‘Insatiable’, a dark comedy-drama show that premiered in Netflix on August 2018, was not lucky enough to have a shot at season 3. This is because most people were disgusted by the concept behind the film. According to them, ‘insatiable’ belittles and body-shames people who are overweight hence the show brought about much controversy in its very first season. ‘Insatiable’ followed the life of an overweight girl Patty Bladell who is humiliated, despised, belittled and ignored by her friends and family due to her excess weight. Patty then finds a way to lose 70 pounds and becomes thin. All of a sudden people get to notice and appreciate her.
Now that she is slimmer, people find her more physically attractive and even make her a beauty queen. However, despite being happy about her new self she is still bitter about those who looked down on her when she was fat. To settle old scores, Patty makes up her mind to revenge on all those people. Apart from Debby Ryan who takes the role of Patty as the main character, there are also other remarkable characters, just to mention a few; Kimmy Shields, Alyssa Milano, Dallas Robert’s, Michael Provost and Laurren Gussis. The show was created by Lauren Gussis, and had initially been pitched to The CW before finding its way to Netflix.
Why Was It Cancelled?
After many complaints about season 1, the second season arrived rather quietly making fans anticipate a cancellation of the show. Their fears were confirmed by Alyssa Milano via a tweet on 4th February 2020, “We will not be back, sadly”, she said. Milano also extended her gratitude to fans who had shown their support by keeping up with the show. About a week after, Netflix officially communicated that the show had been canceled. Fans who had already been hooked onto the show and were eagerly waiting for its third season were greatly disappointed by the news. They were quick to air out their views on social media about the cancellation of the show. Nevertheless, despite the many complaints Netflix stood on its ground concerning the cancellation of the show.
The streaming platforms decides on whether to renew a season or not depending on internal metrics such as the number of viewers who have completed watching a season. According to the them ‘Insatiable’ was not doing very well. Also, they could no longer contain the mounting pressure to cancel the show.
Apparently, the show had received adverse reaction for over a month before it even premiered on August, 2018. Within the same year Change.org, a petition website, presented various petitions to have the show cancelled. According to these petitions, the show encourages young women to get eating disorders and many users supported the idea to cancel the show. One particular petition created by Florence Given received over 100,000 signatures. She argued that the show objectified women’s bodies hence it would create self-doubt in young women, who would be inclined to think that for them to be happy, they would need to lose weight.
Despite the petition presented at the time, Netflix had decided to go ahead and air it. The show was among the most watched series on the platform during that year. This may have been as a result of the controversy surrounding it that made users curious to watch it. However, as time went by the interest didn’t carry over to the other seasons, hence poor critic ratings, and a dwindling number of viewers have eventually led to its cancellation.
Its Stars Defend it
Some of the stars in the Series tried defending the show from the backlash. Lauren Gussis revealed that she based the series following her own personal experience. She was a fat girl growing up and her friends took it upon themselves to make sure she felt like she didn’t belong. They dumped her and constantly bullied her to a point where she considered suicide. She was led to believe that if she lost some weight and looked great on the outside, they would accept her. This led to her developing an eating disorder in a bid to lose weight. She also developed bitterness and rage that made her desire to revenge on all those who hurt her.
“I wanted to tell in theory a story where the characters’ desires are deeply rooted in real human emotion, but the things that happen are so crazy that it’s less scary to have a conversation when you know you’re in a world that isn’t quite reality,” she said.
Gussis then went ahead to beg fans to give the show a chance. Debby also came to the rescue of the show. According to Teen Vogue, the criticism had taken her by surprise as she thought that the show addressed issues which needed to be talked about and heard. She went on further to point out that she had no idea what overweight people go through every day until she got to play the part Patty. However, their arguments did nothing to change Netflix’s decision on cancelling the show.
Conclusion
The show ‘Insatiable’ received negative feedback from the very first it premiered. Some people accused it of being offensive and fat-shaming overweight people. The backlash had then created publicity for the show with many users watching it out of sheer curiosity. Nevertheless, the show never quite recovered from the initial negative feedback hence didn’t sustain these numbers for long. With the dwindling numbers in season two, Netflix thought it wiser to get rid of the show. Though some people are happy about this decision, the show’s loyal fans are quite disappointed as there were many questions left answered after season two.
Apart from ‘Insatiable’ Netflix has also pulled the plug on other shows including ‘Soundtrack’ that had only gotten through one season and ‘Designated Survivor after airing its third season. Though Netflix does not display its viewership metrics publicly, if a show gets cut off, it most probably means its viewership numbers were way too low.
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