Female TV characters have changed drastically since @TheFemmebots came up in the 80s, so we decided we need to recognize how the stories now streaming on Netflix, Amazon, HBO Max, Hulu, YouTube are finally reflecting our own female gaze back at us. Pause.
A moment of silence. Change is possible, after all, thanks to the Interwebs that promised us this specific kind of change in the late 1990s. What I love most is that these female characters are international, hailing from Argentina and Poland.
Some of the female TV characters we have been obsessed with lately are:
Tamara Tenenbaum, played by Lali Esposito, in “The End of Love.”
Wow! Love this female character and how she dissects the complicated relationships women have with women without falling into the Lesbian category. Yes, the main character, based on the writer, has complicated friendships with Lesbians, AND she also has complicated relationships with her mother, her sister, her coworkers, her cousin, and even a trans woman who ends up smacking her upside her head (metaphorically) with her own blinders.
By “complicated,” I mean jealous, competitive, selfish, and just as emotionally draining as a heteronormative relationship. Sure, there have been other series like HBO’s “Sex and the City” and “Girls” that dissect female friendships, but the central themes of those series are ALWAYS about the “main girl” and whether or not she will get her man in the end.
At some points Tam reminds me a little bit of Nadia in “Russian Doll,” with her destructive, partying ways, and her investigation into her upbringing as a Jewish girl…in this case from the Orthodox community. Yeah, bet you didn’t know Buenos Aires has its own flavor of Orthodox, and WOW, it’s captured beautifully through the eyes of this female writer, director and her female characters.
Helena, Pola and Marysia in “Glitter.”
These female characters immediately captured me, not because they are sexy prostitutes in 1970s Poland, but because the female director knows how to direct her actresses. Storytelling is SO freaking different when a woman is behind the camera, but I’m also in love with the jump cuts we studied so much in Prague when I was in film school. It’s also refreshing to learn a little bit more about what was happening politically and economically in Poland during this time, through the eyes of women.