Since The Walking Dead is on a hiatus (during which they will hopefully pull their shit together, give me back my kickass Carol, and quit having Michonne skip around with little hearts bursting out of her head) there's a real dearth of shows with strong female characters I enjoy. I'm not talking about hardbodied, smartass housewives married to chubby morons, frigid career bitches, helpless waifs, or fighting fuck dolls. I'm talking about realistic, three-dimensional women who have a backstory of their own and don't rely on a man to either save them or make them shine ***only*** in comparison to said man's complete worthlessness.

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[*Carol is actually four-dimensional if you count Smiling Psycho as a separate dimension*](https://media2.giphy.com/media/kNO86xuGsfYRO/giphy.gif)

Perhaps sensing my frustration with the usual array, my Netflix cue has been recommending their new original series "GLOW" with all the subtlety of a suplex. Today I decided to go ahead and watch it while I worked. I choose to watch a lot of shows I'm not sure about while working, because I can let them kind of run in the background; and with only half an eye and ear on the show, much can be forgiven that might have me turning it off if I were really engaged in viewing.

Which is how I made it through the full-frontal cowgirl and multitudinous tit-shots.

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[*I was just like, whaaaa?*](https://media2.giphy.com/media/129fFfp0ZAMJYA/giphy.gif)

Look, I'm not a prude, but if I want to watch other people have sex, I'll stream some porn. I'm incredibly disappointed to see that there was serious female representation in the writing and production of this series. A series being billed as telling the story of female empowerment, by the way. I couldn't help thinking of the latest season of Kimmy Schmidt (now there's a show with some great ladies), when Kimmy attends a party with several Social Justice Warriors. As they dress her in a way that clearly shows more than she is comfortable with, they insist that she needs to flaunt her sexuality "for herself," a claim even the titular cult-raised naif finds unconvincing. 

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[*What? No, "titular" like "from the title" not like - oh forget it*](https://media4.giphy.com/media/qMqjZkmMi8wFO/giphy.gif)

I ***loved*** the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling when I was a kid. Though I'm skeptical of Netflix Originals, they've had some real wins with The Santa Clarita Diet, Stranger Things, and a few others. I was really interested in seeing the story of how these women created their own wrestling show and fan base (which included moi) at a time before strong female characters were ***even a thing***. Before Buffy, before Xena, before River Tam, there were the GLOW girls.

Yes, they dressed sexy and there was definitely a "mud wrestling" vibe to it, but the trailers made it look like this was going to be the story of how they fought to be ***more*** than just hot chicks in spandex. And while that story ***is told***, the message is grossly diluted by unnecessary boobage and banging.

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[*I'm not mad, just disappointed*](https://media4.giphy.com/media/vFjeA70RA9nwc/giphy.gif)

I watched the whole season, and admittedly, the sex stuff dies out relatively early on, but even so, several of the characters go beyond "flawed" and into "loathsome" territory. The subject matter is grim and the few times I got misty or nearly cheered at an upturn, were not remotely enough to offset the negativity of the story. It's as though since the success of Breaking Bad, everyone wants to have the next ***gritty*** series. Not everything has to be gritty, okay? If you're making a show about meth empires, gritty makes sense. If you're making a show about ladies wrestling, ***gritty doesn't even make sense!***

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[*Pictured: The origins of GLOW... Not pictured: Grit*](https://media2.giphy.com/media/A14PWfEHQwBkQ/giphy.gif)

The real irony here, is that a good portion of the tale centers around the director and the women developing these great story lines to back up their characters in the ring. The money-bags producer puts the kibosh on that shit, letting them know that no one really cares about these well thought out motivations. He wants stereotypes and sexy costumes. In the series, the deeper story lines win out to some degree, a lesson obviously not taken to heart by the writers of GLOW. 

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