‘Survival of the Thickest’ is the Rom-Com Renaissance We’ve Been Waiting For
by Julia Washington
photo: Netflix
“In the post When Harry Met Sally era, we have been led to believe that men and women can never be friends, and seeing Mavis and Khalil love each other, like the besties they are, is something we need more of on television.”
*This article contains spoilers*
I want to introduce you to my friend, Mavis Beaumont. She is a thirty-eight-year-old stylist who recently learned that her successful and handsome photographer boyfriend is cheating on her. She learns of his egregious behavior by coming home midday for a bathroom break, because why not if your home is on the way to your next destination? And what’s worse, is this woman is a younger, thinner, almost near replica of Mavis. This insulting behavior is not only layered but also cliched.
“Survival of the Thickest,” starring Michelle Buteau, dropped on Netflix on July 13, 2023, and is loosely based on Buteau’s collection of essays of the same name. This eight-episode series not only explores broken hearts and new love, but also navigating self-expression, the importance of friendship, and navigating one’s career.
In episode one we meet Khalil (Tone Bell). He is helping Mavis move out of her beautiful apartment with Jaque (Taylor Selé) into a doorless bedroom in Brooklyn. In solidarity, he takes a jacket from Jaque’s closet, an item that quietly resurfaces later in the show. Once Mavis is moved in, Marley (Tasha Smith) comes over, to offer emotional (and financial) support. Khalil the artist, social justice-minded, and frequenter of casual hook-ups, and Marley a high-powered corporate type who is open to all possibilities—but hesitant to explore anything emotionally vulnerable regarding love—don’t exactly enjoy each other’s company even when in the presence of Mavis.
But over the course of the series, we learn that Khalil and Mavis have been friends for twenty-five years and never once is their friendship seen or portrayed as a threat to either one’s romantic life. In the post When Harry Met Sally era, we have been led to believe that men and women can never be friends, and seeing Mavis and Khalil love each other, like the besties they are, is something we need more of on television. There’s even a point in the show where the writers could have brought Khalil and Marley together romantically, but they don’t. These two develop a friendship by challenging each other and pushing the other to find something deeper within themselves.
“Survival of the Thickest” moves from the firm choke-hold tropes of rom-coms to a new, more expansive, way to present friendship and love, as well as showing us that the main character can have fully-fleshed out best friends with their own lives and challenges that are non-threatening to romantic love.
While Mavis does find herself in a love triangle, (a long-standing rom-com trope that this writer may never escape from secretly loving) within that triangle we do not find Khalil. He is in the midst of his own romantic crisis when he meets a woman, India (Anissa Felix), that he really likes. That’s when he finds himself facing the stark reality that even being “one of the good ones” in the land of F-boys, he still has some tendencies that make him bad.
During this self-evaluation/reckoning, Mavis and Khalil still make time for each other and confide in each other about the feelings they experience and the growth they are making all the while still being vulnerable and expressive with their new partners.
Even though this show gives us some hot mess moments for Mavis, it doesn’t feel juvenile or antiquated. And while there is so much more to the show than themes of friendships and love (an entire article could be dedicated to episode eight’s prom or Mavis’s styling career), this writer hopes that with the rom-com renaissance we are experiencing, we now see more stories ditch the old trope that men and women can’t be friends (and other nonsense that’s just plain tired).
“Survival of the Thickest” is on Netflix. All episodes are available for streaming.
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