Theresa Basile

An Interview with “Dates Like This” Co-Creators Hannah Vaughn and Leigh Poulos

Posted on June 21, 2013 by Theresa Basile

Dates Like This, a web series in its second season, tells the story of a twentysomething lesbian named Meg and her straight best friend Alicia as they navigate the dating scene in New York City. The series is a modern twist on the romantic comedy, featuring a young gay woman in a role typically reserved for a young, starry-eyed, heterosexual ingenue, as she goes on a quest for true love.

I was intrigued by the premise immediately, as I am always intrigued by stories that promise fresh twists on traditional plots. But it wasn’t until my meeting with the show’s co-creators, Hannah Vaughn and Leigh Poulos, that I learned that this particular fresh twist happened almost by accident.

Vaughn and Poulos met in 2010 while working at a bakery in uptown Manhattan, and bonded quickly over their experiences as actors with a theater background trying to get more film experience. They were attracted to the idea of working on a web series because of the “immediate accessibility of a still-emerging platform.” The plot of the series, however, didn’t come about until Vaughn’s sister alerted her to a man on the Internet who was looking to complete a “30 dates in 30 days” project, and suggested that Vaughn “apply” to be one of the dates.

As it turned out, Vaughn decided not to follow that dating advice, but the suggestion led to the structure of the web series that would become Dates Like This.

“We were attracted to a traditional narrative form,” said Poulos, “but we also wanted to incorporate a series of vignettes, and the ’30 dates in 30 days structure’ allowed us to work with both formats at once.”

But after they sat down and created storylines and characters for their series, they saw that their planned structure would lead to some challenges in the casting process.

“We realized that, if we followed the 30 dates in 30 days structure, we would have to cast 30 different guys,” said Vaughn. “And we knew all of these great actresses-”

“-and wanted to create more parts for women our age,” added Poulos. “So we thought, why not make Meg a lesbian so we can call our female friends? And as we progressed, we realized that [by making the Meg character a lesbian], we opened ourselves to a target market and niche audience. It gave us something that made our series special and unique. We immediately got a leg up on connecting to a community in an unanticipated way.”

The feedback they received was immediate: aside from a few less-than-complimentary comments about production quality, response was overwhelmingly positive – though several viewers were convinced that the horrible dating stories upon which the storylines were based couldn’t possibly true. (Vaughn and Poulos assured me that they were all true, right down to the woman who obnoxiously “poked” Meg several times as though she were a walking Facebook timeline instead of a flesh-and-blood person.)

They also received some unexpected feedback about the nature of Meg and Alicia’s relationship, with many viewers wondering if the two friends were going to hook up down the line – a twist in the friends’ relationship that Poulos mentioned was something they explore in the second season of the show.

A few episodes into the second season, Dates Like This already has a slightly different tone from its first. While the first season focused on the girls’ romantic lives and friendship with each other, the second season shows Meg and Alicia’s worlds expanding and the women interacting with different groups of friends. A year has passed, Meg’s “30 Dates in 30 Days” project is over, and the women are in a different phase of their lives.

“The first season was very insulated about Meg and Alicia’s relationships and their point of view,” said Vaughn.

“The second season is about them trying to apply the things they think they’ve learned, and to see Meg in the context of a real lesbian community,” said Poulous. “What it’s like for her to have a straight best friend and what that entails for both of them. What it’s like to explore all sides of your identity.”

When I asked them what sets their series apart from the other web series exploding on the Internet, they cited Meg’s character development and her place in life as a selling point.

“She’s a gay character who’s not a ‘quirky gay friend,’ or fashion designer, or the lesbian friend of the group,” said Poulos. “The sexual preferences of our characters are secondary to the humanity of our characters, which is one of the thing I’m most proud of about our series.”

“From watching more lesbian movies,” said Vaughn, “it always seems to be that one of them is totally comfortable with being a lesbian and has been in that place for years, where another character is in a relationship with a guy and being ‘awakened’ to her true feelings…and that does make a good movie, but I wanted to have our characters be well-established and know who they are.”

