Television Tuesday :: let’s talk about Harlots.

There are several television programs we’ve picked up in the last couple years that probably deserved their own blog posts. GLOW comes to mind, as does the delightfully kiddie nonsense that is Free Rein; we’ve been shamefully lacking in updates on this year’s Netflix MCU (we’re just going to do a big ol’ catchall when we’re done with the third season of Daredevil; spoiler alert, we haven’t gotten to it because first we have to watch the second and last season of Iron Fist and not even Colleen [Jessica Henwick] is enough to make us enthused about that) and even sweet Cloak and Dagger, the thing drift partner thought would only ever be a dream of hers, has been discussed yet. I don’t have good excuses. We’ve had a hell of a year and especially a summer/autumn, getting jobs and losing jobs and getting them again, all while moving apartments by ourselves (this is more of a pain in the ass than it seems, especially since I got sick in the home stretch and basically FZZT’d my way through the actual Moving Weekend), multiple cons, peripheral family stuff, and about thirty five other things. And we’re just… tired.

Also we’ve been doing a lot of rewatching because rewatching things takes less mental energy. (Unless it’s Deadwood, which we definitely rewatched. That takes all of the mental energy every time, but it’s worth it. Do I have to tell you again to watch Deadwood? Because I will. We’re finally getting a movie, y’all!)

But we just finished Hulu’s original series Harlots, and I really need to talk about it. (Did we finally get off our butts about it and tune in because we heard Liv Tyler kissed a girl? Maybe.) I was expecting to like it because, well, fictional women in such professions are kind of one of my things, especially when it’s in a period setting, but I was absolutely blown away.

For the uninitiated, Harlots is a show about the London semi-underworld in the 1700s. (I say semi- because while the majority of our characters are sex workers, which is definitely illegal and people try to or do bust them for it multiple times, they serve and move among a lot of the upper class. It’s kind of an open secret, at least.) Our protagonist Margaret Wells (Samantha Morton) runs a brothel, her daughters Charlotte (Jessica Brown-Findlay) and Lucy (Eloise Smyth) work in said brothel (or other brothels, or independently, or etc.), our antagonist Lydia Quigley (Lesley Manville) runs a rival brothel and also trained Margaret in brothel life, and with a few exceptions (lawmen, the Puritan mother/daughter team of Florence [Dorothy Adkinson] and Amelia [Jordon Stevens]) the other characters either work in or partake of the brothels as well.

Yeah, that’s pretty straightforward, and pretty much what you’d expect, right?

Except here’s the thing. This show, about sex workers in the 1700s and the various bad times they have, somehow manages to effortlessly deal with more “diversity quota” topics (note my derisive quotation marks; I’m being ironic because that’s what assholes would say) than many shows set in less volatile modern-day settings that don’t have the tired “but it’s a period piece” excuse to fall back on. And it’s a hell of a lot more entertaining and compelling than those shows, too.

To wit:

