We’re in a golden age of feminist TV, and don’t even need the Bechdel test to prove it
Killing Eve, Derry Girls, Glow, Big Little Lies, The Bold Type, Claws: with this sort of variety, female-led shows no longer have to speak for every woman
Almost every single show I have watched this year has female protagonists. This isn’t because of some pious attempt to correct my predominantly white, male back catalogue. They’re just very good and there’s a lot of them now. When it comes to female representation in television (and more importantly, decent female representation in television), we have lost some serious heavyweights this year: Fleabag, Broad City and Catastrophe to name a few. But unlike the case with most trends, their endings haven’t spelled the end of change, with equally brilliant newer offerings cropping up.
Killing Eve and Derry Girls and Glow and Big Little Lies and The Bold Type and Claws to name a few. As the canon of shows with strong female leads grows, the pressure for these programmes to be groundbreaking lessens. Many of them are simply expanding the work that has already been done. Tuca and Bertie (pictured below), a bawdy cartoon about a toucan (Tiffany Haddish) and her neurotic best friend (Ali Wong, a thrush), dubbed an “animated version of Broad City” is an important depiction of female desire. But it is by no means the first – and it doesn’t have to be, it’s part of a wave that could one day render the Bechdel test redundant. Another Netflix newcomer, Dead to Me has been described as a “Gen Z Grace and Frankie”. While these comparisons can feel draining at times, it’s worthwhile remembering that a few years ago, it would simply have been a “female version” of a male-fronted show, because nothing else existed.