amyjbelanger Review of Shrill

Shrill (2019–2021)

I was all set to review positively, but then this happened

[1/10 · 16 March 2019]

I watched all six episodes, and after a few episodes, I was experiencing it as a charming show with a good message about social stigma. Then came the episode where the heroine, who fights so righteously for her own dignity, overtly stigmatizes a quirky colleague. That would be the same colleague who is going out of her way to support Annie by tracking down her Internet troll. The colleague is a computer geek who works in the basement. She expresses empathy for Annie, sharing that she gets trolled, herself, by her fellow gamer geeks on the basis of her gender. When Annie and her work friend mention that they're going out to an event, the computer geek colleague shows that she's feeling lonely and excluded, as well, and might like to be invited. In return, Annie and her colleague roll their eyes, give that micro-aggressive expression that says, "Ew, we're better than you," and quickly leave. She's clearly used to filtering out such micro-aggressions, and accepting her plight, the same way Annie was in the beginning. So she swallows the insult and devotes herself to finding the troll, even though she's clearly overloaded with work. This scene instantly turned my opinion and my stomach. I'm not interested in following a series that's explicitly trying to raise consciousness about social stigma, and yet, without a hint of irony, makes it okay for the heroine to do exactly the same thing to someone else. Big Thumbs Down.