Between 2020 Emmy nominations is a quiet victory for women in Hollywood: five of the shows nominated for best limited series (Small Fires Everywhere, The Lady Of America, Amazing, Unorthodoxand Watchmen) are stories centering on women. This category may not be as bright or reputed as the biggest of names, but this major milestone signals a slow but constant wave of change: the stories of women are being recognized as worthy in the mainstream, not tossed to the side as an inherently gender-less.
The mere presence of women as the leads of the five Emmy-nominated limited series is not the greatest victory, however: it is the variety of stories being told. Among the nominees are three true stories (or, more exactly, stories based on real stories), a superhero allegory of contemporary america, and a twisted tale of race and class in the suburbs. The women in these stories cover a wide range of ages, socioeconomic situations, races and careers; all of them are complicated and confusing, and well-rounded women. They represent different corners of the American woman’s experience: women who are struggling for progress, conservative women, working class women, women who have survived abuse, Jewish women, Black women — and the list goes on.
“We’re love interests, sisters, mothers, servants in the prestige of the shows about evil men, but we are rarely the bad women (or good women), whose own stories get equal recognition.”
For too long, we’ve been told as women that our stories are “niche.” Comedies that the women’s center are, almost without fail, relegated to the “chick flick” label, while the dramas with women often focus on their suffering. To be sure, there is a complicated set of questions behind all of this. Are women the same opportunities to write their own stories? Are they getting the same budgets and marketing? Students are asked to write only what the old school of executives think that “sell”? There is a bias that the shelves of the stories of the women automatically as a minor sub-genre? These are all valid questions with messy answers, and they all play in the lack of recognition of the stories of the women when they finally made it. We are love interests, sisters, mothers, servants in the prestige of the shows about evil men, but we are rarely the bad women (or good women), whose own stories get equal recognition.
The Emmys limited series nominees also represent something more important: the decline of the “prestige TV” and its replacement with a new definition more open to different stories and points of view. The prestige of TELEVISION, in its standard form, has been brave-ish dramas mainly focused on the stoic, morally-questionable men doing morally questionable things, all filmed with a dark color from the palette and full of quasi-philosophical dialogue. I think Breaking Bad, Mad Men, True Detective, Sons of Anarchy, Better Call Saul — you get the picture. But in most of these, women are relegated to secondary roles, poorer roles, the stereotypes about the functions or roles that position them as “obstacles” for the men to get what they want.
As the prestige of TV decreases in their definition, what came in its place is an exploration of what this type of stories it might seem as if they were told from the perspective of the marginalized: persons who are not men, people who are not white, people who are not cisgender and/or straight. These stories with the moral dilemmas and complicated decisions become even more interesting and compelling when the layers of their characters’ identities and experiences in the world are influencing every movement and every motivation. Are equal, but different, and it is important that women have the opportunity to be the cumbersome, complicated, sometimes unlikeable antiheroes too.
What is more important, this year the limited series nominees often say specifically female stories, without being relegated to second-class “women’s fiction” status. Amazing it is about a young woman’s assault, and the patriarchal system that punishes them for being an imperfect of the victim, and the women who discover the truth. Unorthodox follows a young man escaping from an ultra-conservative religious community. The Lady Of America continues the showdown between the feminist movement and its opponents, many of whom were women also. Watchmen remixes the superhero genre to place a Black woman at the center of a vigilante tale set in an America rocked by the uprisings on racism. You can’t separate these characters ‘ gender from their experiences, but their gender does not compel the stereotypes.
This is not to say that the Emmys are perfect this year; there are many more that deserve the stories that have been snubbed too. In forward, we can expect more stories of compelling, complicated women — and the hope that they, too, will get the recognition that they deserve.
