Netflix’s historically based women’s wrestling series GLOW, starring Alison Brie, releases a teaser video revealing its release date.
Netflix continues its merciless barrage of trailers and teasers with a crucial update on one of its most intriguing television projects in GLOW. The series serves as a nostalgia-laced showcase for the eponymous, insanely ostentatious 1986-1992 women’s wrestling organization, starring former Community standout Alison Brie. The streaming outlet has just revealed when we can expect this delightful series with a hairspray and neon-teeming teaser video.
Uninitiated viewers and wrestling fans alike intrigued by Netflix’s GLOW now have a date to set aside for binging on June 23. The teaser video – which can’t quite be classified as a “trailer” – is simply a 29-second exhibition of the kind of 1980’s aesthetics and mullet-rock music, setting the tone for the series as women of all shapes, sizes and ethnicities come together in a demonstrable show of unity… to beat the s**t out of each other in the squared circle! While their faces are obscured, we do see what appears to be Alison Brie’s main character Ruth Wilder – a fictionalized washed-up actress who takes up wrestling in a last desperate push for fame – sporting a wild onesie, getting herself into wild scraps with some of the 14 women who will fill the show’s lineup of historically-inspired GLOW girls.
The series also co-stars Marc Maron (Maron, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates) as a shady, “coked-up” B-movie director Sam Sylvia, who is put in charge of the organization. Betty Gilpin (Masters of Sex, Elementary) also co-stars Debbie Eagan, a former soap actress who, after leaving showbiz to have a child, becomes immersed in the insanity of GLOW. Names such as Britt Baron, Kim Gatewood, Ellen Wong, Kia Stevens, Sunita Mani, Gayle Rankin, Rebekka Johnson, Laurie Francene Kinzer, Kate Nash and Jackie Tohn also fill the enormous recurring GLOW cast lineup.
GLOW will be driven by a team who have already performed quite well for Netflix in Orange is the New Black creators Jenji Kohan and Tara Herrmann, joined by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch of Showtime’s Homeland. Indeed, if the teaser video wasn’t indicative enough of a tone mixing irreverence with hard drama, then the creative coalition reaffirms the notion.
GLOW gets ready to step between the Netflix streaming ropes when it premieres on June 23.
Our previous article below as it appeared on September 1, 2016:
GLOW Adds Marc Maron as Co-Star with Alison Brie
The prospect of a spandex-clad Alison Brie stepping into a wrestling ring to do battle amidst the big hair and neon glow of 1980’s aesthetics is probably enough to get most of the Internet excited enough for Netflix’s GLOW. However, it seems that her newly-cast co-star, ripped from the world of standup comedy, could put an interesting spin on the dynamic of the gestating series.
According to TV Line, comedian and actor Marc Maron has been cast as the co-star of GLOW. Maron will be playing a character named Sam Sylvia, described as a washed-up Hollywood director with a complicated history with women. That problematic context will come to a head when he is put in the position of leading 14 women in their apparent quest for fame through the world of professional wrestling for the historical, real-life-based and notoriously over-the-top women’s wrestling organization G.L.O.W. (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling).
Maron’s co-lead position on the series sets up a central (fictionalized) dynamic that will likely hinge on chemistry between Sam and Alison Brie’s protagonist Ruth, an out-of-work L.A.-based actress who takes a desperate career gamble in the wrestling ring. However, with GLOW coming from the creative coalition of Orange is the New Black producers Jenji Kohan and Tara Herrmann along with co-creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch of Homeland, viewers can expect the dramatic elements to be complemented with the larger-than-life characters and array of insanity indicative of the real-life G.L.O.W. during its 1986-1992 existence. The Hollywood Reporter also points out that Betty Gilpin of Nurse Jackie has joined the cast.
The GLOW gig will also be a nice and quick rebound for Marc Maron, whose IFC sitcom Maron was just recently cancelled after four seasons. Maron has fielded recent appearances on Showtime’s (also recently cancelled) Roadies and HBO’s (imminently ending) Girls, along with the recent comedy film Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. While Maron's acting resume is not particularly prolific, people with memories stretching back to the early 1990’s might also remember him as one of the hosts who succeeded Jon Stewart (and co-anchor Patty Rosborough) on Comedy Central’s early flagship show Short Attention Span Theater.
