Things just haven’t been the same for HBO since “Sex and the City” left. Sure, shows like “Hung” and “Entourage” have offered the lovelorn network some dudely support — but what it really needs, what’s it’s been desperately searching for, is another colossal chick-magnet. A few months back, it seemed HBO had found just the thing: A new comedy series in development called “Women’s Studies.” Now, its shot at winning us women back is looking better still: An as-yet untitled show starring Diane Keaton “as a feminist icon who attempts to reignite the movement by starting a sexually explicit magazine for women,” reports Reuters.
Sold! You had me at: Feminist starts a porn mag for women. If that isn’t a dynamite premise for a premium cable series, I don’t know what is. That’s not TV, that’s … HBOhmigodawesome.
Hopefully the series will both make it to the air and live up to the intriguing set-up. Marti Noxon, a writer and co-producer, says she has long struggled with the contradiction between her lesbian mother’s radical feminist beliefs — that shaving your legs is an unacceptable concession to the patriarchy, for example — and her own interest in men and being “a gal.” That might suggest the series will amount to fuck-me feminism or lightweight “lifestyle” activism. But maybe, just maybe, the show will bravely explore those competing influences of feminism and mainstream sexual culture.
Oh, a “gal” can dream.
