In 1985, a casting call went out in
Los Angeles looking for out of work actresses and models. Roughly a dozen women from that casting call
were selected to begin work on a new wrestling show that featured only female
performers. As with anything, the show
had its critics. It was campy, at times
cheesy, and at least initially, the quality of wrestling left a lot to be
desired as most of the performers had little to no experience in the ring. Despite all of that, from 1986-1990, Gorgeous
Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW) became a nationally televised cultural phenomenon.
--MILD SPOILERS AHEAD--
Fast
forward to 2017… Netflix has put out a new comedy loosely based on the now
defunct wrestling promotion. The aptly
named GLOW hit the popular streaming
service on Friday and is quickly gaining some serious word-of-mouth
credibility. The ten, 30-minute episode
series chronicles the first few months of GLOW’s existence starting with the
casting call and taking the audience all the way through the end of the
wrestling show’s very first televised event.
Here’s the thing though, this is
not a show about wrestling. This is the
story of the personal lives of the people involved while using the wrestling
show as a backdrop. In the opening
minutes of the show (directly after the totally tubular opening credit sequence
set to Patty Smyth’s “Warrior”) we are introduced to Ruth Wilder (Alison Brie),
an out of work actress that has dreams bigger than the opportunities presented
to her. After yet another failed line
reading, Ruth receives a tip about an “unorthodox” casting call that had recently
came out. As she prepares to begin her
journey to women’s wrestling we also meet Debbie Eagan (Betty Gulpin), Ruth’s
best friend and former soap opera star who retired to start a family. Once Ruth has signed on with GLOW we also meet
Bash (Chris Lowell), the remarkably Rob Lowe-esque financier and Sam Sylvia
(Marc Maron), the director of the wrestling show. Sam is a cocaine inhaling, womanizing, slime
ball, yet Maron manages to make Sam almost relatable and loveable (the running joke
about Back to the Future beating his new script about time travel, “Mothers and
Lovers”, to the theaters is particularly amusing). Despite all of the strong
performances, Maron is hands down the true standout of GLOW. Throughout the 10
episodes, we follow these characters as well as the rest of the ladies who have
joined up with the promotion on their personal journeys, covering the spectrum
of emotions and personal experiences from friendship, to distrust, to camaraderie,
to betrayal, and ultimately to acceptance.
As with
anything that involves wrestling, there are a few easter eggs hidden in GLOW for fans to find. Obviously, one could point to the multiple cameos
by wrestlers throughout the series (for fun, be sure to point out any cameos you
spotted in the comments below!) but my favorite tidbit is the name of the gym. The ladies are training in a run-down dump of
a gym named “Chavo’s”. Chavo Guerrero Jr
was the trainer hired by Netflix to help the actors with their wrestling. Any fan of wrestling is extremely familiar
with the Guerrero name, true wrestling royalty.
The really fun part about all of this? The man hired as the trainer in the real-life
GLOW was Chavo Jr’s uncle, Mando Guerrero.
A huge “well done” to Netflix for giving a nod to one of the truly great
wrestling families.
With a total runtime of
roughly 5 hours, GLOW is worth your
time. First and foremost, it has all of the necessary ingredients for an 80’s
show: hairspray, french-cut leotards (how did I forget about those!?), a designer
drug dispensing robot (yes, really) and of course a totally bad-ass soundtrack. Add to that the wrestling, comedy, acting,
and well written characters, GLOW
will make any viewer feel personally invested in these people’s lives. Spend some time with the Gorgeous Ladies of
Wrestling and if you like it, spread the word so we can all see where our new
friends from GLOW go from here!
--Frankie G (@F3theMissle on Twitter)
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