GLOW appears to be rolling along with its casting process and it will be interesting to see this intriguing show idea take shape.
The previous update of the article as it appeared on 8/29/16:
GLOW: Alison Brie to Star in Netflix Women’s Wrestling Show
Netflix’s upcoming television series foray focused on the late-1980’s zaniness of the women’s wrestling organization GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) already seemed to be an intriguing, historically based bonanza of erratic idiosyncrasies apropos to the genuine article. However, the television project just received a fortunate boost with the naming of its star in Alison Brie!
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Alison Brie has jumped onboard the 10-episode, Jenji Kohan-developed GLOW Netflix series to play the show’s main character Ruth, an out-of-work actress in Los Angeles; something of which there is no shortage. Consequently, Ruth will embark on an indirect, physically demanding path to fame with plans to become a star in the world of women’s wrestling in the G.L.O.W. organization (which operated from 1986-1992). While the “wrestling” typically showcased crazy characters and skits that would be considered exploitative in today’s world, it also yielded weekly national TV exposure on the G.L.O.W. television show.
This is certainly an auspicious casting choice considering the fandom that Alison Brie brings from her 6-year run on NBC’s late, beloved, but ratings-starved comedy series Community, which enjoyed fan enthusiasm that even yielded one final season streaming on Yahoo. Brie is also known from her dramatic run on AMC’s Mad Men as well appearances in films such as Get a Job, How to Be Single, Sleeping with Other People and Scream 4. Additionally, Brie is no stranger to Netflix original television content, since, by way of her voice, she also stars on their animated series BoJack Horseman, which readies its upcoming fourth season.
It will certainly be interesting to see Alison Brie utilize her comedic (and possibly dramatic) chops when GLOW immerses her in a world of big hair, glitter and outrageously absurd characters attributed to the (very real) historical world of women’s wrestling in an era when the WWE was still the WWF and “Hulkamania” still ran wild on the mainstream stage of the scripted sport.
The original article as it appeared on 5/31/16:
GLOW: Netflix Orders 1980’s Female Wrestling Series
Netflix will boost its lineup of original shows with an intriguing oddity showcasing the world of women’s wrestling. However, while women’s wrestling is currently achieving legitimacy, this story takes place in the glory days of the late-1980’s in a company presenting women in wrestling rings as scantily-clad crazies and the concept of a “hold” more likely referred to the cans of Aqua Net emptied into their hair.
Trades such as Deadline report that Netflix has given a 10-episode order for a series to be called G.L.O.W., which is inspired by the real life women’s wrestling organization that operated from 1986 to 1992 (revived in various forms in the years since). The organization was actually best known from their weekly/seasonal acronym-titled television show Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. However, this series will take shape as a comedic drama brought to you from executive producer Jenji Kohan, a name Netflix holds in esteem as the creator and executive producer of their hit series Orange is the New Black.
The masterminds behind the series are creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, both of whom worked as producers for television terrorism drama Homeland and comedy series Nurse Jackie. That duo will also serve as co-executive producers alongside Kohan and Tara Herrmann to create a fictionalized scenario set in the real life wrestling organization. The series will reportedly be based in Los Angeles, centering on an unidentified protagonist described as “an out of work actress” desperately trying to achieve her dreams. She will be pulled into the orbit of G.L.O.W., which did yield the benefit of weekly national exposure from their television show, historically taped in the (imminently-imploding) Las Vegas Riviera Hotel.
While contemporary fans may evoke a mental image of women’s wrestling as something embodied by current catch-as-catch-can, ring-technical talent like WWE Women’s Champion Charlotte, Sasha Banks, Paige and Bayley, the kind of women’s wrestling that went on back in the days of G.L.O.W. was more of an over-the-top, often-exploitative spectacle full of bizarre sketches and musical numbers that would be inconceivable by today’s standards. However, mainstream wrestling fans of WWE/WWF’s late-1990's “Attitude Era” would probably recognize one noteworthy talented G.L.O.W. alumna in “Tina Ferrari” (Lisa Moretti), who eventually enjoyed a long and successful run as “Ivory.”
Regardless, the manic extremely-un-PC nature of the G.L.O.W. era should make for an interesting and hilariously original backdrop for the same type of groundbreaking female-centric humor that has made Orange is the New Black such a phenomenon for Netflix.