Entertainment

By Robert Rorke

It’s a good time to be a woman on TV — in premium scripted dramas, at least.

In the past several months, we have been treated to a rich display of actresses playing wonderfully complex roles in three distinct series: the California moms of “Big Little Lies,” the Hollywood survivors of “Feud” and this week, the young women subjugated to a life of procreating in the dystopian universe of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

You would have to search far and wide to find as many opportunities for actresses in Hollywood movies.

Among this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Actress, the pickings were so slim that the least interesting character — Emma Stone’s aspiring actress in “La La Land” — won the statuette. Compare that to the abused wife in denial played by Nicole Kidman in “Big Little Lies.” Or the juicy star turns by Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis in “Feud.” Or the sensitive portrayal of the handmaid Offred by Elisabeth Moss in the newest adaptation of the classic Margaret Atwood novel.

In each of these series, the leads are surrounded by equally well-drawn women characters to give viewers a sympathetic, well-rounded perspective on the female experience. “Big Little Lies” features Shailene Woodley as the odd woman out, a single mother haunted by a date-rape with ramifications that were not completely revealed until the last episode, and Reese Witherspoon as a perfectionist unable to come to grips with her own foibles. “Feud” features Jackie Hoffman as Mamacita, Joan Crawford’s maid; and Alison Wright as Pauline, director Robert Aldrich’s assistant — two supporting players frustrated by their dictated roles in the Hollywood machine. “The Handmaid’s Tale” presents the widest variety of female characters, as the women in the story play out their assigned roles, from the barren wife (Yvonne Strahovski) who must watch her husband (Joseph Fiennes) have sex with another, fertile woman; the enforcer (Ann Dowd) who physically abuses disobedient women; to those who rebel against their oppressors (Alexis Bledel, Samira Wiley).

By contrast, each of this year’s Best Actress nominees was the lone figure in their story (better to snag those nominations). Besides Stone, there was Meryl Streep as the title character, a hammy singer who couldn’t sing in “Florence Foster Jenkins;” Isabelle Huppert in the rape revenge movie “Elle;” Natalie Portman as JFK’s widow in the oft-told “Jackie;” and Ruth Negga, the most interesting of the five, as Mildred Loving, an African-American woman fighting miscegenation laws in the US courts in “Loving.”

Television has long provided a good place to tell stories about mature women in series, from “Desperate Housewives” to “The Good Wife.” But the new boom of miniseries shows how the medium is now really the best place to tell provocative stories about female characters of all ages, whether it’s the unfortunate ingénues of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the gossiping moms of “Big Little Lies” or the cantankerous veterans who know where all the bodies are buried on “Feud.”

Share this article: