From sidekick to sleuth: How women took over the TV detective drama
Next week a new HBO series of True Detective will start up (on Sky Atlantic in the UK). Has the revered but controversial crime programme solved its woman problem? Has the world solved its woman problem?
The new version - this is the fourth, each series having a completely different cast and setting - is called True Detective: Night Country and stars Jodie Foster & team working to solve a gruesome crime in Alaska. Previous series - particularly the first - attracted comment because of the lack of a female pov.
Over at the i newspaper, we took the opportunity to look at the history of women detectives/sleuths on TV (and the occasional film). It was tremendous fun to research and write: I mentioned as many fictional TV detectives as I could, but not everyone made the cut - please put your favourite women sleuths in the comments below if I missed them out.
(there is a paywall and a limit to how many articles you can read a month before paying)
What a great article, Moira! You've included some excellent lady detectives, and you make some well-taken points. It's making me think, too, that even in shows where women aren't the lead detectives, they're still strong characters (e.g. New Tricks, DCI Banks, Cold Case, etc..). I give credit to writers and to actors like Helen Mirren who've paved the way for this evolution.
ReplyDeleteThanks Margot - it's such an interesting topic. And thanks for mentioning those additional series! There are so many I could have featured. The emphasis was really on police detectives - that's the only justification for missing out Murder She Wrote!
DeleteGreat article! And great to be reminded of Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison - I thought Prime Suspect was brilliant. I have followed Vera Stanhope since Ann Cleeves first introduced her and initially disapproved when I heard she would be played by Brenda Blethyn - much too good-looking, I thought. But I have to admit Blethyn does a marvellous Vera. (Though she IS a bit too good-looking...)
ReplyDeleteI do think she is great in the role.
DeleteWhen I first read the first Vera book (before the TV series) I thought that the introduction of the character was one of the cleverest and funniest in any crime book ever, and I haven't changed my mind...
PS Birgitta, we had Swedish brown cabage yesterday, it was delicious: thanks for the recipe!
DeleteI really haven't watched much crime television except The Unforgotten and Line of Duty, both quite recently. My parents watched Prime Suspect but somehow I never did (I picked up a book during the pandemic that seemed to be about her first year on the force and it was dreadful). Now it is hard to catch up on some shows that sound very good because all are on a different streaming platform.
ReplyDeleteOh it is hard to keep up, isn't it? We have limited streaming, which simplifies things one way, but I still feel I am not uptodate with everything I want to see. (or might want to see - who knows for sure?)
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