Having watched the first season and some of the second, I can confirm that the characters of Dates Like This have a strong sense of who they are and what they want, even if they’re still figuring out the details.

Dates Like This had its second season premiere on June 11, 2013, and will debut new episodes every Tuesday. You can catch up on the series here.

Posted in Interviews | 2 Comments

Trailer Watch: “The Way, Way Back”

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Theresa Basile

So, my friend and I saw Joss Whedon’s adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing last week (LOVED it – more on that later), and before the movie, there were trailers (as there usually are). Aside from the preview for Girl Most Likely, the trailer that most caught my eye was for the upcoming Sundance entry, The Way, Way Back. (You can tell that it’s a Sundance film because it’s supposedly indie yet has a bunch of A-list actors, and there are acoustic guitars on the film’s soundtrack):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwNo1i3jkCo

I haven’t read any articles on The Way, Way Back, so I’m judging the film only on its trailer right now. So far, I can see that The Way, Way Back was written and directed by Dean Pelton from Community and Ben from Ben and Kate. It appears to be a coming-of-age story about a young, awkward teenage boy out of place in his own family who makes friends with people at the local water park. And during his coming of age and making of friends, he learns how to properly ogle and objectify headless women in skimpy bathing suits before they ride down a water slide.

Note: the women are not actually headless, like in a horror movie. The camera just never lets us see their faces, and only gives us glimpses of their barely-covered butts.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I just love seeing a teenage boy grow out of his awkward phase by learning how to ogle female consumers of his workplace with confidence, asking them to hold their stances so he can leer at them a little longer, getting approval from his older male co-workers and the “I-am-scandalized-and-offended-but-not-really” look from female co-worker Maya Rudolph.

I wasn’t really surprised to see a clip like this in a trailer for a major motion picture. Objectification of women is a punchline in American pop culture. Seth Rogen’s character in Knocked Up, for example, had a website where he and his friends kept track of the moments actresses got naked in movies.

Of course, in Knocked Up, Seth Rogen’s character keeping track of nude scenes in movies was meant to be a sign of his immaturity. In this trailer for The Way, Way Back, the protagonist’s objectification of women seems to be a sign of him coming out of his shell.

I’m on the record at not being a huge fan of Judd Apatow and thinking that he peaked with Freaks and Geeks, but at least his perpetual man-child characters eventually realize that they need to grow up and change their ways. This film seems to indicate that ogling women like pieces of meat is a part of development to grow into, rather than growing out of.

Yes, I know this is just a trailer, two and a half minutes out of more than ninety, I should give this film another chance, yada yada, but I’m not thrilled that this film’s marketing department chose to highlight that scene. Why should I pay to see more blatant objectification when I can “get” that for free in almost every piece of advertising ever?

What does intrigue me about The Way, Way Back is the glimpses we’ve seen of Steve Carell’s character.

Steve Carell is a likable actor who plays likable characters. We remember him from The Daily Show and The Office and Little Miss Sunshine, and he was likable even when his characters were at their worst.

In the trailer for The Way, Way Back, Steve Carell’s character seems very Steve Carell-y in personality and tone, but he’s not likable. He tells the protagonist, the son of his girlfriend, that he’s only a “3,” and it’s easy to see that this is not just the clueless commentary from the bumbling stepfather archetype. This man is an emotionally abusive bully who makes nasty comments to his girlfriend’s son under the guise of giving advice.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see a film where a bullying character was played by an actor as likable as Steve Carell? That film could highlight the insidious nature of emotional abuse.

Maybe this film does just that. I can’t tell, and I don’t know if I want to weigh the shots of bathing suit-clad butts against the possibility of seeing a decent story about the effects of bullying and abuse on a young teenage boy. That’s 14 dollars at stake in a summer where Girl Most Likely and Austenland are both premiering. Whether I see it or not, I hope the shots of lady butts are minimal and the story with the subtly abusive bully is well-developed.

