Eight Women-Lead Historical TV Series That Would Totally Work
For A More Civilized Age
By Dan WohlJan 15th, 2013, 12:31 pm
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Allow Us to Explain
In my last post , I argued that there's no excuse for excluding women from historically-inspired fantasy constructs — even if it means sacrificing “historical accuracy,” which is done away with in one way or another in all fantasy works anyway.
After reading through the post's many thought-provoking comments, I realized I hadn't emphasized something I should have: that historically-inspired stories with female protagonists certainly need not exist only in the realm of fantasy.
With shows like The Tudors , Rome , Deadwood , The Borgias , Spartacus , etc., the past decade or so has seen the rise of a heretofore rare phenomenon: the historical TV series that is based around real historical figures. I love this trend. These shows let you see a bygone time and culture, while allowing for the deep character development you don't always get in similarly-set films.
But like most genres, there are not nearly enough female-centered ones. So I came up with some women in history whose lives, I thought, would adapt well to the format, along with some fantasy casting choices for each.
Nefertiti/Neferneferuaten
If there's one historical setting that's overdue for a lavish TV series about it, I think it's ancient Egypt at the height of its power, many centuries before the Greek-dominated land of Cleopatra (which was featured in the second season of Rome ).
Hatshepsut was a very successful Pharaoh for at least 20 years, but I think a more interesting choice might be Nefertiti. Her husband, Akhenaten, was a Henry VIII-type figure who changed a grand nation's long-held religious traditions. During his reign, polytheism was disposed of and worshipping the sun god Aten alone was encouraged. It's been suggested this action could have had a keen scientific understanding of the sun's importance to life behind it.
The evidence is as inconclusive as you'd expect it to be for events that happened more than 3,000 years ago, but there are legitimate hypotheses positing that Nefertiti not only held co-regent status with her husband, but also enjoyed a sole reign as “Neferneferuaten” after his death. This show would assume that interpretation, and show Nefertiti navigating through life as a monarch both before and after Akhanaten's death.
I would cast Necar Zadegan, best known for playing Dalia Hassan on the last season of 24 , in the main role. The aesthetic motifs of ancient Egypt are so strong in the public consciousness that I'd expect promotional imagery to be one of the most fun things about this show – just imagine Zadegan with the crossed arms, double staffs, headdress and false chin beard (which female pharaohs wore as well) that everyone knows from the iconic images of sarcophagi. Plus, it would be a great opportunity for a remastered version of one of my favorite metal songs of all time to appear on a soundtrack album.
Fu Hao
Fu Hao, of China's Shang Dynasty, was not the only woman warrior of the ancient world. But she was possibly the highest ranking one in the context of a formal military. While she first attained prominence as one of King Wu Ding's wives, she parlayed that position into becoming her country's foremost military commander of the day.
Her tomb, which was excavated in 1976, gave a clear picture of her standing, not just as a royal figure but as a warrior. Her grave goods, among much more, included 130 weapons, 20 bone arrowheads and four bronze tigers or tiger heads.
She also reigned over her own fiefdom on the borders of her husband's empire, which would provide opportunities for the show to be not just about war but politics as well. Like the story of Nefertiti (who was probably alive less than 100 years before Fu was born), a ton of unknown details would have to be filled in, but the backdrop of China's Bronze Age would be a novel place for an epic TV series to go.
For the role of Fu I'd choose Grace Park of Battlestar Galactica and Hawaii 5-O , who I think would make a believable warrior-queen-commander.
“Amazon” and “Achillia”
Hollywood loves gladiators in ancient Rome. They come from the most universally idealized classical culture there is, they're a low class that (in fiction anyway), usually finds a way to speak truth to power, and the nature of their work is made for action-oriented cinematographers.
So what about female gladiators? They did exist , and not just in Roger Corman exploitation films . While they were probably very rare, there is a handful of evidence supporting their reality. The most indisputable piece is a marble relief found at Halicarnassus in modern-day Turkey. The relief shows two gladiatrices facing off, labeled with stage names that sound like what the WWE could come up with if it had existed then: “Amazon” and “Achillia.”
