Good Girls Revolt is over. Forever. After only one season and a failed social media campaign to renew the show, a great historical feminist story bit the television dust. Revolt followed a group of 1960s and '70s female newsroom researchers as they fought to be allowed to work as writers, like their male peers. Fictionalized, but based on actual events, it also featured real-life writing legend Nora Ephron (Grace Gummer) and human rights lawyer Eleanor Holmes Norton (Joy Bryant), and was dearly loved by viewers. So what went wrong?
"I've been engaged thousands of times now with fans who have watched the show, and the word that people use is 'gutted,'" Genevieve Angelson told ELLE.com at the ELLE Women in Television event in Los Angeles. Having been in the lead role as nascent reporter Patti Robinson, Angelson says the loss of the show feels "deep and painful and personal." Why? Because Revolt's focus on women who stood up for themselves feels all but historical. "The reason that this show resonates so much is because we're waking up, all of us, and realizing that this is the work we want to be doing—and it sucks that it can't happen on a TV show, but it can happen in life."
If a second season had been made, Angelson said her hope was to address our own part as women in what's going on. "My wish, most of all," she said, "was to address the fact that Donald Trump was elected by women and that a lot of the sexism is internal sexism we direct toward ourselves. That's what I really wanted Dana [Calvo] and the other writers to illustrate on season two."
But being involved with the fight for women's rights doesn't stop with a TV show. Angelson encouraged everyone to attend the Women's March on January 21. "Next weekend is a march in every [major] city in this country," she said, "and we can all go. We can all ask questions and listen and find out what we're supposed to do. Women are realizing that their discomfort isn't a defect or something that is wrong with them personally. It's easier, I think, in a way, to internalize mistreatment and think it's because of something I do wrong, rather than because of something that is wrong, because that's more work. It's more work when it's systemic, when it's prejudicial, than if it's just my own personal shortcomings."
As for what she wants to do now, Angelson has no plans to shrink away quietly. "I want to be Shirley MacLaine–she's amazing. I've just always wanted to be a trumpet...I want to play Lucille Ball. I want to be wild, clown women!" We can't wait.
