YASSS QUEEN!
I need to make an early disclosure. I’m perhaps the biggest Broad City fan on the planet and not just because it’s funny. I love it and believe that it is hugely important for women everywhere. In my eyes, they are feminist heroes.
Jen Winston writes, “Unlike Scandal, Broad City doesn’t feature diatribes about equal rights. Unlike Beyoncé, this show doesn’t feature in-your-face girl power — in fact, “empowering” is one of the last adjectives you’d probably use to describe it. Instead, Broad City opts for a different kind of feminist expression — one reflecting how normal people actually behave. A kind of feminism that’s not concerned with the Internet’s reaction. A kind of every day feminism that feels real.”
To tackle Feminism in television in 500 words is highly unrealistic. Defining or classifying feminism on TV, or rather feminism everywhere, is hotly debated in the public sphere and deserves a longer blog post. So I would like to focus on one particular art of the show that SCREAMS feminism to me.
The representation of sex in Broad City.
First of all, lets get an understanding of the show. Staring as a web series, Broad City follows two women, Abbi and Ilana who are living in New York.
From the first episode the topic of sex is far from taboo.
In the first episode Ilana Skypes Abbi, whilst with Lincoln, whilst Lincoln is inside her. Abbi too has her own unique for of sexual expression as she labels her dildo with a post-it note – “Monday”.
It’s quite difficult to pick out a particular episode or extract and determine how the treat the subject of sex, because, well, they don’t really. Never have women on TV been so sexual and so blasé. It’s treated like any other topic.
To understand the importance of women’s sexual expression, one could compare Broad City to Sex and the City. Often celebrated as feminist TV, the show does it in a very different way to Broad City and there are problems with this.
XXX writes, “Sex and the City stole its feminist credentials, I think, by showing female sexuality. The women have a lot of sex with different men, it’s true. But it’s an add-on to the handbags and dieting and the reductive feminine helplessness – it seems like just one more thing they go shopping for.”
Samantha’s character perhaps the most. I feel as though she was identified as the “sex character”. It was very explicit. Amy Schumer is a current TV character and personality that deals with female sexuality.
That’s not to say I don’t think these women are doing anything wrong. I think when feminism starts attacking women we have a problem. I firmly believe that when there are still huge problems with attitudes toward women and sex, blame culture, by all means we need women out there, like Samantha and Amy, screaming at the top of their lungs for female sexuality equality.
However I think Broad City does something unique. Like Jen Winston claims, I believe they find a way to make feminism relatable and everyday. I will never be a rich publicist, as confident and as suave as Samantha Jones. I will however be a poor 20 year old with a less than perfect sex life.
In Broad City, like in other shows, nothing is really taboo. However, perhaps, simply because the characters are more relatable, does this have a more powerful effect. Speaking as a young woman , I can safely say that Broad City offers an alternative. They make gross sex, with weird guys and normal bodies okay and because it’s such funny quality content, it does more, it makes their weird, quirky lifestyle…appealing.
Squeezing ingrown hairs from your bikini line, isn’t shameful, it’s funny. Wanting sex, or even a finger up the bum isn’t crude and left unsaid, it’s celebrated.
By remaining real, weird and unapologetic they too are fighting the feminist cause when it comes to women and their relationship with sex.
Yas Queen.
Love from,
The Biggest Broad City Fan in the world
XOXO