Needless to say, literally nothing else is known about these two women. But I love this vivid artifact as a jumping off point for an imagined story about them. What were their lives like as warriors and women in classical antiquity? What was their path like to get to a point where they were respected enough to be identified by flashy, powerful nicknames? Were they close friends out of the arena, or mortal enemies?
One good thing about Corman's film was the casting of Pam Grier. People of African descent were more prevalent than you might think in ancient Rome and were usually not slaves (while many native Romans were). I would cast the impressively fit Rutina Wesley of True Blood as “Amazon” and establish her as a free Ethiopian risking her social standing to become a gladiator, and MMA fighter-recently-turned-actress Gina Carano as “Achillia,” establishing her as a white slave hoping fighting will lead to her freedom.
Lady Ik' Skull
This whole 2012 apocalypse phenomenon had its funny moments, but it's unfortunate to think it was probably the only association many people now have with the Maya civilization. The classical Maya were amazing. They constructed large cities without draft animals or pulleys, they developed the Americas' only known pre-Columbian writing system, they had a rich and nuanced mythology and they had an understanding of astronomy that was probably second to no other human civilization in its time.
And on top of all that, they had an remarkable tradition of body modification, encompassing tattoos, piercings all over the ears and face, teeth-sharpening, and drilling holes in teeth to replace with pieces of jade that would be really fun to see onscreen. I don't think very highly of Mel Gibson as a person, but I do think highly of his 2006 film Apocalypto , and a TV series exploring the details of this fascinating culture could be great.
During the 600s and 700s, women began to play a more powerful role in Maya politics, and the figure I would center this show around would be Lady Ik' Skull. One of King Itzamnaaj B'alam II's secondary wives, Ik' Skull's son became king, even though the primogeniture of the monarchy held that the son of the primary wife should have. Ik' Skull also may have ruled as a queen regnant herself for a time.
Why these unusual events took place is not known, but there was clearly something different about Ik' Skull, and court life in the Maya civilization was probably as complex as anything seen on The Tudors . To play Ik' Skull I would cast America Ferrera, who in every real-world appearance I've seen of her has always affected an impressive regal bearing far removed from her character on Ugly Betty .
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Eleanor was a main character in the 1968 film The Lion in Winter , a role for which Katharine Hepburn won a Best Actress Oscar alongside Peter O'Toole as King Henry II of England. But that was a snapshot in time that didn't convey the full scope of her epic life, which weaved its way throughout 12th-century European political history.
As a teenager, she inherited sovereigny of the most powerful duchy in France, and decades before her marriage to Henry, she married King Louis VII of France, with whom she commanded forces in the Second Crusade. After securing an annulment from the Pope—which she sought before her husband did—on the grounds that the couple were too closely related, she married Henry, whom she was even closer related to, in the same year.
For five years, she oversaw her own court in the town of Poitiers with her daughter, holding a “Court of Love” in which she heard, and judged on, romantic conflicts brought by subjects. She was imprisoned for 16 years after supporting her son's revolt against her husband. And she finished her life ruling England while another of her sons, King Richard I, was fighting the Third Crusade.
I think there's more than enough material to fashion a complex TV drama out of Eleanor's incredible life. To play her I would cast Vera Farmiga, who seems to have been slowly building toward a starmaking role for a long time, and who I think would do well in portraying the wide range of ages the character would appear as over the course of the series.
Mary Read and Anne Bonny
During the Golden Age of Piracy (around 1650-1730), only two women are known to have been convicted of that ever-romanticized crime, and they were friends and comrades-in-arms. From what is known about them, Mary Read and Anne Bonny seem to have been in some ways opposites, a starting point I think could work quite well for a TV series. Also, some female-fronted pirate metal on the soundtrack would be terrific.
