'Good Girls Revolt' Courtesy of Richard Foreman
"It doesn't take working at Fox news to have this," said Genevieve Angelson, star of Amazon's 1960s-set newsroom drama.
Good Girls Revolt may be a period drama but the gender issues it explores are just as relevant today.
At a panel for the new Amazon drama at the Television Critics Association summer press tour on Sunday, the cast and producers were asked about how the show resonates with what's happening today given the recent sexual harassment allegations against former Fox News' chief Roger Ailes.
"I'm from New York City from probably the most liberal background possible and it doesn't take working at Fox news to have this. You don't have to be in the this obviously more conservative, male-driven place," said series star Genevieve Angelson. "It's all over the place."
Castmember Erin Darke went on to add that the biggest progression since the 1960s and '70s when the show takes place is that now there's a language for it. "Now women can stand up and say, 'I was sexually harassed by my boss,' and people know what that is and innately know the horror," said the actress. "[Back then,] you knew that you felt violated or you knew that you felt belittled, and you didn't even know how to communicate that to another women, much less men."
Set in 1969, Good Girls Revolt centers on a group of young female researchers who work at News of the Week, inspired by the landmark sexual discrimination cases chronicled in Lynn Povich's of the same name. The real-life people portrayed in the series include Eleanor Holmes Norton, played by Parenthood's Joy Bryant, Nora Ephron (Grace Gummer) and Wick McFadden (Jim Belushi). A co-production with TriStar Television, the drama was written by Dana Calvo (Made in Jersey), directed by Liza Johnson (Return) and executive produced by Calvo, Lynda Obst, Darlene Hunt (The Big C), Don Kurt (Justified) and Jeff Okin (Dark Skies).
The series also stars Weeds' Hunter Parrish, Silicon Valley's Chris Diamantopoulos and Pitch Perfect's Anna Camp — the latter of whom was asked about how the new show compares to Mad Men, another '60s-set workplace drama in which she appeared. "It definitely picking up where Mad Men leaves off. At the end of the last season of Mad Men, Joan [Christine Hendricks] was starting her own company and starting to really assert herself as a woman in the industry," she explained. "I feel like it's the continuation of that in that it [focuses on] what happens to the woman who then have to come forward and take a stand and assert their rights."
Darke summed it up: "It's about this lawsuit but it's also about these women learning to become feminists and what that means for them and what that means for their lives."
Good Girls Revolt will be available for streaming on Oct. 28 on Amazon Prime.
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