Publications
Partners
Read about the “Golden Age of television” and you’ll be pointed to series like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Wire.
But The Golden Age tells tales of men, not women.
While in movies men get all the lines and older women are passed over for leading roles, TV series have been staging a quiet revolution. There’s never been a better time for watching women-led television.
Here are three shows that are essential watching:
Orange Is The New Black
If you haven’t got to this one yet, you'll have a fair bit of catching up to do. We’re coming up on season five now (just released on Netflix!), with the last season ending on a cliff-hanger.
Piper, your typical privileged American blonde thirty-something was sent to prison for her involvement in drug smuggling. True, she should have been freed about three seasons ago, but that wouldn’t make for a very exciting prison story, now would it.
The prison she’s sent to is, at times, reminiscent of a women’s boarding house. The inmates have been there so long that they’re practically running the place. Think Prison Break, but with women.
If you don’t take to Piper (she tries to be bad-ass, but often gets it wrong), there are so many more captivating inmate stories to draw you in.
There’s Red, the Russian matriarch; Daya, the new mom gone rogue; Poussey, the sensitive and cerebral librarian, and so many more.
Oh, and Piper and Alex are our couple-goals pair. On again, off again, they’re the It couple of the prison.
Orange is packed full of issues: from race relations to drug abuse. Men are just the backdrop in this series, with two male characters in prison management, and the occasional scene that features husbands or ex-boyfriends in passing.
The Handmaid’s Tale
I was so delighted when this was released that I rushed out to the library to re-read the book in preparation.
Based on Margaret Atwood’s book of the same name this series is stark and brutal in its portrayal of a dystopian, but frighteningly believable USA, in which women are chattel and made to fill the role of surrogates to privileged married couples.
Offred, the main character, narrates the story. Her background and that of Gilead, the setting for the series, unfolds slowly. The viewer gathers that things haven’t always been this way.
Offred left a family behind, soon after her bank account (and those of all women in the country) was frozen, and she had to flee.
Caught by authorities, she’s sent to a location where women are trained to become handmaidens. To call what they are required to do “surrogacy” implies choice.
This isn’t the case.
Raped once a month by her “commander”, the handmaiden’s sole duty is to reproduce.
Throughout the series we’re rooting for our heroine to lash out against authority, while at the same time identifying with the crippling fear that overtakes her at every turn.
If you aren’t a feminist when you start watching this, you’ll most definitely be one by the end.
Read more: 22 awesome films directed by women that everyone should watch
Big Little Lies
The story begins with a murder. We know it’s happened, but we don’t know who the victim is or who committed the crime.
Set in Monterey, California, this series focuses on three moms of first-graders Madeline, Celeste, and Jane.
The show is essentially wealth porn. Our main characters seem to do little more than helicopter-parent their kids, pick fights with other moms, and wander around in designer clothes.
But there’s more to it than that. Jane seems to be running from a dark past. Madeline is having an emotional affair with a fellow community actor and feels regularly shown up by her ex-husband’s new wife, an ethereal Zoe Kravitz, and Celeste’s husband abuses her in secret.
As we get to know our characters, the tension builds. Who killed whom? And why? This is a great binge-watch series and without giving away any spoilers, the end is intensely satisfying.
