My parents' basement is 45 years (how long they've been married) of stuff. We've moved eight times (at least) and there are some boxes that probably haven't been opened since we lived in Virginia the first time (1992-98). This project is one part attempt to organize and reduce the stuff in the basement and one part amazing trip down memory lane. Every box my brother and I open contains some fragment of our lives - toys, family photos, every uniform my father ever owned, my mother's wedding gown, dishes we haven't used since 1987 (I'm looking at you, wooden salad bowl). It's nostalgia overload. Yesterday, we finally found the box containing the missing Star Wars weapons and a box of tickets from my brother's high school/college years including the ticket to the first show he went to by himself (Cutting Crew) and proof that he has been to all of the baseball games. We also opened the box my mother's wedding dress was in; sadly it's yellowed with age, but we were able to answer the question of what happened to her veil (it was under the dress). She thought she lost it; my grandmother must have had it all along.
What does any of this have to do with the Netflix series GLOW? On the surface, nothing. However, if you dig a bit more, more than you think. GLOW is, like Stranger Things, a show that plays to the best part of our desire for nostalgia and the heady days of the distant past. I will do my best to avoid spoilers for the remainder of this post but seriously, stop re-watching Angel, mostly because it's terrible, and get your wrestling on with GLOW.
The Netflix series is loosely based on the show, GLOW: The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, that ran from 1986-1992. The original series was created by David B. McLane a wrestling promoter and announcer who saw something beyond T&A when the rare female wrestler made an appearance on the wrestling shows of the day...enjoyment. Crowds tended to like these women but promoters and owners saw the women as novelties and didn't want to waste money on a show or event solely focused on women. So McLane did what anyone would do; he moved to Hollywood, found a backer, and put out an open call for women to audition for the show.
The open call mainly attracted out of work actresses and dancers with little or no wrestling experience. Eventually, McLane and show director Matt Cimber would cast everyone from clean-cut, girl next door types (Liberty, Babe the Farmer's Daughter, Tara Belle), rock and roll inspired characters, sad stereotypes (Palestina, Big Bad Mama, Matilda the Hun), and oddball characters like Mt. Fiji and Colonel Ninotchka. They enlisted Cynthia Peretti (a WWA wrestler) and Armando Guerro to train the cast. The whole operation moved to Vegas and lived in a hotel and GLOW: The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling was born. What eventually emerges is a campy and highly entertaining women-centric wrestling show. There were rivalries (the Good Girls and the Bad Girls being one that ran through the whole series), a rap song for every character, special effects, and actual athleticism despite only a handful of real athletes in the cast. The women were popular and the show was a success, garnering higher ratings that the WWF's show Superstars.
The Netflix series came about because the current owner of GLOW, Ursula Hayden (who wrestled on the original series as Babe the Farmer's Daughter), sold the rights to the show to Netflix. The series stars Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin, and Marc Maron. It's the most 80s-tastic show I've watched since finishing the first season of Stranger Things. The fashion is amazing as are the bangs and glitter makeup. The music is fun and fitting, and the political/social themes of this period are oddly impactful give our current climate. I'm thinking specifically of the first tag team match we see and the Liberty Belle v. Zoya the Destroya match more broadly. The show is fun but also deals with some serious topics, particularly around racial stereotypes, abortion, and 80s era feminism. At the end of the day, the word that comes to mind about GLOW is charming. The show is charming. Because it's not set today, there's no hipster nonsense or need to be so freaking clever about every thing. We can simply enjoy a show about lady wrestlers. If you watched the original show, cool. If you didn't, welcome to the party.
Most of the charm comes from the the cast. I love Marc Maron and would have watched the whole series because of him even if it had been terrible (thankfully not the case). Maron's Sam is a stand-in for Matt Cimber, the original director. He's a B/C movie director who also happens to be an addict and a womanizer. Despite or maybe because of these things, I love Sam. Maron steals every scene he's in and can best be summed up by this line:
Remember Short Attention Span Theater and the heady days of mid-1990s stand-up comedy? That's when my love affair with Marc Maron began. I've since followed him through acting gigs (the promoter in Almost Famous, random movies where I'm like, "hey, was that Marc Maron?", and of course the wonderful Maron). I'm not a podcast person but I occasionally listen to "WTF with Marc Maron" because it's entertaining and sometimes very emotional; I appreciate that about him. He has cats and occasionally posts funny/awesome photos of them on Instagram. In his book, Attempting Normal, he talks about the cats and also relays the story of when he bought new jeans at a Levi's store and the clerk told him to get in the bathtub wearing his jeans to really break them in. I think of this particular anecdote often because it's the exact hipster nonsense that I cannot deal with even if it means I get better coffee and can buy fancy cheese whenever I want (these things are all related).
But I digress.
Let's talk about the actual gorgeous ladies of wrestling. My two favorites are Cherry (played by Sydelle Noel) and Carmen (Britney Young) who becomes Machu Picchu. They're both fun to watch and add elements to the show that would be lacking without them. Cherry is a former B-movie actress (think Pam Grier in Foxy Brown) who becomes Sam's right-hand woman as the show trainer. Of course, they have a past which makes their scenes together even better. She provides the order this chaotic scheme needs. Carmen is one of the younger cast member who happens to be part of a wrestling family. Her father doesn't want her to wrestle but she does anyway, coming into her own. I hope there's more of both of them in season two.
Then there's Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin. The series opens with them as friends, both actresses at various stages of their careers. Gilpin's Debbie is a "retired" (because she got married and had a kid) soap opera actress and Brie's Ruth is a struggling actress, going out on any and every audition. She's also every pretentious actor friend you've ever had (trust me on this if you have no actor friends). Season one is really about these two characters and their journey from friends to enemies to the ring. I totally agree with Sam on the Mark situation/attraction; I don't get it but I'll let you decide on that one on your own. I'm not a huge Alison Brie fan but I do enjoy her in GLOW. Maybe it's because she's playing a pretentious actress and her being annoying is part of her charm on the show.
The rest of the ladies include gems like Kate Nash as Rhonda/Britannica, Kia Stevens as Tamme/Welfare Queen, Sunita Mani as Arthie/Beirut, and Britt Baron as Justine, who is on the show for a very specific reason (I won't spoil it for you). There's also Chris Lowell as Sebastian (Bash), the money behind the operation. He's a fun addition to this motley crew with his weird houseboy, robot butler, and expansive costume closet. His existence also gives us an appearance by Elizabeth Perkins as his society mother. The episode where the GLOW ladies crash her party is one of my favorites and it's exactly what Nancy Reagan would want in a fundraiser.
GLOW is a great show. It's hilarious, empowering, and nostalgic. I hope the second season will include more of the secondary cast, particularly Sheila the She-Wolf, Arthie, and Carmen. Will the show move to Vegas? Let's hope so. Will we get to see more matches? We better. Will Ruth and Sam become a thing? I don't really need that to happen but it'd be fine if it did. Will Debbie leave her husband? If she's smart, then yes. At the end of the day, GLOW is a lot of fun. We can argue for days about whether wrestling is real or not but to be honest, who cares? Just sit back and enjoy the gorgeous ladies of wrestling.
Coming soon to the Island: I'll do everything wrong when it comes to meal planning, we go back to Derry and meet a new terrifying Pennywise, and we'll do a check in on my new work life goals.
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GLOW Netflix cast
GLOW original cast
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