After having told us with many shards, Spandex swimsuits and crepe toupees, during three seasons on Netflix, the false story of a real series of the 1980s, Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, creators of GLOW (acronym meaning Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling), are once again interested in the struggle of women. Metaphorically speaking, it goes without saying. And this time, tapping into Roars (Harper Collins, 2019), collection of 30 short stories by the author of bestsellers Irish Cecelia Ahern, whose novel Life is a rainbow was adapted to the cinema in 2014 under the title Love, Rosie.
Rest assured, Roarsan anthology series available in eight half-hour episodes on Apple TV+, has nothing to do with this bluette starring Lily Collins fromEmily in Paris. In fact, Roars is intended to be a feminist series both in its words and in its conception. Thus, you will notice that the binomials or trinomials behind each episode of Roarsas well as several names in the credits, are feminine.
Far from the fluorescent GLOW, This series, produced by Nicole Kidman, among others, flirts with dark humour, fantasy and horror. Despite its apparent lightness, Roars illustrates serious problems that women face on a daily basis, directly or indirectly. It does not matter their origins, their social status or their age.
From the first episode, Channing Godfrey Peoples and Janine Nabers deal with the invisibility of black women. In The Woman Who Disappearedan Afro-descendant novelist from New York (Issa Rae) travels to Los Angeles to meet the team, white and male, who will adapt her bestseller where she talks about the racial profiling of which her father was the victim. As she tries to make her point, she realizes that no one sees or hears her anymore.
In The Woman Who Ate Photographs, where a woman (Nicole Kidman) crosses Australia to pick up her mother (Judy Davis, who is only 12 years older than Kidman!), who lives alone and loses her memory, it is mentally burdensome women that Kim Gehrig and Liz Flahive are interested in. On the way home, where her husband and children are waiting for them, the first devours the family photos that she stole from the second. Each time, she relives a few moments of distant happiness.
Each one has its place
The expression trophy woman takes on its full meaning in The Woman Who Was Kept we have Shelfby So Yong Kim, Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, where a former model (Betty Gilpin of GLOW) has to sit on a shelf so her future husband (Daniel Dae Kim) can admire it every time he takes his eyes off his computer. What can become of a woman who has been brought up only to please?
In addition to exploring the invisibility of the black woman in a white and masculine world, The Woman Who Found Bite Marks on Her SkinRashida Jones and the creators of Roars, looks at the guilt of a woman (Cynthia Erivo) who returns to work after her second maternity leave. As she manages the impatience of her husband (Jake Johnson) who has taken over, his team who seems to want to oust him, the emotional blackmail of his daughter and his milk surges, she sees marks appear on her skin. of bite.
Sorority, rivalry, motherhood, celibacy and toxic masculinity are on the menu in Liz Flahive and Halley Feiffer’s episode, The Woman Who Was Fed by to Duck, where an aspiring doctor (Merritt Wever), pushed by her pregnant sister (Riki Lindhome) to meet the man of her life, hangs out… with a duck (voice of Justin Kirk). After all, there are many princesses who kiss toads.
To life, to death
Her own remains having been found in alluring attire on a campsite, a single woman (Alison Brie of GLOW) has no choice but to help the arrogant white policeman (Hugh Dancy) and the modest black policewoman (Ego Nwodim) to find his killer. With his nods to my ghost of love (Ghost), The Woman Who Solved Her Own Murderby Anya Adams and ladies Flahive and Mensch, is about feminicide and the incel (involuntary celibate) movement.
Incommunicability within the couple is at the heart of The Woman Who Returned Her Husbandby Quyen Tran and Vera Santamaria, where an Indian immigrant (Meera Syal) decides, after 37 years of marriage, to exchange her husband (Bernard White) at the store.
At last, The Girl Who Loved Horseswhere So Yong Kim and Carly Mensch borrow from the western to talk about female solidarity, a young girl (Fivel Stewart), flanked by the daughter of a pastor (Kara Hayward), goes in search of the one who murdered her father after having stolen the horse which was intended for him.