HBO To Launch Show About Feminism?

Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet at 1:44 PM on July 30, 2009.

Half-hour comedies aren't the likeliest vehicles for social progress. That's because hot 20 year olds saying/doing stupid shit, whether in fiction or reality TV format, can be uniformally counted on to pull ratings -- the same can't be said for progressive politics. Hence the proliferation of the former and the relative shortage of the latter on TV.

But then there's this: According to the Hollywood Reporter, HBO is slated to take on a half-hour comedy starring Diane Keaton as a feminist icon (yes, a feminist icon) who "attempts to reignite the movement by starting a sexually explicit magazine for women."

Feminism and older women talking about sex in a TV show? What? the?

While for years HBO has made lots of money marketing itself as the purveyor of "edgy" programming, its decision to potentially do so by grappling with feminism is pretty jawdropping.

Remember, we still live in a mass media culture where most women celebrities flee from the feminist label or reject it outright. Only a handful of celebs -- actually, only Amy Poehler comes to mind, but there's probably a couple of others -- publicly identify as feminist.

TV programming has had a similar m.o. on feminism. While there have been many shows that offer -- often inadvertently -- female characters that can be seen as feminist, almost none have been explicitly linked to the feminist movement.

There's always a chance the show will suck; that it will break TV's relative silence on feminism only to mock and misrepresent feminist ideas. But based on an interview with the show's producer, Marti Noxon, things look good so far ....

The comedy hails from Grady Twins Prods., a production company recently launched by Noxon and Dawn Parouse. Noxon, Parouse and Keaton are executive producing.

"We've came a long way since the Kinsey report; women are more sexual now," said Noxon, referring to Alfred Kinsey's controversial 1953 report "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female."

Added Parouse: "There seems to be a new evolution of what women are sexually. Women are acting more like men sexually."

Noxon had carried the kernel of the idea for a show that touches upon feminism as long as she can remember.

She was 12 when her mother came out as a radical feminist and a lesbian and recalls juggling her mom's beliefs -- which included the dismissal of leg shaving as "giving into patriarchalism" -- with her own interests.

"I wanted to be a gal, I was very interested in men, and I wanted to shave my legs," Noxon said.

She and Parouse bounced around the idea of a young feminist working at a porn magazine. The moment they decided to make the central character an older, Gloria Steinem-type feminist icon, it all fell into place.

Tagged as: feminism, hbo, dianne keaton