Amazon’s new drama “Good Girls Revol🧸t,” premiering Friday, is inspired by a꧃ group of female researchers at Newsweek who filed an equal-opportunity complaint in 1970 about the magazine’s policy of male-only reporters.
It’s a story its stars didn’t know before reading Lynn Povich’s book, on which the series is based — but one they co🐠uld 🦩relate to first-hand, since women still fight for equal pay and parity of roles in Hollywood.
Interviewing the show’s three lead actresses at New York’s Crosby Street Hotel turned into a consciousness-raising meeting of sorts, with Anna Camp (“Pitch Perfect”) speaking of the tricky negotiation of turning down a male director or co-star’s offer of a date while maintaining a good working relationship. Erin Darke (“Still Alice”) recalled a horrifying occurrence from working in casting, when a director asked that the camera be held above an auditioning actress so that he could see down her shirt. Genevieve Angelso👍n (“House of Lies”) was, at one point, told wha🍌t dress size she needed to be.
“Being an actress in the industry, I do feel like I’ve been fighting the whole time … against what people want me to look like and the fact that often means more than the job I do,” says Darke. “I lost 30 pounds. I felt it was something I had to do to play the game and that’s f—ed up.
“If we all stay silent about it, that just perpetuates — and it’s🃏 the same with this,” she says𒁏. “If these women had just stayed silent and done their jobs, nothing would have ever changed.”
The series opens in December 1969 and introduces the fictional magazine News of the Week, where the impulsive Patti Robinson (Angelson), type-A Jane Hollander (Camp) and shy Cindy Rest♊on (Darke) work as researchers. The women’s job is to assist the reporters with finding, sourcing and reporting stories — for the men to then write under their byline. It’s a policy that doesn’t sit well with new researcher Nora Ephron (Grace Gummer), who decides to re-write a reporter’s story and promptly gets fired.
Through Nora, the women attend a consciousness-raising meeting where they meet ACLU lawyer Eleanor Holmes Norton (Joy Bryant), who urges them to pursue a civil rights case based on gender discrimination. But doing so has personal and professional consequenceꦗs.
P🥂atti is navigating a romance with the reporter to which she’s assigned, Doug Rhodes (Hunter Parrish), and admires the magazine’s editor, Finn Woodhouse (Chris Diamantopoulos). Jane has to overcome her conservative, society upbringing and dreams of being a housewife over a “career girl.” Cindy’s unhappiness with her marriage and controlling husband leads to a drinking problem 𓃲and a wandering eye.
“None of us wanted us to make a show that was black and white, the girls being good and the boys being bad, boys bei♔ng mean and girls not having any rights,” Angelson says. “It’s not ಞas interesting as television where things are gray and messy. Even women who are discriminated against and oppressed make mistakes and do things to hurt people.”
The 10-episode first s🥃eason takes viewers through March 1970, when the civil rights complaint was filed — but, as the s♚tars note, that’s just the beginning of the story. (Amazon has not yet greenlit a second season.)
“There’s so much to tell and so many places to go and places to grow. What happens in the office now that we’ve won? How do the men treat th♈e women now?” Camp says.
“The end of 🦩Season 1 is just where J🐻ane starts to find out who she is.”
“Good Girls Revolt” Available Friday on Amazon