The facts about Bonny make her sound like the archetypical pirate badass. She stabbed a peer at age 13; she eloped with a small-time pirate to the Bahamas shortly thereafter; she ditched the small-timer for a swashbuckler of greater renown, Calico Jack Rackham; she proceeded to join his crew as a regular buccaneer in her own right, and never hid her gender. Johnny Depp justified Jack Sparrow's Keith Richards voice and mannerisms by describing pirates as the rock stars of their day, and if we extend this analogy you could call Bonny a Joan Jett-type figure. She loved robbing and plundering, so put another doubloon in the treasure chest, baby.
Read, on the other hand, had disguised herself as a male since childhood, and had lived a less jaunty life by the time she and Bonny crossed paths. She fought nobly in the British military and fell in love with a Flemish soldier and married him. He died prematurely, and Read (disguised as a man again) only became a pirate after her naval ship was captured by them. Bonny's flirting with her, which raised Rackham's ire, forced her to reveal her sex – and from that point on, their ship, the Revenge , had a dynamic female duo.
I could imagine a compelling “buddy pirate” dynamic between these two. Read, who may have been a good deal older, would teach Bonny about responsibility and taking life seriously; Bonny would teach Read about having fun and being comfortable with her gender identity. Although it's a bit of an obvious choice, I'd cast Janet McTeer, who was so good at portraying a 19th-century transman in Albert Nobbs , as Read, and Juno Temple, whose ebulliance and punk fashion sense would make sense for Bonny.
Lydia Darragh and “Miss Jenny”
Now we get to the historical setting that Assassins Creed III creative director Alex Hutchinson said was just about a bunch of dudes : the American Revolution. Gender roles being what they were, the political machinations may have been pretty dude-heavy, but some very interesting aspects of the war were not.
There were female spies on both the Patriot and Loyalist sides, which I think would be an absolutely fascinating prism through which to experience this story. With a TV series about female spies, you'd get a glimpse into everyday early American life, the revolutionary upheaval from a civilian perspective, and also, of course, the intrigue of espionage.
I think it might be interesting to center such a show around two spies, one on either side. You could have Patriot Lydia Darragh, an Irish-born Quaker midwife who gathered information all over Philadelphia to deliver to George Washington. For the Loyalists you could depict “Miss Jenny,” a Loyalist of French-Canadian origin whose language skills let her infiltrate both Patriot and French encampments and who, at one point, had her hair forcibly cut off as a punishment.
For Darragh I would cast Maria Doyle Kennedy, who has excelled lately in small parts on high-profile TV series like The Tudors , Dexter and Downton Abbey . I think Kennedy would be great for a character that was daring, dangerous and motherly at the same time (Darragh had nine children before her spying career began). For Jenny (who would certainly receive a fictional real name in this show), I would go with Leelee Sobieski, who speaks fluent French and who I think could pull off the cunningness and mild villainy that the character would probably possess.
Belle Starr
Few historical settings have been mythologized as much as the American Old West, and along with the Age of Piracy it's probably the most criminal-friendly setting you can set stories in. In late 1800s Texas and Oklahoma, Belle Starr was called the “Bandit Queen.” Already played by Gene Tierney and Jane Russell during the Hollywood Western's heyday, this is a tale that I think definitely deserves a modern update.
Starr was raised in Missouri and was childhood friends with Jesse James and his associates. When she grew up, she affected a flamboyant sense of style that must have been quite a sight on the frontier. Like Anne Bonny, she made no effort to hide her gender. She would ride sidesaddle, decked out in an expensive black velvet dress and plumed hat, while firing pistols with both hands.
What makes her story even more interesting is that not only was she a woman in a man's world, she took up with another discriminated-against group: Native Americans. Her second husband, Sam Starr, was Cherokee, and she lived most of her life in the Indian Territory. With Sam, they ran bootlegging rings, stole livestock, harbored fugitives, and engaged in gunfights, which was ultimately the end of both of them.
The story of a female gunslinger combined with some Django Unchained -style revenge on the part of her subjugated comrades sounds pretty good to me. To play Starr I would cast Michelle Williams, who's played more contemporary western characters in Brokeback Mountain and Wendy and Lucy.
Dan Wohl blogs about baseball for a living, and he also once hosted a “Tudors”-themed party in college. He would love for you to follow him on Twitter: @ Dan_Wohl .
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