Aidy Bryant's Shrill brilliantly takes on fat-shaming without succumbing to cliché

Vulture

The Hulu dramedy, based on Lindy West's memoir, that she co-created with Bryant and showrunner Alexandra Rushfield "is steeped in a sense of empowerment and anti-fat-shaming but never succumbs to the sort of cliché, 'You go, girl' cheerleading that a less confident show might be tempted to channel," says Jen Chaney. "It is a half-hour dramedy that is comfortable in its own skin and doesn’t care if you like it. Tonally, the series has the attitude that Annie aspires to have about herself, and that she gets closer and closer to possessing as each of the six episodes progress. By the way, that right there is my chief complaint about Shrill: It’s only six episodes. I easily could have watched 10 or 13 or 27 of these half-hour slices of humanity that somehow manage to seem both effortless and meticulously conceived all at once."

ALSO:

• Shrill works because it's more quietly radical than anything: It gives the full scope of being a fat woman in America
• Shrill is a welcome but not quite worthy vehicle for Aidy Bryant: "Shrill seems more focused on the act of representing overweight women through the character of Annie than it is on crafting a three-dimensional story for her to experience"
• Shrill practices what it preaches: "It skips over some of the usual tropes of stories, even sympathetic ones, about overweight people"
• Bryant never lets you overlook that she is a whole person rather than a bland emblem of body positivity
• Bryant's standout performance outshines Shrill's flaws, especially in the early episodes that feel like sketches
• Shrill's brilliance is that Bryant's character isn't a magical fat girl who is "body positive": "Unlike AMC’s now cancelled Dietland, which tended to marinate in self-loathing and the grotesqueries of the fat body, Shrill finds beauty and light where most merely see ill-discipline"
• Each and every one of Shrill's flaws goes into making one of the season’s sneakier, more complex points
• Bryant and Shrill push beyond a slice-of-life comedy to set her character on a compelling and hilarious journey
• Shrill is a long-overdue antidote to all the sitcom fat jokes we’ve been inundated by for decades
• What Shrill gets right -- and wrong -- about the morning after pill weight limit
• What Shrill gets right -- and oh so wrong -- about trolling
• Bryant's wardrobe was entirely custom-made
• How producers were able to adapt Lindy West's novel while keeping the controversial subject matter intact
• Aidy Bryant says SNL prepared her for Shrill's starring role: "Ultimately SNL is the model for making something: You’re writing, you’re rewriting, you’re rehearsing, then you’re shooting, then you’re editing. That is what it is."