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How ‘New Girl’s’ Jess and Nick Avoided Common Rom-Com Pitfalls

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Theresa Basile

[This piece originally appeared at Bitch Flicks.]

This year’s season of New Girl introduced a sitcom plot that fans and audience members anticipate and dread in equal measure: the BIG KISS between two lead characters, and the will-they-won’t-they dynamic that followed.

Hooking up the two lead characters of any show is always a risky move for writers to take. No matter how much chemistry exists between the two actors, viewers and critics often fear–with good reason–that once the unresolved sexual tension is resolved, the relationship will become an endless cycle of breakups, reunions, and miscommunication, and no longer be entertaining to watch (ahem).

As a fan of New Girl, I was apprehensive about the idea of Jess and Nick getting together, because I’ve watched TV before and I’ve seen how even great sitcoms can be dragged down by tiresome will-they-won’t-they plots (such asCommunity’s Jeff/Britta dance of sexual tension before the writers wisely changed course with that storyline). Now that the season has come to an end, I can safely say that Jess and Nick’s kiss did not drag down the show, but elevated a good season into a great one. In fact, Jess and Nick have become one of the more delightful TV romances I’ve ever seen.

How did the writers pull this off?

1. They kept up the pacing and moved the story forward.

On another show, Jess and Nick might have only reached their first kiss by the end of season two, if that. Nick would have realized his feelings for Jess at the end of season one, right after she started dating someone else, and the reverse would happen at the end of season two. On New Girl, Jess and Nick kissed mid-season, had a few awkward conversations about it, kissed again, eventually slept together, and are now in a state where they are pursuing…something, fumbling as they do it. Their relationship is progressing at the pace of actual humans, not characters who know they’re on a television show.

2. They didn’t forget that the show is a comedy.

So far, there have been no huge declarations of love between Jess and Nick. The closest that came to a declaration was Jess admitting that she didn’t want to call off whatever they had in the season finale, followed by Nick kissing her passionately. Other than that, the writers have emphasized the “comedy” part of romantic comedy, and the results have been great. Whether it’s Nick panic-moonwalking away from Jess on the morning after their first kiss, or Jess finding herself turned on when Nick acts remotely like a responsible grownup (learning how to do laundry!), the characters are still being funny even as they try to navigate their feelings for each other.

3. The barriers to a Jess/Nick relationship are organic to their characters.

The writers on New Girl have not wasted their time with many romantic false leads or contrived subplots designed to keep Jess and Nick apart. They haven’t had to, because there’s enough standing in their way of having a functional relationship without the typical sitcom contrivances.

On the plus side, Jess and Nick are friends and roommates who get along, care about each other, offer each other emotional support, and have plenty of sexual chemistry–all ingredients to a successful relationship. On the other hand, Jess’s sunny disposition, determination, and optimism clash horribly with Nick’s eternal grumpiness and lack of direction. The girl who makes up her own theme songs and the guy who gets so irrationally angry that he yells at doors can’t possibly have a relationship without some serious bumps in the road.

That’s why Jess and Nick’s conflicts have been so refreshing to watch. She’s unsure about his directionless nature and the fact that he has a credit score of a homeless ghost, and he knows that she’s unsure about him because of that reason, which leads to him feeling even more insecure. The fact that they’re friends who live together also complicates matters. If whatever they have becomes more serious, there will be many entertaining bumps in the road along the way.

4. The endgame is a question mark.

The relationship between Jess and Nick has been developing for a while, with mutual attraction acknowledged long before they actually kissed, but there’s no sense that Jess/Nick is an “endgame” couple. Considering their differences in personality, there’s a big chance that a relationship between them won’t work at all. They also might stay together for a long time. When they drive off together at the end of Cece’s wedding that wasn’t, there’s a sense that anything can happen between them.

