Mad women: how angry sisterhood is taking over the small screen

Mad women: how angry sisterhood is taking over the small screen

In a string of new and returning shows, from Jessica Jones to UnReal, female characters are slowly disassembling the patriarchy with righteous fury

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Clockwise from top left: UnReal, Jessica Jones, The Good Fight and Good Girls. Composite: A&E Networks/Netflix/ABC/ CBS

At the start of the new drama Good Girls, we see an adorable little girl scream “we need to burn this patriarchy down!” and soon after we are introduced to three very different women, all angry at various types of injustice: a philandering husband, a very sick daughter, a sexually harassing and abusive boss. In the world of Good Girls, empowerment is not only about standing up for yourself, but also about standing with the sisterhood. In one scene, Beth (played by Christina Hendricks) gives her husband’s mistress a tongue lashing, but then also gives her money, saying: “We both deserve more than a liar in a pig suit.” In another, Beth hears the attempted rape of her sister by her corrupt former manager and comes at him with a toy gun. When he calls her bluff, she hits him on the head with a whisky bottle.


Throughout Good Girls, female rage is not just a response to personal pain, but a reaction to oppression, and a necessary catalyst for change. Today we see a number of programs explicitly inviting viewers to identify with female protagonists who have unresolved traumas, many of which come from a history of assault and abuse. This is true in comedies such as Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, where typically cheerful Kimmy is encouraged to wrestle with her angry feelings about being abducted, and dramas such as Jessica Jones, which in its second season continues to explore how Jessica’s anger shapes her healing process. Similarly, shows such as Orange is the New Black, Big Little Lies, and I Love Dick not only make complicated women into heroines, they also allow women to stand together and stand up to men who dominate, belittle and harass them.


This is a tremendous departure from a decade ago, when prestige TV dramas that focused on anger were fixated on male antiheroes. Many shows featured multifaceted female characters, but audiences often didn’t respond well to them. Throughout Breaking Bad’s run, for example, viewers rallied behind Walter White’s transformation from gentle chemistry teacher and family man to violent and abusive drug kingpin, while the character who inspired the most revulsion was his wife, Skyler, who many viewers cast as the villain, even when she was fighting to protect and defend her family just as Walt claimed to be.

Likewise, the award-winning drama Mad Men featured male characters sexually harassing, abusing and exploiting women. Yet the character who generally received the most hate in online discussions was Betty, Don’s beautiful, icy, and long-suffering wife. This is not to say that Betty’s character didn’t deserve criticism; the series often shows her to be cruel, especially to her children. But while part of the series’ pleasure was seeing characters like Peggy and Joan rise up against sexism, many viewers were also captivated by the allure of male bravado – women swooned over Don Draper’s classic brand of masculinity, even when he behaved in boorish ways.
The wives, mothers, sisters, and girlfriends we have always seen​ are finally given permission to be mad

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https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/mar/07/mad-women-angry-sisterhood-taking-over-tv