GLOW or Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling was a TV sketch show centered around professional wrestling that debuted in 1986 and lasted through to closure in 1990. Today Netflix announced that a documentary TV series based around the origins of GLOW and it’s creation of stars will air in a complete season on June 23, 2017. Along with the announcement Netflix released the trailer that you can see below.
Alison Brie stars in the ’80s-set series from Orange Is the New Black creator Jenji Kohan as Ruth Wilder, an out-of-work actress who finds one last chance for stardom when she auditions for the first-ever women’s wrestling TV show. The trailer previews the 11 Hollywood misfits who join Ruth in the ring, their director-coach (Marc Maron) and Ruth’s best friend-turned-rival, soap star Debbie Egan (Betty Gilpin).
This TV series looks to capture all the backstage mishaps and fights that goes along with having two rival actresses on the set of something that is really out of the producers control and also seems to capture the mocking stereotype nature of the GLOW product as it was in the 1980s with every actress living up to their cultural seterotype of the time. This includes the “Big black girl”, “The party girl”, etc.
For those people who might not have seen the GLOW product before, it’s exactly as the trailer shows. These girls did not start out as wrestlers, they were mostly actresses, stunt women, dancers and other female stereotyped roles looking for a break in the Television industry. The shows themselves did feature wrestling matches, but also had some badly done sketches and “interviews” that look like someone just cut random clips together. The whole thing is amazingly 1980s in production. To see for yourself, please take a look at the pilot episode from 1985
GLOW did do a revival show in 2012 featuring former GLOW girls and some newer additions for the event after the documentary GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling was a success. However most people might remember a little show called Wrestlicious that ran in 2008 which was done in the spirit of GLOW which featured a lot of actual independent female wrestlers in outrageous gimmicks done in the GLOW style of production…. Or maybe not since Wrestlicious was terrible.
GLOW, which releases its 10 episodes June 23 on Netflix, is created by showrunners Liz Flahive (Homeland, Nurse Jackie) and Carly Mensch (Nurse Jackie, Orange Is the New Black,
Weeds), with Kohan and Tara Herrmann serving as executive producers.
