Alison Brie Says GLOW's #MeToo Scene Made Her Examine Her Own Hollywood Experiences
Our favorite ladies in leotards returned to Netflix on Friday with the second-season premiere of GLOW, and, as predicted, there’s a ton the characters need to untangle as they duke it out in the wrestling ring. In a candid interview with Mashable, show star Alison Brie went into some of the issues that the new episodes are tackling (no pun intended) and shared that #MeToo figures into one of the storylines—an experience that made her confront her own attitudes about misconduct in Hollywood.
Without spoiling too much, there’s an episode where Brie’s character, Ruth, has a gross encounter with the head of a TV network. The executive seems interested in talking about Ruth’s career ambitions and invites her to his hotel, where an upsetting incident unfolds. The scenes mirrors the many casting couch stories women have come forward with amid the #MeToo movement, and Brie says they made her do some personal reflecting.
“Shooting those scenes did bring up some personal feelings for me—which I sort of didn’t expect,” Brie told Mashable. “Honestly, when I first read it I was like, ‘Is this scene bad enough? Is he really doing anything bad?’ And then I had to stop and realize, ‘Oh, wow, I’ve been in a lot of bad situations. And I’ve really normalized that kind behavior, even for myself.'”
Brie also shared that the exchange was actually written before #MeToo really took over the cultural conversation, but she added that “it was not written before sexism.” The episode introduces several complicated perspectives as the characters reckon with what happens, but as Mashable notes, the writers resist the urge to “Send A Message or make these women characters examples.” That complexity is one of the reasons we were such huge fans of the show’s last season.
Brie also went on to say that she has noticed a shift in the current zeitgeist.
“It doesn’t ever change,” she told Mashable. “But I feel like we are living in a moment of change. Like, if it’s going to change, this will be the moment where see actual change, actual consequence, actual awareness registering within our industry. Which is something that we haven’t seen before.”
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