1. Obviously, the show is centered around women. The Bechdel test is obliterated constantly and you see virtually every kind of relationship between women: mother-daughter, figurative mother-daughter, friends, coworkers, boss-employee, rivals, absolute bloody enemies, grudging allies, lovers, you name it. The women are heroes, villains, victims, bystanders; they’re passive, active, guileless, manipulative, peaceful, violent, gentle, aggressive, elegant, coarse, hopeful, angry, and anywhere in between. The possibilities are limitless, and it’s amazing seeing this many women and especially this many kinds of women. As much as I love uplifting female characters, it’s also nice when there are enough of them that you
2. Speaking of lovers, especially by the second season this show is Sapphic enough that it almost seems like we wrote it ourselves. There are multiple canonical romantic relationships between female characters, including the one involving Liv Tyler’s Lady Isabella. The earliest-established relationship is between aforementioned Puritan innocent Amelia and Violet (Rosalind Eleazar), who’s a pickpocket and sort-of spy as well as one of the harlots. It’s heartwrenching, but it’s lovely, and it was beautifully satisfying because we spent the first few episodes being like “wow, they’re gay” and then they were. That doesn’t happen as often as it should. There’s also a prominent gay boy, Prince Rasselas (Josef Altin, dear dead Pyp of Game of Thrones) who keeps company with the harlots in various capacities, and he and Amelia have the cutest gay solidarity friendship you’ll ever see.
3. There are black people! Like, multiple black people, most of whom are not even related! Our protagonist Margaret is all-but-married to William (Danny Sapani, who I just realized was also in Penny Dreadful and Black Panther!), born a free black man in England, and they have a son named Jacob (Jordan A. Nash). Several of the harlots are black, including Violet and Harriet (Pippa Bennett-Warner); both discuss social inequality and its effects on their lives, and Harriet is a freed American slave who was formerly entangled with a client of Margaret’s but eventually becomes a harlot herself and actually finds power and liberation in the work and in earning money for the first time in her life. Actual specific issues faced by these characters because of their blackness are discussed and dealt with in a respectful but also honest way, but their blackness is also not the whole of any of their characters. (There are also other types of physical diversity: one of Margaret’s best girls, Fanny [Bronwyn James], is far from skinny, one of the second season’s new additions, Cherry [Francesca Mills] is a dwarf, etcetera. All of this is awesome and while sometimes mentioned it’s, again. never the only defining bit of their characters.)
4. There is an abundance of glorious misandry. It’s reasonable to expect that women whose profession often puts them in a place to be abused by men would dislike men some or all of the time, but I don’t think I can explain to you how little time this show has for male bullshit. There’s so much resistance and backtalk, particularly from Charlotte (most excellent is when the backtalk occurs around the rich and snooty friends of the man she’s entertaining). There are multiple active protests against (well, happenings that are ultimately rooted in) the patriarchy. There’s even some of the much-deserved violence that other shows might not bother to actually give you. Not all of the shithead men have gotten what’s coming to them yet, but that’s because we had to set up for our big bads of season 3. There’s plenty enough revenge against horrible toxic masculinity to get you through, though.
5. Like Deadwood, this is a show that deals with sex work and features some very lovely women who do said sex work but doesn’t glamorize the profession or paint it from a male-gazey perspective. This is a show about the women who do the work, and you know what? While a lot of the trappings are glamorous (Lydia’s house in particular is full of artful showmanship, largely to hide that it’s so messed up) the work isn’t. It’s work, and it’s often awful, in large part because of the disrespect that society gives it, but the people who do it are very real and have hopes and dreams and ambitions and lives beyond the identity people want to limit them to. There’s almost no sexy sex on the show, which is actually very refreshing.
6. I’m not going to get much into the plot because one thing will spoil another and you should just experience it for yourself, but I will rave unequivocally about one last fact: all of the harlots actually have full names. First name, last name. (To again mention Deadwood, I still love the bit where Trixie shrugs and says, not knowing her actual last name, to just put “Trixie the whore,” because that’s funny and I believe that she wouldn’t know her last name necessarily, but I have this thing about how giving characters full names is often a sign of agency and respect and I really like that.)

If you need a more shallow reason to watch it, hell, it’s the 1700s so there are some beautiful and many ridiculous sets/costumes. (Ridiculous because the 1700s are just aesthetically ridiculous.) And if you need a further supporting-creators-who-aren’t-white-men reason, it’s a show created by and largely produced and written by women. It’s not perfect (there are some hard-to-watch scenes of assault, for example, and other acts of violence; some of the stories’ season 2 conclusions could be triggery) but it’s definitely very very good and something I’m ready to recommend all over the place.

–your fangirl heroine.

Spoiler Alert Saturday :: my thoughts on Super

I will begin with shamelessly stating that yes, I did just see in Entertainment Weekly that Nathan Fillion was in it and had to watch for that reason.  And that it was the writer/director from Slither, too, James Gunn, that certainly helped (I’m a morbid freak, so I thought that movie was hilarious).  And that Ellen Page was going to be there adorable-ing it up, that helped, too.

It’s certainly no great epic spectacle of spectacular or something like that.  But it’s a lot of fun, and it’s pretty ridiculous.  And when they get into the action?  Just as messed up.

Kevin Bacon was a convincing creeper.  Liv Tyler was appropriately “ooo drugs”-y.  Rainn Wilson was appropriately “I’mma go beat up some guys now even if I’m unlikely and stuff.”  He beat some guys up, he used a wrench to do it.  And that was awesome.  I mean, I don’t know where the writers thought that up, but tools are very efficient beating-up objects if used properly.  I’d assume.  I mean… y’know, I’ve never beat anyone up.  Nor do I really want to.  But it seems practical enough?

And Ellen Page was appropriately adorable.  I sort of wanted to slap her when she was coming onto Rainn Wilson (though seriously, Rainn Wilson?  How did you not just go ‘oh, okay’ to that?) but she was precious the rest of the time.  I sort of understand why what happened to her had to happen, but it still made me sad because I liked her more than the others, maybe just because she was such a spazzy insane geek.  I use every one of those terms very seriously, too.

And, of course, my man Nathan Fillion.  Well, he wasn’t in it that much.  But when he was he made me giggle hysterically, continually, and that’s really rare.  An Evangelical television superhero?  Awesome stuff.  Sort of like if the narrator guy from Reefer Madness was a superhero, and a little more overtly YAY JESUS.

All in all?  A fun little adventure.  And hurrah for the bittersweetly happy ending, too.  I mean I won’t give it away, but it’s refreshing.

–your fangirl heroine.