From the perspective of someone who’s watched countless romantic comedies and rom-com pairings on television, I’m relieved to see a different take on a pairing of potentially mismatched friends. As a feminist, I’m happy that there’s no sense of an “endgame” with Jess and Nick, that Jess’s story isn’t all about whether or not she ends up with a guy (even if said guy is my current favorite character on television and Jake Johnson needs to win ALL the Emmys). Whatever she has with Nick is a big part of Jessica Day’s life, but it doesn’t define her, and she’s treated as a human being trying to figure out her life.

Would that all writers of romantic comedy treated their characters the way Elizabeth Meriweather and the staff of New Girl treat Jess and Nick–as people, not props in a foretold rom-com ending.

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Confessions of a Former Slut Shamer

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Theresa Basile

[This piece was originally posted at Feminspire.]

“What do you call Britney Spears in pigtails?”

“A blowjob with handles.”

This joke appeared on a Britney Spears hater site back in the late ’90s, a site that looked amateurish and pathetic even by the decade’s standards — back when geocities was still a thing. It was one of my favorite websites, one that I visited every night when I finished my homework. Filled with jokes about the singer’s alleged boob job and alleged promiscuity, and numerous essays about why she was generally terrible, the site was a Britney hater’s dream come true. One time, I even contributed a parody song called “Oops! I’m Pregnant Again,” in which Britney was a “dumb slut” who kept sleeping with guys who knocked her up and left her. It was accepted and published on the front page.

[Read the rest of this piece here.]

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Spoiler Alert (The Robot Falls in Love)

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Theresa Basile

Did you see what happened in this week’s episode of Game of Thrones? OH MY GOD. What a heartbreaking sequence of events! Who would have thought that Daenerys would literally turn into a dragon and devour Ser Jorah right before he was about to tell her that her brother Rhaegar is still alive?

Obviously, this did not happen on the latest episode of Game of Thrones. If you live in the world, pay attention things, and breathe air, you know what actually happened on the latest episode of Game of Thrones. There were multiple meltdowns on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, headlines from the A.V. Club and Entertainment Weekly and Buzzfeed, announcing (and wailing) over the devastating sequence where Jon Snow confessed his love for Mance Rayder and broke Ygritte’s heart.

That did not happen, either. But if you talked about what really happened on Facebook, you got cries of “I haven’t seen it yet!” and “You ruined the episode for me!” and “NO SPOILERS!”

I have been a participant of online message boards since the age of fifteen, back in the days where Television Without Pity was still known as Mighty Big TV. Back then, when I participated in the Buffy and Dawson’s Creek (shut up) boards, we were not allowed to discuss spoilers in anywhere except the designated spoiler threads.

Back then, a spoiler was a piece of information about an upcoming episode that had not yet aired in the United States. A spoiler could be an episode description, a preview, casting information, or specific plot details that people who like being surprised really didn’t want to know.

Now, a spoiler seems to be code for “anything that happens in a TV show that I couldn’t be bothered to watch the night that it aired.”

The way we watch TV is changing and evolving. Many people don’t watch episodes the night they air anymore. I am seasons behind in Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and have somehow managed to avoid learning all but one major plot point in Breaking Bad about Giancarlo Esposito’s character.

But the last season of Breaking Bad is coming up soon, and if my Facebook friends were to start talking about plot events from previous seasons, and these discussions appeared in my news feed – well, it’s not their fault that I didn’t watch in time.

Sure, some seasons of Breaking Bad are several years old at this point. But I can’t even be upset with the people who posted their reactions to Game of Thrones. That episode was a big deal! Lots of stuff happened! Of course people are going to take to social media to express their opinions (not to mention grief).

I understand that the way people view television has changed, that more and more people are not watching their shows on the night that they air, and that some shows require more spoiler rules than others. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect people to wait a few weeks to talk openly on Facebook about the last season of Arrested Development, because not everyone is a nerd like me and sets aside an entire day just to watch all fifteen episodes in a row. (Did you see when Lindsay expanded HOOP to an international organization and put Annyong in charge? Hilarious!)

