7 New Shows to Nourish Your Inner Boss B*tch
It’s not easy being a lady these days, between catching up on Scandal, tweeting about electoral politics and being a boss ass bitch, time is money. But let me just say this, get these empowering TV shows on your radar and you’ll rule the world faster than you can say Beyoncé.
1. Good Girls Revolt
If Mad Men had a confessional room for the female employees, the result would be “Good Girls Revolt.” The show is based on the real-life story of the revolutionary lawsuit filed by 47 women at Newsweek in the early 1970s. It’s less the characters and more the all too familiar situations highlighting how far-reaching sexism can be. It doesn’t stay in the conference room where your male boss asked you to go fetch him a coffee after you spoke up in a meeting. And it most certainly doesn’t end by the break room where your male counterpart brushed up behind you. The beauty of Good Girls Revolt is how it illuminates the fact that every office has a pussy-grabber, even in 2016.
It also just got canceled despite having twice the audience of other Amazon shows, proving sexism is indeed alive and well.
Good Girls Revolt began on October 28th, 2016 and can be streamed in full on Amazon.
2. Westworld
After the show experienced some turbulence over contracts requiring genital-on-genital contact amongst actors, we were expecting the usual line-up of the male gaze and female objectification. But Westworld is different. Westworld sexualizes everyone. To be frank, I’ve never seen so much dick in my life. And in addition to the gratuitous shots of scrotums and breasts – we have two of the best female characters on television right now. Maeve Millay played by Thandie Newton is a force to be reckoned with, literally, taking all men as her prisoners. Evan Rachel Wood’s Dolores Abernathy is abused by male guests on the reg, but steals the show as a total badass when it matters most.
Westworld began October 2nd, 2016 on HBO and ends December 4th, 2016.
3. Insecure
Insecure, a first of its kind TV series breaks down barriers on black female archetypes in Hollywood. The show is based off of Issa Rae’s web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, which portrays black female friendship. The real kind, not some Jerry Springer hot ass mess kind. They’re real. They’re awkward. They’re real awkward.
Insecure began October 9th, 2016 on HBO and can be streamed in full.
4. Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
While we live in a political climate that is not yet ready for a female leader, we’ve at least broken the glass ceiling in late-night satirical news reporting. Samantha Bee has done just that and stands among a very small sampling of women who have hosted any type of late-night show. She walks the line that women in power are consistently aware of, being an authority without scolding or nagging. Not to mention, she’s funny as fuck. Creating nicknames for Donald Trump like “tangerine-tinted trashcan fire” and “screaming carrot demon,” Samantha Bee is the Queen of Late-Night.
Full Frontal airs on Mondays on TBS.
5. The Crown
Queen Elizabeth I is the ultimate player, but not in the typical sense. She knew she was entering precarious territory, being the first woman to rule in over half a century, and at a devastatingly young-age, she would be ripe for disparagement. Her navigation of a male-dominated government by sleight of hand manipulation is genius.
The Crown began November 4th, 2016 on Netflix and can be streamed in full.
6. Search Party
This isn’t your typical action-hero series that everyone and their brother has created as an ode to women. Search Party goes much deeper than that. With dialogue from Alia Shawkat like “I guess I’ll let you get back to shooting black teens, because that’s obviously all you do,” the show echoes the deepest feelings of ennui within the haphazard millennial community. A community filled with characters so uncomfortably real and unsympathetic, that no one feels bad for; not even the writers and that is what makes it so worth the watch.
Search Party was released on November 21st, 2016 all at once for your binge-watching pleasure on TBS.
7. Divorce
While some say Divorce is uncomfortable viewing for feminists, I have to say it feels more like an honest viewing on the behavior of men. More specifically, accomplished, white men who should know better. The show displays privileged males who, when pushed into situations they find inconvenient, act like 4-year-olds. Because at the end of the day, men are men, no matter their socio-economic class. When men cheat, they often get a second chance. When women cheat, let the slut shaming begin. Divorce rallies around the woman who cheated, in a physical sense, and the friends who stand by her.
Divorce began October 9th, 2016 on HBO and ends December 11th, 2016.
