A Netflix original Insatiable faced quite a lot of backlash even before the series premiered. However, it appears that Netflix refuses to take the criticism seriously, as it announced an upcoming new season of the show which is set to be out in 2019.
The comedy series tells the tale of Patty played by Debby Ryan, a teenager who has suffered years of bullying and taunts, thanks to her overweight. After she suddenly loses the pounds that seem to weigh her down, due to an incident that affects her jaws, leaving her on a liquid diet, she becomes popular, starts competing in beauty pageants and is out for revenge against those who gave her a bad time during her 'fat' days.
Thousands of viewers blamed the show for glorifying 'fat-shaming' and promoting an unhealthy view of beauty, body image and binge-eating disorders. When the trailer of season one was released, an immediate backlash began — a Change.org petition garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures asking Netflix to pull out the show.
In an interview with Hollywood Reporter, creator of 'Insatiable', Lauren Gussis said, "I wanted to poke at all those issues through comedy. But every single one of the issues that these characters struggle with — from eating disorders to body dysmorphia to sexuality to needing outside power and validation, to wanting to be perfect, to mental illness — I have struggled with every single one of those things."
"It was important to me to just let them all be out in the world, and in a world that I created, where they get to enact all of their terrible impulses to fill a hole," she added. "Because as someone who has struggled with all of them, I know my first thought is probably not the right thing. What happens if you act that way? I come from an eating disorder. My brain, about that stuff, is broken. There, of course, is the aspirational tale of someone who is fully healed and who does the right thing all the time. But my truth is that because of all the messages I got fed about the way that I should look or the way that I should be, I got miswired, and the impulses are not good. Then, I got to play them all out to show how damaging that actually can be."
Insatiable also stars Dallas Roberts, Alyssa Milano, Christopher Gorham, Erinn Westbrook, Michael Provost, Kimmy Shields, Irene Choi, and Sarah Colonna. Meanwhile, Gussis serves as executive producer alongside Ryan Seacrest, Nina Wass, Andrea Shay, Todd Hoffman, and Dennis Kim. CBS Television Studios produces.