Released conveniently at a time when comments like “Nasty Woman” have lit up mainstream media, Good Girls Revolt is a welcome addition to streaming giant Amazon. The fun, feminist charged show follows three female researchers at the fictional “News of the Week” magazine (a clear rip on news mogul Newsweek), who work together to file an EEOC claim against their male employers.
The series is the type of magical, big budget period piece that one has come to expect from major streaming services (think Netflix’s “The Crown” and Hulu’s “11.22.63”). But the way it is produced makes it out to look as if it wouldn’t be out of place on a major cable network- and that’s not a bad thing. One of the biggest problems with producing historical pieces is that we tend to look at it through today’s modern hindsight, and Good Girls only rarely falls into this trap. It manages to cast New York in something other than a sepia toned light, letting us live and revel in a world that was not created, but rather lived in.
With an all-star cast of new leads and perennial favorites, Good Girls is hardly short on talent. Breakout star Erin Darke (Love and Mercy, Don’t Think Twice) steals the show as soft-spoken Cindy, perhaps the most relatable, real, and raw character in the show. She is feminism personified and throughout the first season learns how to be a woman, and not a wife, and a reporter, not a secretary. Anna Camp (Pitch Perfect, The Help) stuns as good-girl, virginal Jane, who although originally appears to fit tidily into the rule-following, good girl trope, breaks out to become one of the show’s strongest and deepest characters. Other leads include Genevieve Angelson who plays “hippie-astronaut” Patty, and Grace Gummer, who portrays Norah Ephron.
Many liken the show to AMC’s Mad Men, although I think this is an unfair comparison. If anything, Good Girl’s is Mad Men’s fun, flirty sister. It is the girl power version, the one to say Yes We Can! Instead of settling for an insubordinate role of Maybe, Later. It champions choice and consent and shows women in revolt as opposed to simply settling. It is powerful and fresh and reminds us that we’ve come far as a society since then. It allows us to look back to a different time, and in doing so, realize that we’ve come full circle. While we, as women, have had many more doors opened up to us because of the mothers and sisters that have come before us, we still have a long way to go. We live in a society where it’s okay for the future President to brag about his sexual conquests, and I think it’s time that we, as fellow nasty women, have a little good girl revolt of our own.
Grade: A
