Taylor Green

Zoe Kwasnicki

Staff Writer

It was a warm summer afternoon and I was inside, scrolling through Netflix in an attempt to find something new to watch when a trailer started playing. The show was called Insatiable. Weird title but I figured I might as well watch it – it couldn’t have been that bad right? Right?

Oh boy. Every Netflix Original is a hit or a miss and this one was definitely a miss.

It starts with Debby Ryan – yes that’s right – DEBBY RYAN, aka Jessie from the Disney, hit Jessie, in a fat suit. From there it only gets worse with clips of merciless bullying from her classmates who call her a host of hideous names such as “Fatty Patty”, “Porky”, and “Butterball.” Then she gets punched by a homeless man, hospitalized, and has her jaw wired shut.

Off to a great start right? Don’t worry it only gets better.

She loses an insane amount of weight (almost like she just took off a fat suit or something) and suddenly gains a full-face of flawless makeup as well (because overweight people can’t wear makeup I guess) and then joins a pageant with dreams of revenge.

From there the trailer just turns into a badly-choreographed, over-sexed action trailer with punches being thrown, men being set on fire and strange close-ups of Debby Ryan’s lips.

I decided not to watch it.

And then 4 months later, again scrolling through Netflix, I found a movie called Dumplin’. “Cute name”, I thought and clicked the trailer.

It was a hit.

Instantly I recognized a few similarities: a female, overweight main character, a pageant, and a revenge story. However, past that everything was different.

In Dumplin’ we meet Willowdean Dickson, who is overweight, and her best friend Ellen Dryer, who is not. They both have an affinity for Dolly Parton. Willowdean Dickson is also called names such as “whale” when her and Ellen are in the pool, but it isn’t nearly as vile as the bullying in Insatiable. There is also a huge difference between how they react: Willowdean ignores the comments and tries not to let them get to her whereas Patty sets a man on fire. Past that we meet Willowdean’s mother, Rosie, a former pageant queen hanging on to her former glory and Bo Burnham, a handsome Southern “boy next door” and Willowdean’s main love interest.

 

Willowdean and Ellen are both dealt the task of carting around Rosie to different pageant events and, after a passive-aggressive comment on Willowdean’s appearance, they decide to enter into the pageant together and stage a “protest in heels”. However, Willowdean’s protest isn’t just a way to say that fat girls can be beautiful too as she strongly states, “No, I’m not the Joan of Arc of fat girls, okay?” Because while the protest is masked in anger surrounding the pageant, it’s actually just a way for Willowdean to try and be closer to her mom. These intertwining motives for the basis of the story already make it a million times better than Insatiable.

 

Now I’m not saying that the writing or plot in Dumplin’ is ground-breaking – it’s a heartfelt, cheesy teenage movie. But that’s what it’s meant to be. It’s meant to be a regular teenage story about finding yourself while also making a point that plus-size girls can be main characters too. And what makes the story even better is that, initially, Willowdean doesn’t think she can be the main character. She doesn’t think she can genuinely enter the pageant and so she joins it under the veil of a protest. It’s only after an emotional journey guided by drag queens and soundtracked by Dolly Parton that she accepts herself for who she is.

 

The main issue with Insatiable is that it tried to do something different and failed miserably. Instead of focusing on the idea of accepting yourself for who you are, it pushes the idea of forcing yourself to change and then exacting revenge on those who shamed you. Yes, the fat-shaming students in Insatiable deserve to be punished. However, it would be much more interesting (and a little more Mean Girls) if Patty remains the same weight but gains friends, a support system, and confidence as she exacts revenge. Not to mention having Patty played by an actually plus-size actress (like Danielle Macdonald who plays Willowdean) would make the overall story much more relatable and accurate. Because while Insatiable is framed as an attack on fat-shaming, instead it is one of the most powerful, poisonous attacks on overweight girls that I have seen.

