.
This is why there was an online petition to get the show cancelled before its release.
‘Skinny is magic’– after losing weight, this is depicted to
be Patty’s mantra. And because of this distorted thought, reinforced by the
beliefs of those close to her like Bob, she never really confronts her real
issues. She is never seen introspecting on her binge eating because she thinks
even though it is shameful and disgusting, she can feel better after doing it. This
distortion is very common for people who binge eat. Additionally, because binge
eating is not usually viewed as a harmful or severe coping mechanism, like self
harm or substance abuse, people don’t treat it seriously.
Patty’s anger and hatred towards the world which has been
unkind to her is never discussed. It is only portrayed through her doing dangerous
and ‘crazy’ things with manic fervor. Bob thinks he can channel her hate and
anger into working hard towards winning him pageants and save her. But then she
almost kills a man who fat-shamed her before she lost weight. She spirals and
isolates herself from her loved ones and ends up binge eating. The problem with
Bob’s approach is that he tries to refocus Patty’s energy. But he doesn’t realize
that Patty’s weight loss doesn’t mean she is emotionally and mentally stable.
She has been living with an undiagnosed eating disorder for years, has been
fat-shamed and bullied. She doesn’t need to refocus her energy; she needs to
deal with her BED, her negative self thoughts and her self harm tendencies. But
she is labeled as crazy when she starts acting out after she starts preparing
for pageants. She doesn’t binge eat as often and feels empowered because she
thinks she is finally attractive. She uses her body to seek revenge on people.
Thus, the show totally misses the mark with any positive message it could’ve shown
related to mental health, eating disorders and body positivity.
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