Women's Voices, Change, and Other Nightmares

I read a really great essay on Tor.com the other day. It's called Fear of the Female Voice and it's by Sarah Gailey. It's a wonderful, powerful piece. If you haven't read it yet, you should. Go ahead. The rest of us will wait here while you read it. We're not going anywhere. I promise. Go on.

[whistles tunelessly]

There? Done? Good. So, I just finished watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel which is a new series written by Amy Sherman-Palladino. I'm a huge fan of Ms. Sherman-Palladino. Gilmore Girls (the entire library was on Netflix--it might still be. If it is, GO WATCH IT.) got me through the terrible time after the 2017 election. Seriously. I was so depressed, but watching those two get through the ups and downs with a smile (and a more than a few tears) made me think back on the days when I could pretend that there was a time when a woman running for office wasn't an automatic trip to the 1950s time loop we're in now. It made me think back to that glorious fantasy of a reality when women's voices weren't "too shrill" for public office. (Let's fact it, ladies. It was a fantasy. Think back to all the ridiculous complaints about HRC and re-read what Sarah Gailey said about women's voices on the radio. Yes, bats and ghouls, THAT'S SEXISM.)

Here we are one year later and women's voices are being used to bring down abusive, powerful, sexist men. There's even a movement in New York state to put a toothier law in place that prohibits men with Domestic Violence convictions from owning guns. (See: “Where there are more guns, more women die”: A Harvard public health expert breaks down the data on firearms and women’s safety.) Since there is a strong link between Domestic Abusers and mass shooters, GOOD.

So...anyway...

Amy Sherman-Palladino wrote another show. Unfortunately, the program is with the evil Amazon, and you can't see it unless you subscribe to Amazon Prime. (Yeah. Fuck you, Amazon. A lot.) I binged the show, and is it ever binge-worthy. 

It's about a woman who (after her husband has an affair and leaves her) finds her voice and herself in stand up comedy. It's brilliant.[1] It's funny. It's heartwarming. It's even a little depressing. (I ended up feeling a little sorry for Joel, even if he's a schmuck.) Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) has a wonderful voice. I love her. I love her manager Susie (played by Alex Borstein.) I'll be honest. I've always hated the 1950s. It was the epitome of everything that is awful about the Patriarchy. Reading The Feminine Mystique only intensified that hatred. (Frankly, I'd never want to be a time traveller as a woman. There really isn't an era before now that was even remotely pleasant. And it's so much worse if you're a person of color, or gay, or trans, or disabled. Yeah. Fuck that.) Anyway, the show is very Feminist and I enjoyed the hell out of it. Amy S-P is amazing with dialog--particularly my favorite kind of dialog, the fast banter. It's wonderful. I am in awe.

Mind you...the show isn't worth tying your future purchasing power to a retailer that doesn't support your local community forever and ever, but it's worth a month or two of Amazon fees. So... fuck it. Here's hoping Amy S-P ties herself to a production company not infamous for fucking over creatives just so they can have more low-priced "content." [shudder]

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[1] Yeah. I got the stupid Prime account not only because of Amy S-P, but because Amazon instituted some squirrelly rule about how they couldn't guarantee your holiday gifts would reach recipients in time a whole week and a half before Christmas. Unless you have Prime, of course. So, I signed on and will promptly tell them to fuck off after a couple of months.