 

Besides the focus on plus-size girls, there is also a focus, albeit small, on LGBTQ characters. In Dumplin’ there is a supporting LGBTQ character called Hannah Perez who joins the protest in heels, has a few funny one-liners, and not much else. However, while she doesn’t get too many moments in the spotlight, she is played by an actual LGBTQ actor who identifies with both she and them pronouns: Bex Taylor-Klaus. Hannah could and does deserve more time in the spotlight. However, her lack of time on screen is somewhat made up for by the drag queens who help prepare the girls for the pageant. They act as mentors for the girls and the montage that ensues is one of my new favorites. It’s heartfelt and sweet, over the top and glamorous, and the comparisons between pageant and drag queens are very true and funny to see with one of the drag queens dashing in at the last moment to help Rosie with a fashion malfunction.

 

In Insatiable, however, the LGBTQ representation is…strange. We start by learning that Patty’s best friend, Nonnie, is gay and has a crush on Patty. A few issues with this the main one being that strange, straight assumption that gay people are attracted to every single person of their sexual orientation. Another is why does she not fall in love with Patty until after Patty loses all the weight? Wouldn’t it have been sweeter if she loved her all along? For who she is?

 

Senior Taylor Green has similar thoughts and a few others, “In Insatiable, Debby Ryan’s pageant coach turns out to be gay as well and that kind of seems like a stereotype? And the show ends up showing that he will have problems with his wife anyway – and then he ends up hooking up with another pageant coach – and I don’t know it just seems really stereotypical. Like its really forced. Like at one point Debby Ryan’s pageant coach and his wife like hooks up another pageant coach and they try to call it a polyamorous relationship.”

 

And while it’s good that Insatiable has LGBTQ representation backstage with its bisexual creator and, well that’s pretty much it…. representation is not always good. While the creator, Lauren Gussis, defends the writing as satirical commentary, the 232,000 people who signed the petition to have the show taken down definitely disagree.

 

To conclude this rant of preposterous proportions: watch Dumplin’.

 

Because while Dumplin’ has a similar premise to Insatiable, the delivery is completely different from one making you smile and sing along to Dolly Parton and the other making you question your Netflix subscription.

 

If you want to watch the trailers yourself:

Dumplin’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k86KDFh_q6E

Insatiable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-81WVD8xTs

 

Image Courtesy of Netflix

Eric Valenti

A&E Editor

 

Ralph Breaks the Internet courtesy of DVD release

 

In Wreck-it Ralph we followed Ralph as he traversed the arcade world. In Ralph Breaks the Internet we follow Ralph as he traversing the internet. Surprise: the second story is horrible.  Make sure you’re strapped in for what is an entire two hours of references and nods to old memes.

 

The movie begins with the three writers who helped create the movie and all of its jokes. Right then and there I knew that the movie would be underwhelming. When you’re creating a movie that is about the internet and a critique of modern society, you actually need the people who are on the internet constantly, by which I mean teens. No offense, but the creators are a bit older and they still laugh about extremely old memes like the screaming goats which made me sick to my stomach. But that doesn’t mean that the movie won’t get a few chuckles out of you.

 

The big issue that I had with the film was mostly the plot. In the first film, Ralph is a villain who wants to become “the good guy” which actually means that he wants to be accepted by the society he lives in. He ultimately learns to be comfortable with who he is, because he’s not as bad as he believes and if he really wants to change for the better he can do that by still being himself. And then we get the plot of Ralph breaks the internet.

 

In this one, Ralph’s best friend Vanellope fears that her game will be shut down so her and Ralph go into the internet to find the solution. The audience realizes that within the time between the first and second film that Ralph has become extremely clingy to his friend Vanellope and that Vanellope is tired of her arcade days and wishes to actually just live in the internet world. Pretty good so far right? Well shut up because it gets worse. Vanellope gets angry at Ralph for being too clingy and uses this as an excuse to escape into the internet world.

