As a male who has dabbled in writing fiction, I'm always interested the lives of woman -- what is important to them and what they want. Not long ago I published one take on this matter and now here is another.
On Dec. 3, 2020, the Arts section of the New York Times, carried a piece by Scarlett Harris lamenting the apparent premature end of a Netflix series about woman wrestlers entitled "GLOW." It ran for three seasons and was supposed to have one more, but that was cancelled. According to the NYT, Netflix cited production delays as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Harris said she liked the series because, along with women pummeling each other with such things as fly-tackles and face slams, the series dealt with subjects faced by "everyday women." These, she said, include "motherhood, friendship, queer identity, ambition, reproductive rights, racism and eating disorders."
Racism was apparently one topic the show, created by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, both white women, didn't successfully address in the context of putting the series together.
"After the show was cancelled, it was revealed that the principal cast's women of color had asked the producers for more inclusivity, criticizing the show for sidelining their characters and making them feel like check boxes on a list," the NYT article said. In other words, they wanted bigger roles.
Well, OK, as Harris said earlier in her article, racism is one of the things contemporary women have to deal with.
On another front, it appeared GLOW didn't actually break much new ground. Sex sells and the more transgressive, the better. Early in the series, one of the main characters discovers the other, a best friend, is sleeping with her husband. But, thanks to having to trust each other in the ring when both become wrestlers, they get their personal relationship back on track, leading Ms Harris to say that for her, GLOW was at its core a love story between the two women. Well, as we learned above, queer identity is one of the issues "everyday women" currently face.
Lots of ideas for aspiring writers here.
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