Body inclusivity may be increasingly and incrementally represented in retail (SAVAGE x Fenty) and publications (shout out to Allure), but it’s still woefully regressive on television and in movies, where positive visibility could spark a larger cultural shift. In a year when the Shallow Hal motherfucker won an Oscar, though, Hulu’s Shrill—based on the autobiography of writer and beloved Jezebel alum Lindy West—is something like a triumph, a television series that focuses on a plus-size woman protagonist (Aidy Bryant) and actually gives her a life—and a character arc and boyfriends and cute clothes and bad decisions and a cool job and agency and all of the normal-ass life accoutrements that non-fat women have been enjoying onscreen for most of television’s natural life.
Before Lindy visited the Jezebel office last week to discuss Shrill, she and I had never met, despite our employer connection (we missed each other at Jezebel by about a month). In case you had not gleaned, she is a delight whose devotion to the causes she amplifies is unwavering, clear to anyone who has read her work or, now, watched her show. In this video, the first of two, we discussed the ideas behind making television that does justice to the lives of marginalized fat women, as well as the making of the infamous and brilliant “Pool Party.”
Shrill is on Hulu now and needs a second season.
Producer: Lisa Fischer. DP: Santiago Garcia