Insatiable creator on backlash: "I think we're in a real danger of censorship"

The Hollywood Reporter

The trailer for the twisted revenge comedy-drama sparked an online backlash that led to a petition with 230,000 signatures calling for its cancelation. The backlash has been followed by numerous negative reviews calling it even worse than imagined. So far it has a 15% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 23 Metascore on Metacritic. Creator Lauren Gussis, the Dexter veteran who made Insatiable as a personal story inspired by her life, says of the immense backlash: "I think we're in a real danger of censorship if we decide that we all have to tell stories in a certain way so that everybody else feels safe. In my own experience, growth comes from discomfort and pain. It's present in nature. Like a snake shedding its skin, it's literally tearing itself from its old self, to emerge in a different way. That is not comfortable. If hearing these things are uncomfortable, I get it. They're sensitive. The wound is deep, but I don't think the solution is silencing myself or somebody else. I think the solution is saying the thing, so that we can talk about it. Is representing the truth, as opposed to some other idealized version of the truth that isn't really true, which actually pushes us even further away from having an honest conversation and coming to a deeper understanding of each other." She adds: "People are mad, and they're talking about it. I appreciate the room for the conversation. That's my intention with art, is to spark conversation through satire and comedy. Because then at least people are talking about it and not brushing it under the rug, and airing it out."

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