But aside from making exceptions for Internet-only series where entire seasons are released all at once, I don’t think it’s my responsibility to keep up with each friend’s viewing schedule for each show s/he watches before I openly express my excitement that Elena chose Pacey. Nor is it another friend’s responsibility to hide her disappointed reaction when she was really hoping Elena would end up with Angel.

Of course, I don’t intentionally give people plot details they don’t want to know. I’m not a jerk. If a friend posts a status update about that great third season episode of Mad Men, I’m not going to tell her that the fifth season reveals Joan to be a natural blonde. I avoid talking about A Song of Ice and Fire when discussing Game of Thrones, because there are plenty of viewers who haven’t read the books, and they don’t need to be told that Jon Snow’s real father turns out to be Ted Mosby. And if someone tells me she’s dying to talk to me about the first season of Veronica Mars, “but I haven’t seen the last two episodes so DON’T SAY ANYTHING,” I won’t ruin the surprise of the reveal of the Ice Truck Killer.

But except for those exceptions, I think most other details are fair game for discussion.

I’m old-fashioned that way, I guess. It’s only a spoiler if it includes details about an episode that has not yet aired. Everything else is just a plot detail.

Thoughts?

Posted in Blog Posts | 4 Comments

Hello. It’s Me Again!

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Theresa Basile

Guess who’s back. Back again. Lady (T)’s back. Tell a friend.

Yes, after a two-month hiatus, guess who’s back in the atmosphere with drops of Jupiter in her hair?

Your guess is as good as mine, because I’m not even sure what drops of Jupiter look like, much less the girl who has them in her hair. In any case, I have returned to the blogosphere after two months, and I am psyched to introduce you all to my new site. Welcome to theresabasile.com, the new home of my writings, musings, articles, and other.

If this is your first time reading my work, then welcome! Put your feet up and enjoy. If you are here because you were looking for The Funny Feminist – yes, I am the same person.

There are some significant differences between the old site and the new site. First of all, you readers now know my real name, and can use it against me it you want to resort to blackmail.

Second of all, you readers now know what I look like. I had a Gravatar attached to the old site, but this header is a bigger picture of me, and now you REALLY know what I look like. You can also use that against me if you want to resort to blackmail. I’m not sure what you would try to blackmail me FOR, but the resources are there if you need them.

Third of all, the new site is organized in a way that the old site never was. There are categories and everything. Let me explain what the categories mean:

Blog Posts – Most of the posts on theresabasile.com will fall into this category. Blog posts include personal essays, musings on feminist and antifeminist tropes, and other “uncategorized” topics.

Reviews – Reviews are slightly more formal than blog posts. A blog post on Buffy the Vampire Slayer might include my top 10 underrated episode. A review will go into detailed analysis on a particular episode (like in my BtVS and Consent series). A review might also be a review of an off-Broadway play, which I have been known to write about on occasion.

Articles – Articles can be blog posts or reviews. They’re articles if they were published on another site first before I shared it on theresabasile.com.

Interviews – I’ve had a few interviews with playwrights/actors. I’ve enjoyed doing them. I hope to do more.

Novels, Fiction, and Silliness – I’m shopping around one of my novels. I’m also writing a few short pieces and sketch comedy bits that I plan to publish and/or film. The NFS section of the site will focus on those pieces.

If you’re a follower of The Funny Feminist who started reading this new site, welcome. If you’re a new reader, welcome to you, too. I’m excited to have a new site, a new design, and a new focus, and I’m so glad you’ve decided to join me.

Posted in Blog Posts | 4 Comments

Update on New Website

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Theresa Basile

Hello readers,

The new website is going to take a little longer than expected, and I will probably not preview it until next week instead of May 1st. Once it’s up, I’ll send you the links, and then post a lot of annoying reminders here to encourage you to subscribe at the new site.

