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I had high hopes for this show, particularly because its rebooted in an era that is supposedly woke however it proved to be the opposite. Just like the media, it creates and an ugly image and "standard" of what beauty is. From the very first moment you see that the main character has gone through puberty literally over night. From growing immensely taller, to growing boobs and a butt. The inaccuracies of just this one scene summarises for whats to come. Every character gone through major life changes to fit a "modern" narrative ( bearing in mind I haven't even seen the original show but I can gather from just these first scenes it has totally gone in a different and wrong direction.) I would have liked to appreciate the fact they have attempted to change certain things to create awareness about certain issues that need attention- however its totally misinformed and misguided - I couldn't even finish the first episode because I found it to be so damaging to not only people's self esteem but just their overall outlook. The main character penny then comes downstairs with her new found body to then be forced into a suit of amour by her dad Oscar- projecting another incredibly toxic and damaging issue. His reason behind this is to protect her from boys but really it's shaming and hiding womens bodies enforcing a rule that is so damaging- instead of boys how to treat women. I understand that women have to protect themselves but hiding is certainly not the way to deal with it. Thankfully the grandmother steps in to remove the suit of armour forcing the dad into it instead. However it doesn't stop there the next scene penny meets her group of friends who have also clearly gone through some life changes... one friend then walks up and greets them hiding her face and body in a tracksuit with her hoodie tied up so only her eyes were visible, she then revealed her face to have grown side burns a moustache and a unibrow. Clearly the girl was insecure about going through these changes however her friends were far from supportive making her feel worse and enforcing yet again another poisonous narrative that she should remove all the hair to make her feel secure and confident. Anyone with knowledge and common sense would know that beauty starts from within and that means confidence, going through puberty doesn't make u feel insecure - lack of support, acceptance and knowledge does. And that's exactly what was projected. Her friends then were taking her to get all the hair removed and honestly i could not watch the rest. Perhaps the rest was better and definitely ignorant for me not to finish it but honestly I don't know how on earth they could have recovered.

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