Netflix recently released GLOW, their newest heavily-promoted binge-watch, and I initially avoided it based on the premise: Women’s wrestling in the 80’s. Not a big fan of wrestling now or ever. Seemed likely to be a big yawn. However, I was enticed to watch by its 96% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. How bad could it be?
Funny thing...
The show stars Alison Brie as Ruth Wilder, a mousy actor wannabe in 1980’s Los Angeles. This should have held some connection for me since I, too, was a wannabe actor in 1980’s Los Angeles. I lived there for three years and managed to get parts in three movies. No, you probably haven’t seen them. I only actually got paid for one of them.
Our heroine spends the first show doing all the things wannabe actors are supposed to do in shows like this: Flop auditions, stalk casting directors by hiding in a bathroom, make their heart-felt pitch that all they need is Just. One. Break! Eventually getting their big break... and that’s where this show falls apart.
The problem is, many-faceted, not least because we’ve seen this shtick before; in how many movies have you seen this premise played out? From Craig Wasson’s struggling actor in Brian DePalma’s 1984 film Body Double, to Naomi Watts’ star-turn audition in David Lynch’s 2001 Mulholland Drive, to Robert Downey Jr.’s struggling thief turned suddenly amazing actor in 2005’s Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. We’ve seen this too many times not to know how it’s supposed to go. Unfortunately, GLOW manages to get it almost creepily wrong.
It turns out, Ruth Wilder sucks. She sucks a lot. She sucks many times. All the times she sucks are supposed to show us what a trouper she is, how strong she is, how she never gives up. But I found myself just wishing she would. (As an aside, Allison Brie does manage to play a bad actor well, but she’s given too much bad and far too little good to do.)
She gets cut from her first audition because she sucks and she argues with the director. Then, after an obligatory (poorly cut) montage sequence spent watching wrestling on TV, trying to learn the moves and the look, she goes back the next day, uninvited, in a home-made “wrestler” get up and, instead of proving she can learn and grow, proves once again, that she really, really sucks.
Then her best friend shows up to accuse her of sleeping with her husband (and how did her friend even find her in some broken down warehouse in the Valley, anyway?). Which leads to the two of them “wrestling” in the ring in front of everyone — more of a sad, half-hearted, poorly choreographed cat fight — and, suddenly, the director (after experiencing a color-saturated fantasy sequence of the two of them wrestling in slinky leotards, day-glow make-up, and big hair in front of a crowd of adoring fans) decides the two of them will be his stars!
The problem with all of this is that presenting “bad acting” as a part of a show about bad acting requires that the “bad acting” stuff has to be surrounded by actual good acting stuff, or the point gets lost. If it’s all bad -- “bad acting” acting -- surrounded by actual just bad acting, then it’s just a bad show.
It’s a bad show.
The leads are surrounded by an ensemble cast of misfits and one-dimensional losers: The all-but obligatory sassy black woman, Cherry Bang, played by Sydelle Noel, who seems to have a back story about acting in blaxploitation flicks in the 70’s (I think). She’s the only character actually given any depth in the entire show, including the leads. We find out she’s suffered a miscarriage which sets up a really shitty bit of business later that plays like it’s supposed to be character development, but is so badly done and cruel it’s just nastiness.
The rest of the cast includes a freaky goth chick, a punk rock ingenue, a flighty British chick (with a variable accent), a nice girl whose dad is a wrestling legend, a rich bitch (who is doing this why, exactly?). They are all supposed to come together as a team after some initial rivalries and cattiness (again, we’ve seen how this is supposed to go a million times; think Major League, A League of Their Own, etc., etc.). The problem is, they are nothing but costumes stuffed with a one-note “concept.” None of the actors manage to find any heart or soul in their characters, largely because they are never given anything real to do and what they are given to do, they do poorly. The “screen test” sequence is supremely bad. I have to say, I don’t blame the actors. Anyone, given a crap script and clumsy direction will turn in a flat performance. In fact, the show feels like we are watching a first rehearsal where everyone is still finding their character and learning their lines, rather than the actual, final production.
