‘Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls’ Will Dial Your Empathy Up to 11

There has been a lot of discourse lately about the necessity for empathy when viewing, uh, pretty much any piece of pop culture content — particularly when the content is about women. This should-be-non-troversy started when Turning Red dropped on Disney+ and some male critics (or maybe just a male critic — nuance is obliterated when Twitter gets churning) somehow deemed a movie about puberty to be too niche for them simply because the film is focuses on a Chinese-Canadian tween girl. It was truly maddening and baffling because puberty is something that is pretty close to a universal experience! You only have to swap out a few of the details to see yourself in Mei — and on top of that, the details that you swapped out also teach you something valuable about someone who is not yourself. Wow — you get to feel something deep in your soul and learn something about how other people experience the world! Such is the power of entertainment!

I’m thinking about all of this right now because I was able to watch advance screeners for Prime Video’s new reality competition series Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls while all of the Turning Red “discourse” raged online. I am not a girl, I am not big, I am not one to be watched out for, and I am not Lizzo — yet I was feeling a ridiculous amount of deep feels while going on this journey with these performers.

That should not be a surprise, as any show that is well done should have that affect on viewers, but the full-on masculinity panic around Turning Red made me wonder what it was about this narrative that makes it feel like Empathy 101.

Watch Out for the Big Grrrls is nominally a competition show; in it, a whole bunch of dancers run through a series of challenges in the hopes of joining Lizzo’s Big Grrrls crew onstage at Bonnaroo (and hopefully continue to slay stages on her national tour). All of the dancers are, as the title points out, big grrrls. The fact that these performers are given the chance to demonstrate their skills on a show where their size is the default and not just a plot point makes this series feel special.

It actively pushes against the myths that larger people are not healthy, are not athletic, are not talented, are not sexy, are not confident — and it does so with a host who’s charismatic as hell and a bunch of challenges that are designed to enlighten and entertain. Truly, what is not to love?

Watching this show just made me feel. Watching the dancers find out they’re dancing for Lizzo? Tears. Watching these women find a supportive community of others who know what they’re going through? Tears. Watching them show up and then show out? Tears!

I’m a white, cis man of average build who is very much not a dancer (and with no delusions of becoming one). To hear some of my fellow men folk would most likely gripe based on past evidence, Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls should not be for me. And it’s not for me, literally; this show is for the people who look like these people, who go through these specific issues and maybe have these same dreams. You do not have to run the experiences of the Big Grrrls through a metaphor machine in order to find value in this series. This series is valuable precisely because it is about exactly what it is about. Full stop.

And so, taking a step out from that underserved and deserving target demo, there is so much to feel while watching Watch Out for the Big Grrrls via the gift of empathy. I’m gay and from a religious southern family, so I know what it feels like to be out of place. I’m short as hell, so I know what it’s like to be literally overlooked and come up empty-handed when out shopping for clothes. My gut is so far removed from the Insta-gay ideal that I’ve had to battle my own inner haters to feel right in my body.

And I always get emotional when anyone meets their hero — the person who made them feel good about being themselves. That’s precisely how my man-out-of-time ass felt when I got to meet Bob Newhart. Lizzo is these girls’ Bob, and I love that for them!

The point is, while I can’t possibly know the intimate details of these particular struggles, I can at the very least relate. And the first step in relating is believing and validating — and lord knows people of size have a hard time being heard, believed, and validated. The same goes for anyone who related to the most specific specifics of Turning Red! We never listen to stories like that even though — men — we went through some awkward, hormonal obsessions and embarrassing body changes too! Believe, validate, relate — then celebrate or commiserate. The point is, pop culture like Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls is crafted with care for a very targeted audience who deserve and need to see themselves on TV, and that is actually something that everyone can get behind thanks to — what else? — empathy.

Plus the Lizzo soundtrack is right and all the choreo is sickening. If you aren’t down with that, I don’t know what else to tell you.

Stream Lizzo's Watch Out for the Big Girrrls on Prime Video