Ted Lasso stayed true to its most salient value in our current media landscape by casually and comfortably addressing the possibility of healthier masculinity in heavily male-dominated spaces. This is particularly groundbreaking given the context of aggression in men’s sports, especially English football.
Tag: Television
Gender, Corruption and Unbridled Power in Prime Series ‘The Power’: The Ms. Q&A With Naomi Alderman
Written by Naomi Alderman and adapted into a TV series for Prime Video, The Power asks a deceptively simple question: What would happen if, overnight, girls and some women worldwide gained the ability to administer electric shocks at will?
Ms. spoke with Naomi Alderman about her novel and how she sees its television adaptation resonating in the years since the book’s initial release.
‘The Owl House’ Versus ‘Harry Potter’: Magic School Shows, Queer Representation and Medical Autonomy
The series finale of The Owl House premiered last weekend on the Disney Channel—a story of a neurodivergent Latina girl named Luz Noceda, who stumbles into a realm inhabited by witches and demons.
Just this month, Warner Bros announced a new decade-long TV series adaptation of all seven Harry Potter books. But we don’t need another Harry Potter adaptation. We don’t need a rich, white, abled, cisgender, heterosexual woman with limited feminist views representing or speaking for us. What we need are new stories—better stories. Stories that better represent human diversity and actively seek to include as many different voices as possible. The Owl House was one of those stories, and while I’m heartbroken it ended sooner than it should have, I know there will be more.
How HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ Tackled Reproductive Justice Issues
Today there are many challenges to reproductive justice. HBO’s The Last of Us raises important questions about those human rights and justice.
It’s Not Just at the Oscars Where Women Filmmakers Are Left Out
This weekend’s Oscar awards have generated headlines about the lack of diversity among nominees—notably, this year, no women were nominated for Best Director. In fact, in the Academy’s 94-year history, it’s nominated just seven women in the category.
Whether the stories told are fiction or nonfiction, there continue to be considerable obstacles for women and nonbinary filmmakers when attempting to break the glass ceiling of storytelling on the big screen. This weekend’s awards ceremony only highlights how much further we still have to go.
How ‘Fleishman Is in Trouble’ Made Me a More Empathic Doctor
Watching the novel-turned-television show Fleishman Is in Trouble now, I am struck by how Rachel’s traumatic birth left the Fleishmans in trouble. Her birth story helped me realize how much my own traumatic birth transformed me as a doctor.
The show helps us feel the absurdity in insinuating that Rachel could have moved on from her delivery simply and gracefully, content to be alive and physically unscathed, perhaps attending therapy to help her cope. Taffy Brodesser-Akner shrewdly summed this all up when she wrote, Rachel “was what this doctor thought she was. She was nothing. She was just a woman.”
Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Black Women Win Big at the Emmys; U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Officially Scores Equal Pay
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: U.S. women’s soccer team officially secures equal pay; Black women win big at the Emmys; how ranked-choice voting would help women candidates compete in New York City; and more.
‘Roses for Every Body’ Calls for Fat Inclusion on ‘The Bachelor’
In the dating show franchise’s 20-year history, there have only been two self-identified plus-sized contestants—and both went home on night one. This campaign is hoping to change that.
Women Will Be Playing Hardball on TV This Season
“There’s no crying in baseball,” says Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own. But the film’s more subtle theme is that there are no lesbians in baseball. The 1992 film made no mention of the fact that many of the athletes in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) were gay.
But last Friday, Amazon Prime Video unveiled an eight-episode series, also called A League of Their Own, that includes openly lesbian AAGPBL players.
Our Gilded Progress: ‘Great Gowns,’ Pop Culture and Reproductive Freedoms
This year’s Met Gala invited A-list celebrities in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, racial divides, rising inflation costs, and the widening gap between the top 1 percent and everyone else.
During this event a leaked draft of the majority opinion from the Supreme Court immediately sent shockwaves, as the public learned that our highest court intends to overturn Roe v. Wade, which guarantees the right to abortion. Suddenly, the extreme wealth on display at the Met Gala seemed to represent all the “gilded” hubris of an historical era that seemed more “golden” than it really was—as we are now thrust back to a dystopian and despairing future we must confront and resist at all costs.