I don’t typically go for shows where a plucky female protagonist seems inevitably bound for a happy ending. But from the premiere of the Netflix series “Survival of the Thickest” all the way through its recent series finale, I found myself completely taken by the effervescent charms of the show’s star and co-creator, Michelle Buteau.
The comedian and actress stars as Mavis Beaumont, a wannabe designer for plus-size, trans and nonbinary people in New York. When the series begins she’s just a stylist assistant unsure of how to break through with her own fashion line. She’s also in the midst of a harrowing bit of relationship drama after she discovers her long-term, live-in boyfriend cheating in their apartment.
Mavis’s life is suddenly upended and she finds herself encountering every single-lady-in-the-city cliché you can think of, including a new apartment (with a kooky new roommate, of course), fresh career prospects and new dating experiences.
It’s a charming series, if not the most gracefully composed: At any given point the pacing feels either too slow or too quick; side characters with their own secondary stories pop in and out somewhat inconsistently; its themes are often a bit too heavy-handed.
And yet, even the over-the-top earnestness — another somewhat predictable tonal choice — feels charming when filtered through the protagonist.
Mavis feels like a natural extension of Buteau; some of her character’s phrasing and jokes echo Buteau’s in her stand-up specials. Mavis has loud, ebullient energy and a wide, infectious smile. She is grounded, fierce and playfully raunchy. She’s also awkward and prone to oversharing information in long, free-flowing rambles. The rest of her character fits snugly into the rom-com protagonist tropes: She’s messy, chaotic but lovable and has a group of great ride-or-die friends. And sometimes she has no choice but to do something impulsive like fly across the Atlantic to crash a fashion party or reunite with her handsome European love interest.
It’s still a novelty to see a plus-size Black woman depicted as a romantic lead in pop culture and even more rare to see one in bed, as a sexual partner, in the same way a smaller white protagonist would. Mavis gets the full rom-com experience though; her size and race don’t exclude her from the fantasy within the show.
In one scene in the second season, while on an impromptu trip to Rome, Mavis declares to Italy from an open window that if we love “Emily in Paris,” we’re definitely going to love “Mavis in Rome.” Personally, I believe “Mavis in Rome” is in another league completely. My polite disdain for “Emily in Paris”-style romantic dramedies is based not only on their inherent optimism but their flaunted privilege. These are stories still dominated by thin white women whose challenges are really just some easily overcome personal flaws or acts of self-sabotage. These women can just “eat pray love” their way to their fairy tale endings because that’s what we’re conditioned to expect.
It is still too much of a rarity for a full-bodied Black woman to be the star of her own narrative and for that narrative to be defined not by trauma but love and joy. But over the course of the three seasons, Mavis gets two European adventures and two marriage proposals. By the end, she has a family and a thriving career. And she maintains friendships with other successful Black characters — an independent visual artist, a boss lady in white corporate America, a trans woman running her own business — who each have their own fulfilling arcs.
Even as Mavis struggles through a depressive episode in the third season, her relationships with her partner and her friends bolster her and help the show maintain its buoyant sense of optimism. This is what makes “Survival of the Thickest” stand out as quietly transgressive, even as it follows through the usual tropes of its genre. In Buteau’s frothy performance, Mavis is the epitome of irrepressible Black love and joy.
