HBO To Launch Show About Feminism?

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.