Critics slam Netflix series Insatiable as 'cruel,' 'offensive' and 'fatphobic'

Debby Ryan in Netflix's Insatiable. Photo / Netflix

Netflix's latest teen series, Insatiable, has received almost entirely negative reviews, with critics slamming the show as "offensive" and "cruel".

Insatiable stars Debby Ryan as a bullied teenager who loses weight after having her jaw wired shut, and "becomes a beautiful and popular girl," according to the show's synopsis.

The show faced criticism before it even went to air, with its trailer widely criticised on social media for fat shaming after it debuted in July.

Now the full reviews are in - and critics are brutally slamming the series as an "utter disaster".

Vulture's Jen Chaney said Insatiable is not only offensive to fat people, but also to "The LGBTQ community, Southerners, women, Christians, conservatives, African-Americans, and probably some other groups I've neglected to mention". Chaney also decried the show's jokes about "pedophilia and statutory rape that made my skin crawl so severely, it physically slid off of my body, got in my car, and drove straight to the beach so it could take a vacation from this show".

Netflix's Insatiable currently has an 11 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Photo / Netflix

Vanity Fair's Sonia Saraiya said "Insatiable is a very poorly made attempt to address big, thorny, endemic social problems," and that despite the show being aimed at teens, "this sludge of problematic humor might well prove to be a problem for the show's target demographic".

The Hollywood Reporter described Insatiable as "trite, way over the top (even for a series that appears to be trying to go there for comedic effect), unfunny and, running at 40-plus minutes per episode, a bloated mess that's labor-intensive to get through".

Vox's Constance Grady said the show is "obscenely cruel and terminally dull" and in answer to the show's early controversy, that "whatever you might be imagining from the trailer is nothing. The reality is much, much worse".

Insatiable managed to find a fan in CNN, however, which has praised the show as an "unexpected little gem, a series so floridly over the top as to feel like a send-up of 1980s soap operas on 21st-century steroids".