Meet The Ladies Of G.L.O.W., The 80s Female Wrestling League
Jenji Kohan’s new Netflix show boasts big hair and body slams.
The writer and producer Jenji Kohan is known for creating smart, multi-dimensional female characters who inhabit seldom explored worlds. “Orange is the New Black,” “Gilmore Girls” and “Weeds” offered insights into the areas of female prisons, single parenting and the drug trade. In “G.L.O.W.,” the new series she’s producing for Netflix, Kohan sheds light on a different subculture: female wrestling.
G.L.O.W., which will be released in June, is based on the “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling,” an hour-long TV show that aired weekly from 1986-1990. The all-female wrestling league started as a wrestling promotion, but soon became a cultural phenomenon, influencing the future of the sport forever.
G.L.O.W. was a small, low-budget affair, part vaudevillian variety show and part wrestling match. What it lacked in technique it made up for in grit (and — in true 80s fashion — white people rapping badly).
Lighting up the wrestling world
In the 80s, opportunities for female wrestlers were scant. The WWE would occasionally introduce women into storylines, but rarely were they allowed inside the ring to compete. The Olympics didn’t…
