HBO seems to have identified a new niche audience: aging feminists. You may recall the announcement in April about Women’s Studies, a series centered on a formerly famous feminist author who teaches at a “small liberal arts college in the Northeast,” staring Julie White.
Now the cable network tells us that it will bring us a half-hour comedy about an older woman who was once a feminist icon. This one will star an older woman who is still a feminist icon, Diane Keaton.
In case that’s not enough to spark your interest, the series comes from Buffy writer extraordinaire Marti Noxon.
Keaton plays a Gloria Steinem-type woman who decides that a great way to stir up feminism is to start a sexually explicit magazine for women. Oh, On Our Backs, you left too soon.
Noxon has always wanted to write a show that directly addresses feminism, since her mother was a radical feminist and came out as a lesbian when Marti was 12. (I guess she doesn’t count Buffy, which was, IMO, one of the best feminist shows ever.) She and her co-writer, Dawn Parouse, toyed with the idea of a young feminist working at a porn magazine, but nothing jelled until they decided to make the central character older. And Keaton was their first choice.
“There are a lot of similarities between Diane and Gloria Steinem,” Parouse said. “They both grew up in the ’50s, a period marked by women finding their relevance sexually, and Diane has been attracted to roles about women exploring their sexuality in films like Something’s Gotta Give.”
While the concept that feminism needs to be stirred up doesn’t quite ring true with me since I think it’s alive and well, I’m certainly excited about Keaton coming to my TV screen. And as a proud member of the aging raging feminist niche, I’ll take more representation wherever I can find it. Hey, maybe we’ll even see a lesbian or two in the mix.
Are you interested in this series? Does feminism needs a revival?
