(courtesy IMP Awards)
Good lord but there such an infectious vibe to people who know and love themselves.
In the nicest, least aggressive of ways (we’re not talking unreconstructed narcissists here), they own who they are, celebrate what they do and don’t feel the slightest need to begin to apologise to anyone else.
It’s intoxicatingly joyful and liberating to be around them, a vibrant vibe that is all through Survival of the Thickest which has just realised its third and final season.
Based on the collected essays of the same name by Michelle Buteau, Survival of the Thickest is one Black woman’s fight to have the world accept and love her on her own terms, whether that’s romantically, professionally or socially.
The sheer’s exuberance of Buteau’s unbridled performance as series’ protagonist Mavis Beaumont (the first name is her grandmother’s) permeates every last scene in the show, her love for her beautiful queer found family, which includes her bestie Khalil Holland (Tone Bell), who she’s known since she was 10, Peppermint (she plays a fictionalied version of herself) and host of others from across the spectrum of diverse human beings, is evident everywhere and the third season goes all out to celebrate the power of being unapologetically yourself in all your glory.
Rather happily because it’s easy to celebrate yourself when times are good, the third season also takes us through some very dark times reflecting Buteau’s life journey, the message clearly being that life is made up of the good and the bad and that whatever is going in, knowing yourself and being loved and known by others makes all the others.
The importance of the village that surrounds you is never more impactful than at certain key points in the season.
While she finds huge unconditional love and support from Luca (Marouane Zotti), with the relationship between these two gorgeous people going from strength-to-strength through out all eight episodes including ———- SPOLILER ALERT !!!!! ———- an impromptu wedding and baby!!! – it’s when she’s at one of her darkest hours that her found family well and truly proves its worth.
The joy is that these are the people who know her best and they demonstrate the veracity of how well they know her by offering assistance in ways that quietly acknowledge the pain Mavis is in while while offering ways to lead her out of the desperately sad place in which she finds herself.
OOOO
Another great interview …