Susannah Butter Will these tales of women in the ring have a vice-like grip on our attention?
Glow Netflix
NOTHING can dent Ruth Wilder’s cheer. As the second series of Glow unfolds, the actress-turned-wrestler is progressively belittled and betrayed but she remains defiantly upbeat in her role as self-appointed Head Girl of her raggle-taggle crew of women.
The programme is based on a real professional wrestling circuit in Eighties Los Angeles. Its name stands for Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling — think big hair, bigger eyelashes and plenty of sparkly spandex. But not much actual wrestling, yet. In series one, Ruth (Alison Brie) joined the circuit when she was unable to get work as an actress and, thanks to her new wrestling crew, she transformed into a confident woman who helped other women.
On the women theme, the show is executive-produced by Jenji Kohan (creator of Orange is the New Black) and created by OITNB’s executive producer Carly Mensch and Liz Flahive, who produced Nurse Jackie. The first series was nominated for 19 awards and earnied Brie a best actress nomination at the Golden Globes. High hopes, then.
Now the wrestlers are making a TV show, and the highlight of this episode is the energetic set-piece romp in a mall where they fight over dresses, shoes and at hairdressers. Is it girl-on-girl violence with a wider commentary on consumerism as they hope, or, as the cameraman says, is it way dumber than that? It’s left to the viewer to decide.
The troupe of wrestlers ticks all the diversity boxes. There’s the black one, the plus-sized one, the English one — played by singer Kate Nash — and the Mexican one. It’s a coup getting such a mixed cast but it would be better if they were given more to say. But this is just episode one, so hopefully it will develop. As it is, it’s just basic bitchy rivalries and digs about leotards.
Brie, the all-American one, is supposed to carry it. She was brilliant in Mad Men as the calculating Trudy Campbell. Here, as Ruth, she verges on the onedimensional with her big sincere eyes and let’s-all-support-each-other schtick. She even wants to be friends with their sexist curmudgeon manager. She cheers him up with a miniature of vodka even though it’s only 9am and offers to be the Alma to his Hitch — Alfred Hitchcock’s wife, who was “invisible but indispensable, the woman behind the man, who is as important as the man and helps the man be great by getting the job done.” Right on, sister — well it’s a step for a sexist underside of Los Angeles in the Eighties.
There is romantic tension between Ruth and the cameraman, who deadpans that he is used to working with so many women because he used to shoot porn, and jealousy from working mother wrestler Debbie (who has previous beef with Ruth from season one when Ruth dallied with Debbie’s ex). While Ruth is trying soft diplomacy, Debbie (Betty Gilpin) goes for the jugular, getting a lawyer to draw her up a contract for the TV show and giving the woman at the dry cleaner’s a lecture about why her female wrestling costume is as important as a male superhero’s cape, all while balancing her baby on one hip.
There are zinging one-liners and a few moving moments, particularly when Debbie gives Ruth a lift — the best conversations often happen in cars, where you don’t have to make eye contact.
The music is good — there’s a rousing title sequence and later Billy Joel’s You Made it Right and Just like Honey by The Jesus and Mary Chain. But all that knowing earnestness gets in the way of it being properly engaging. You can feel them trying hard to tick boxes — and that comes at the expense of real fun.