The other lead is Sam Sylvia, the director, played by Marc Maron with a 1980’s porn ‘stash, aviator glasses, and a Member’s Only jacket (he’s weirdly reminiscent of Terry Kaiser’s Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s). We’re supposed to accept him as a semi-successful film maker with eight low-budget movies to his credit. Basically, he’s a low-rent Harry Zimm from Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1995 Get Shorty (and like everyone else in this show, yeah, you’ll feel like you’ve seen him done before, and done better). In episode two, we see him clacking away at his IBM Selectric typewriter, writing really, really bad copy. There’s a brief scene where his ex-wife drops by to pick up their dog (Ooh! back story! Sort of). Again, the problem is, the shit he’s writing isn’t really all that worse than the shit he’s saying. Again, if you’re going to include “bad” in a film “intentionally,” you really do have to surround it with “good,” intentionally. And GLOW just doesn’t.
I gave up after episode three. The scripts are execrable, the acting terrible, the lighting and cinematography are as bad as any 1980’s low-budget “Skinimax” flick. It’s just unwatchable.
A lot of the problem is they really have 90 minutes of material (or less) and they are stretching it out over 10 shows. So, instead of a tight first act where our leads establish their characters, our co-stars get a moment to shine and define who they are and why they are here, and we establish our hook and raison d’être, we get three episodes of clumsy floundering as they try achieve, and fail, at what ought have occurred in 30 minutes. And we really still don’t know why they are here. Why this show? Why these characters? Why am I being asked to spend 10 hours watching these people? I haven’t a clue. Cliché after bad dialogue, after crappy set, after crappy costume, after crappy cinematography, after...
And then there’s my final problem with GLOW. I read a few pieces of promotional material for the show and, in them, the producers waxed poetic about the nudity, how it’s not exploitative (like Game of Thrones), how it establishes these women as secure in their own bodies and confident of their place in the world. And I just have to call bullshit.
There is a long tradition of “mature” television in which the first episode of a show includes nudity. Think Kerri Russel in The Americans. It’s a cynical ploy to get people to tune in to subsequent episodes, hoping to get another glimpse of celebrity T and A. The usual pattern is nudes in episode one, then no nudity for three or four episodes, then some more boobs and/or butts, then none, then wind up with nudity in the season closer. It’s inevitably exploitative, unrelentingly sexist — since women represent 90% of the nudity, and typically nonsensical with scenes obviously tossed in for no better reason than so we can watch some woman doff her kit.
GLOW follows the standard set-up: In the first ten minutes or so, Alison Brie gets naked. She’s in a gym locker room after her 1980’s-accurate aerobics class. She proceeds to take off her leotard, leaving her fully naked, shown head to toe, then puts on her street clothes (without taking a shower? Eeew!). Problem is, she’s the only naked woman in this locker room. Now, she just came out of a class with about 30 women in it, so where are the rest of them? Sure, a few women walk by in the background, but they are all either clothed or wearing underwear, carrying towels. She’s talking to her best friend, also from the class, also basically fully dressed (and how did her friend manage to undress, shower, and get dressed before Brie managed to even start taking off her leotard?) My point here is not, “Hey where are all the other naked women, woo hoo!” but, rather, why is this scene here if the only reason for it existing is for Alison Brie to take her clothes off? This is nothing but the definition of exploitation.
Think of the title sequence of Brian DePalma’s 1976 Carrie. In it, a group of women are shown in a locker room, in various states of undress, from fully nude to fully dressed, just like in any women’s locker room, anywhere. The scene ends with Carrie being humiliated in the shower by the other girls. It’s a scene integral to the character development of every woman in the scene. It makes sense and has a reason to be there. The scene in GLOW exists for no other reason than to allow Alison Brie — and her alone — to be seen naked. And that’s just bullshit.
So I can’t see any reason to continue watching this show. I gave it a chance and was deeply disappointed (and mildly offended). So many Netflix shows are quite brilliant to watch, like Jessica Jones, Stranger Things, and House of Cards among many, many others. GLOW simply does not measure up by a huge margin.
Having just watched Amazon’s luminous Good Girls’ Revolt with its wonderful characters and spot-on recreation of 1979-1980 New York in everything from costume to set design to language, GLOW is revealed as little more than a crudely rudimentary, cliché-ridden evocation of mid-1980’s Los Angeles kitsch.
GLOW is simply dim on every level.