Hulu’s Shrill, adapted from Lindy West’s 2016 memoir of the same name, has been a bright spot as it relates to the representation of fat women onscreen. There are very few TV shows that center the experiences of fat women—and even fewer avoid perpetuating fatphobia. Take This Is Us’s Kate Pearson (Chrissy Metz), the most famous fat female character on TV, whose storylines have mostly followed her struggle and desire to lose weight and her unhappiness as a fat person. Kate is, as Bitch Media editor-in-chief Evette Dionne noted in 2017, the epitome of the “tragic fat girl.”
Shrill’s heroine, Annie Easton (Aidy Bryant), begins the series in similar fashion: She’s ashamed of her body, constantly trying to shrink herself literally and figuratively, and willing to date a man-boy, Ryan (Luka Jones), who is embarrassed to be seen with her. But the whole point of the show is to portray her evolution—not in terms of losing weight but in coming to believe she’s worthy of love, care, and respect as a fat woman. The turning point in Season 1 was the revolutionary “Pool” episode, written by Samantha Irby and directed by Shaka King. As a fat woman, it’s hard to describe how extraordinary it was to witness dozens of fat women joyfully and unabashedly shaking their asses on television, with the camera lingering on their fat bodies instead of shying away from them.
Annie’s acceptance of her fatness and her attempts to call out fatphobia around her has been a recurring theme in Shrill—whether she’s taking on trolls, challenging the harmful fatphobia perpetuated by medical professionals, or pushing back on her mother’s internalized fatphobia, a form of intergenerational trauma commonly passed down from mothers to daughters. Still, the show has never been didactic, or only about the travails of being fat in a fatphobic society. It’s a comedy, and we’re often meant to laugh at the situations Annie finds herself in—but her body is never the butt of the joke. It also feels important that the show gave Annie a Black, queer, fat best friend: Fran (Lolly Adefope), who, of course, has different experiences and struggles. In fact, while we witness tension between Fran and Annie in this third and final season, we’re ultimately left with the significance of their friendship. Bitch spoke to West, Shrill’s executive producer, about the show’s legacy and her hopes for a post-Shrill Hollywood.
Things are changing a little bit, but representation isn’t the end goal. The end goal is medical equality, wage equality, accessibility, and all the tangible, structural issues that affect fat people’s lives. But media is such an effective engine of humanization and storytelling that it’s definitely part of the puzzle. We’re moving forward, and I’m really proud to have been some small part of that. I don’t remember growing up and seeing fat creatives living cool lives. I hear from people every single day that the show has meant something to them. One tangible impact is the morning-after-pill sequence in Season 1, when Annie finds out the morning-after pill is not dosed for women her size. I’ve heard from a lot of people who didn’t know that, and that feels like a double contribution to society.
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