A petition to stop the release of a new show, Insatiable, on Netflix, has gathered more than 110,000 signatures.
To understand the controversy, here's the simplified premise of the show, from what we can work out from the trailer: A high-school student named Patty is relentlessly bullied over her weight. She then gets punched in the face and spends her summer holidays in hospital with her jaw wired shut, meaning she can't eat. When she returns to school after summer, she is slim and vows to get revenge on the students who bullied her and made her life hell.
You can watch the trailer here:
When the trailer was first released, there was a flow of backlash on Twitter with people immediately criticising the plot line of a girl who is only accepted within her high school community when she loses weight and fits a certain 'acceptable' aesthetic. There was also immediate criticism over the fact the lead actress, Debby Ryan, is wearing a fat suit.
The criticism of the show has since turned up a notch after a 19-year-old activist Florence Given started a change.org petition calling on Netflix to stop the release of the show, writing:
For so long, the narrative has told women and young impressionable girls that in order to be popular, have friends, to be desirable for the male gaze, and to some extent be a worthy human... that we must be thin.
The toxicity of this series, is bigger than just this one particular series. This is not an isolated case, but part of a much larger problem that I can promise you every single woman has faced in her life, sitting somewhere on the scale of valuing their worth on their bodies, to be desirable objects for the male gaze. That is exactly what this series does. It perpetuates not only the toxicity of diet culture, but the objectification of women's bodies.
This series needs to be cancelled. The damage control of releasing this series will be far worse, insidious and sinister for teenage girls, than it will be damaging for Netflix in their loss of profit.
The petition also suggested the show could cause eating disorders and that the trailer alone has already triggered people with eating disorders. So far Florence's campaign has amassed more than 110,000 signatures and hopes to garner 150,000.
Cosmopolitan UK reached out to Netflix for comment about whether they will stop the show's release, but they declined to respond.
Following the initial Twitter backlash, Ryan posted a statement saying she 'cares deeply about the way our bodies, especially women's, are shamed and policed in society' and therefore wanted to work on a programme that addressed this 'through satire'. She pleaded with fans to wait and watch the show before they pass judgement.
The show's writer, Lauren Gussis, also spoke out, insinuating that the character Patty was based on herself and said she was trying to share her story and insecurities through the humour in the show.
'The show is a cautionary tale about how damaging it can be to believe the outsides are more important - to judge without going deeper. Please give the show a chance,' she wrote.
Olivia Blair is Entertainment Editor (Luxury) at Hearst UK, working across ELLE, Esquire and Harper's Bazaar. Olivia covers all things entertainment and has interviewed the likes of Margot Robbie, Emma Stone, Michaela Coel and Ryan Gosling over the years.
