GLOW: An Unlikely Gem

Recently I may have stumbled into a new obsession, GLOW. If you don’t know what GLOW is, that’s okay (not really you should just stop reading now and go treat yourself). I didn’t know what GLOW was myself until about a week ago. I’ve been in this cycle of randomly starting shows at like midnight and seeing where it goes (before GLOW it was Succession and before that it was just me watching a bunch of Gourmet Makes videos on Youtube) even though I have a million other shows I could/should be catching up on (talking to you Pose). I justified this seemingly random choice to myself by recalling that I did put the show on my 2019 tv watchlist along with 46 other shows. 

Netflix

GLOW, created by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, is a scripted Netflix series set in the ’80s about the creation, production, and life of a women’s wrestling show. GLOW is an acronym that stands for the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, which is the real-life women’s wrestling promotion for which the show is based. The real-life GLOW was a televised wrestling show filmed in front of a live audience (much like the “GLOW” within the Netflix series) that aired for a few years in the ’80s. 

If you’re anything like me (as in you have zero interest in wrestling) you’re probably thinking that this show isn’t for you, but I think you might be wrong because I definitely was. I passed by the illuminated show title many times while scrolling through Netflix because I had relegated it to “just that wrestling show with that one girl from Community*.” I had never purposely seen a trailer (you know how Netflix will just invasively start playing clips/trailers/episodes** of a show if you hover over the title for too long) nor had I even read the synopsis***. Honestly, I only put the show on my list because one time I saw a post by somebody I trust saying GLOW was great (let me be that person for you, GLOW is great). 

*Alison Brie

**side note: I get unreasonably angry when Netflix does that. Like can you let me live?? sometimes I just want to scroll in silence

***As of writing this I still have not read the Netflix synopsis 

Netflix

**Light spoilers for GLOW to follow**

Now that the introduction is over, it’s time to get into it. If I’m being honest GLOW was a rough start for me (probably because I didn’t actually know what the show was about, but I digress). The pilot felt slow to me and also something about the coloring seemed* weird, but as I have said before I have a two-episode minimum and the end of the first episode drew me in with some adulterous betrayal. By the end of the next episode, I was starting to get into it, I was developing strong negative feelings for people and sort of rooting for others so at this point I was committed. 

*I genuinely do not know if this is all in my head or not, but it has this grainy 80s haze to me and I tried to look up pictures for comparison and I cannot unsee what my mind has made up so I still don’t know

Episode 3 had me rethinking the whole commitment pact I made with myself because it got offensive? When I say offensive I mean that it took this kind of racist and xenophobic turn, but also not actually. The women needed wrestling characters and the White men in charge were giving them these offensive stereotypical characters to play. For example, they made a Cambodian woman play a Chinese character named “Fortune Cookie”, they had the larger Black woman playing “the Welfare Queen” and an Indian woman playing a TERRORIST character named “Beirut the Mad Bomber.” I didn’t know how to process this; I had to take a step back and remember that this was the “80s” and also acknowledge that fact that the women themselves were not thrilled about their characters and they vocalized their discomfort. After reflection, I just turned my anger on the two White men and kept watching.

There were so many moments during the first season that I wanted to hate the show (like I was actively trying to dislike it), but I just couldn’t. The show was so touching and emotionally driven and also funny. I laughed out loud on more than one occasion during my viewing. This show also had some excellent character development. I stopped hating people that I previously hated  (even the White men) because of their growth into these dynamic characters that were able to understand and own up to their wrongdoings (for the most part). Sheila the she-wolf* and Arthie had some truly amazing arcs. 

 *I sang “She Wolf” by Shakira many a time during my viewing of this show because of her character

Netflix

GLOW ended up being way more than “just that wrestling show with that one girl from Community.” It was interesting because it had this show within a show situation going on because they would film episodes of  “GLOW” within GLOW so you were seeing both the production and the “actual” show at times. There was an entire episode of season 2 that was just “GLOW.” Going beyond the show within a show GLOW showed the complexity and beauty of female friendships. One of my favorite moments of the show took place during season 2 when almost all of the girls took turns entertaining Ruth at the hospital to distract her while she waited for an X-ray. The way they all rallied around her was beautiful and I almost cried. 

Comedy and trauma frequently coexist because they kind of have to? Sometimes you gotta laugh to keep from crying, others you gotta cry because you’re laughing, and occasionally you even gotta laugh because you’re crying. From hate crimes to internalized homophobia, to the Challenger disaster GLOW was not short on the trauma. A character literally had a heart attack, got sent home the next day and it was never brought up again??? Even with the heaviness of some of these topics it never felt like too much to digest. You were able to be mad, feel sad, and even laugh. “It was the best feeling I’ve had in my life... until the hate crime” (a line spoken by Sheila the she-wolf in episode 310). 

Anyway, the moral of this very long story is that GLOW is great and you should watch it if you haven’t. Currently, there is no news of whether or not GLOW will be renewed for a fourth season. I would like to see it *insert gif of Monique*, but Netflix does not have the best track record renewing shows past a third season *cough* One Day at a Time *cough* so we shall see.  

–T

**It truly did not occur to me that all Netflix series are web series until I wrote this