 

Without spoiling the ending the movie the moral basically is something along the lines as you can change where you’re from and who you are without ruining the relationships from your old life even though it’s hard to maintain both the old and the new.

 

This is a good realistic moral but the plot is just so over the place. At first, they’re trying to fix Vanellope’s game. And then they have to get money to fix the game so they start making videos. Then Vanellope spends half the movie angry at Ralph for trying to help her and being too close with her.

 

I sort of just sat in the audience like, “Who hates who and why should I care at this point?” And I don’t wanna hear that argument, “But life isn’t so black and white and that’s why the movies so all over the place because that’s how life is.” When you write you should try to find a way to lead the audience through the mess that is life, not just be like, “Finding yourself is hard and maintaining relationships is hard, buckle up kids.”

 

Ralph breaks the internet is good in the sense that it was able to bring a few jokes and an interesting concept to life. Although the overall message of the movie was executed poorly and seemed lazily written at times, I can’t help but feel as though the movie brought an interesting concept to life. However, it quickly turned into a wasted chance for a sequel that fails at tackling an issue that modern day kids will understand. When you see “Ralph Breaks the Internet” you’ll probably want to wreck the movie too.

 

Juliana Long

Staff Writer

The emptying theatre after Beautiful Boy’s credits began to roll was haunting. Sniffles, wrappers, and shuffling of feet were heard as families filed out of the Ritz Five, but nobody spoke. Beautiful Boy, directed by Felix van Groeningen, Timothee Chalamet portrays Nic Sheff, the son of David Sheff, a famous author.

 

The movie jumps back and forth between past, future, and present as David watches his son struggle with addiction. It begins in the present, where father David is panicked when his son, Nic, goes missing. Nic returns home soon, clearly not acting like his normal self. He confesses to his father that he was away from home doing drugs and that he would agree to get help at rehab. Soon enough, the rehab center calls David to let him know that his son went missing. It turned out that Nic had escaped to go buy more drugs.

 

The rest of the movie is a wash, rinse, and repeat of this pattern: Nic goes back to rehab, comes home and appears to be better, but then relapses. Each time he relapses, his addiction only gets worse.

 

The movie ends once Nic nearly overdoses in a public restroom in New York City. He gets hospitalized and the film ends with a shot of him crying on his father’s lap. Soon afterwards, the credits reveal to the audience that it was a true story based on two books: One being Beautiful Boy by David Sheff and the other Tweak by Nic Sheff.

 

The music choice in the movie is excellent. It serves a purpose to nearly deafen you during extremely harrowing scenes – the music is so loud and jarring that you physically feel the pain of the character on screen.

 

The film has a great mix of tender parental moments and raw, graphic scenes depicting drug use and its consequences. These scenes tend to be littered throughout the movie as opposed to the film as a whole being perceived as so.

 

As for the structure of the movie, the plot is very repetitive. I can assume that this serves the purpose of accurately representing how victims of addiction and their families feel about the situation. Every time Nic seems to have gotten better and finally freed himself from his addictions – everything comes crashing down and you feel hopeless again.

 

I can only imagine this is how families of drug addicts feel when they’re trying to help their loved ones recover, and this structure adds to the immersion that movie puts you in. It almost forces you to feel the same rise and crash that Nic’s family feels watching him.

 

For me, this effect was intensified by the performance of the two main actors. As a big fan of both The Office and Call Me by Your Name, I was elated when I heard that Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell were starring in a movie together as father and son. Carrell’s paternal manner and Chalamet’s angsty youthfulness made for a great team.

 

Van Groeningen created a film that has a good heart. It serves a purpose to tug at your heartstrings while also teaching an important lesson about the dangers of addiction. It’s a movie that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend to victims of drug addiction or their close family members simply because it’s extremely graphic and could trigger very painful memories. As for those who want an educational and heartfelt albeit distressing film, Beautiful Boy is an excellent choice.