This Sunday, the 75th Golden Globe Awards will take place in Los Angeles and this year’s leading narratives have one exceedingly timely theme: female renegades. Groundbreaking films and shows like SMILF, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and I, Tonya all secured nominations, sending a clear message: Stories about rebellious women aren’t just craved by viewers, they’re also valued by the industry.
2017 was a catastrophic year for women, given the post-Weinstein climate and the Trump administration’s attack on the female body, but in this mess female-fronted films and shows with character types we’ve never seen before rose up. Finally, we saw crass, powerful women who were cathartic and invigorating to watch. Of course, the Golden Globe nominations aren’t perfect—their lack of acknowledgement for female directors and women of color is insulting—but nonetheless, the nominations set the tone for an awards season that’s shaping up to be exceedingly female.
Just look at last year’s nominees to see how steeply different things are: In 2017, all five Best Picture (Drama) nominees were male-led films, as were the nominees for Best Screenplay in a Motion Picture. This year, however, three out of the five nominees for Best Picture (Drama) are female-led, and all five of the nominees for Best Screenplay are female-led. (While we’re at it—so are all five nominees for Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.) Women are finally being given their long-deserved leading roles, but what sticks out the most are the types of roles.
Molly’s Game, I, Tonya, and Three Billboards all feature female protagonists who aren’t just crude and bullheaded: They’re criminals. It was refreshing to watch women sit comfortably in their own imperfections, rather than being lionized as flawless heroes. Criminals aside, SMILF, Lady Bird, The Post, and The Shape of Water also told stories about female rebellion. Whether it be a good decision, like Kay Graham’s historic resolution to publish the Pentagon Papers (The Post), or a terrible one, like Bridgette having sex while her toddler slept next to her (SMILF), these women were untamable. They were flawed and wholly and unapologetically themselves.
The nominated shows and films are also filled with stories of bold trailblazers, like Queen Elizabeth in The Crown, Billie Jean King in *Battle of the Sexes, and Midge, a female stand-up in the 1950s in Amy Sherman-Palladino’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Some tell stories about female bravery, like Margaret Atwood’s dystopian The Handmaid’s Tale or the Reese Witherspoon-fronted Big Little Lies. Even Stranger Things, which is led primarily by male protagonists, features a breadth of courageous women who, most times, overpower and usurp their male counterparts.
“Women are no longer being defined just by tender sexuality by men,
they’re being defined in all of their dimensionality.”
Understandably, many women of Hollywood are relieved that this year is glaringly different. “Women are no longer being defined just by tender sexuality by men, they’re being defined in all of their dimensionality,” Sarah Finn, the casting director behind Three Billboards, tells us. She continues, “Men have been allowed to have characters on screen in every range and spectrum, but women haven’t had the range that they’re being able to exhibit this year. It’s really thrilling.” Finn suggests that these “intensely flawed and intensely human” characters are being celebrated because they resonate with current audiences, especially women. With Big Little Lies and Feud: Bette and Joan leading in Golden Globe nominations for television, and The Shape of Water, Three Billboards, and The Post leading in film, clearly the demand for these movies is being met with deserved praise. “These movies are being seen and appreciated now, given the climate in this country and given women’s desires to be seen and acknowledged.”
Still, we can do better: Most of these shows and films are written and directed by men. Which is why Frankie Shaw, the star and creator of Showtime’s SMILF, wants to create more female representation, both on-screen and behind the camera. On her decision to hire only female directors for both the first and second seasons of her show, Shaw says, “I worked in TV as an actor for awhile before I started writing and directing, and only once in 10 years had I been directed by a woman. So I was like, let’s just even the playing field.”
Like Sarah Finn, Shaw sees the importance of portraying imperfect women on-screen—and having women tell their own stories is important to her. “I just feel like the more women who are telling their stories, we see more three-dimensional characters represented by women too,” she explains. “When you have a very messy and flawed and struggling young woman as a mom, I think it’s something that people weren’t used to seeing.” She admits this fight isn’t over, but the television landscape is still undeniably better than it’s ever been. “It’s a time where our show can exist, and it could not have existed any other time.”
“It just so happens that there are a lot of other people who are fed
up right now.”
Outside of the Golden Globes, the upcoming awards season looks just as promising: Three Billboards won the audience award, the top honor at the Toronto International Film Festival, which created some serious Oscar buzz for the film. Lady Bird, The Post, The Shape of Water, and Three Billboards are all nominated for Best Picture at the Critics’ Choice Awards. Three Billboards and Lady Bird led the nominations in film at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, while Big Little Lies and GLOW led in television. Lady Bird, I, Tonya, The Shape of Water, Molly’s Game also scored nominations at the Writers Guild of America Awards.
And while it’s incredible to see Greta Gerwig’s film Lady Bird accrue all the attention it deserves, Frankie Shaw is right: Behind the scenes, women need more seats at the table, especially women of color. Hopefully, that change is happening now, as we’ve seen some recent wins: At the 2017 Emmy Awards, Lena Waithe, a queer woman of color, won the award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series on Master of None; Reed Morano won in the Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series category for her work on The Handmaid’s Tale.
The future definitely looks female, and the trauma of 2017 will hopefully bring about a new beginning for women. “It’s in the air, it’s in the zeitgeist,” Shaw says of this moment in history. “You get to a boiling point, and that’s where I was—these are my experiences. These are the experiences and the stories that I’m interested in talking about in this world, and it just so happens that there are a lot of other people who are fed up right now.”