In the meantime, I’ve written two posts for Bitch Flicks this month: Bart Simpson’s Feminine Side and Gratuitous Female Nudity and Complex Female Characters in ‘Game of Thrones.’ The GoT article has been re-published at the Bust Magazine blog and linked at a few other feminist websites, so you might have read it already. It’s also gotten some epically trollish comments and oh how I wish I had the time to write posts mocking them, but alas.

Anyway, thanks for your interest and continued subscription, and I will keep you updated when things progress more.

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Taking a Break

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Theresa Basile

Dear Followers,

Thank you for reading and commenting on this blog. Whether you’ve subscribed since the first entry on December 10, 2010, joined the mailing list along the way, or read the occasional post, I value your readership and I’m happy you’ve enjoyed my writing.

I have some bad news and some good news.

I am taking a month-long hiatus from The Funny Feminist, and I waited until April 2nd to share this news because I didn’t want anyone misinterpreting it as an April Fools joke.

For most of my blogging history, I’ve worked part-time, and had enough time to regularly update this blog, work on my novel, and do some meaningful volunteer work. This year, I made it a goal to find a full-time job by October, and in the meantime, I would take on a few extra volunteer duties and continue with my other writing.

Well, I found the full-time job by the end of February, after already committing to two volunteer duties that put me in a leadership position.

Between working a full-time job, commuting four hours every day (yes, four hours), volunteering, and trying to finish the novel, I am stretched too thin, and the blog needs to take a break.

But! In May, I will be launching a brand-new website on a brand-new platform. The template has been designed and paid for and it’s going to be shiny and more organized.

By May, the amount of time I have to spend on volunteer work will have dwindled down, and I’ll be able to write on a regular basis.

Until then, I will have to refrain from writing my usual blog posts and articles, but I will update this blog every so often to keep you all posted about the status of the new website.

Again, thanks for reading and commenting, and I can’t wait to show you all the website once it’s ready.

– Lady T

Posted in Blog Posts | Tagged writing | 3 Comments

Formative Performances: The Women of “The Simpsons”

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Theresa Basile

[Women’s History Month, Day 31]

It’s the last day of Women’s History Month, and you didn’t really think I’d spend 31 days talking about television without once mentioning the voice actresses on The Simpsons, did you? The Simpsons is my favorite thing, and while no one actress on the show performs as many voices as Dan Castellaneta, Hank Azaria, or Harry Shearer, the show wouldn’t be what it was without this group of talented women playing some key parts.

There’s Julie Kavner as Marge Simpson and Patty and Selma Bouvier, bringing a dorky humanity to our favorite homemaker and her oft-mocked weird sisters.

There’s Yeardley Smith as Lisa Simpson, our favorite little scholar, activist, bookworm, and jazz musician, the inspiration to little girls everywhere.

There’s Nancy Cartwright as a host of little boy characters, most notably Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum, and our favorite hellion of all, Bart Simpson, proving anyone wrong who might say, “You can’t play that part. It’s for a BOY.”

There’s Marcia Wallace as Mrs. Krabappel, Bart’s long-suffering and perpetually sexually unsatisfied teacher.

There’s Maggie Roswell as Maude Flanders and Helen Lovejoy, coiner of the now-infamous “Won’t somebody please think of the children?!”

There’s the late Doris Grau as Lunchlady Doris, the perpetually unflappable cafeteria worker.

There’s Russi Taylor as the nerds at Springfield Elementary, most notably Martin Prince, the nerdiest of them all.

There’s Tress MacNeille as Lindsay Naegle and Agnes Skinner, Seymour’s always dissatisfied mother. “It means lamb! Lamb of God!”

And last, but not least, we have Pamela Hayden as Milhouse Van Houten, Bart’s best friend, Lisa’s admirer, Nelson’s punching bag, and the most joyous beaten-down nerd in the world.

To the women of The Simpsons, I say, “Thank you all for voicing these women, girls, and boys, and providing me with decades of entertainment.”

Posted in Blog Posts | Tagged formative performances, television | Leave a comment

Formative Performances: Sian Phillips in “I, Claudius”

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Theresa Basile

[Women’s History Month, Day 30]

If I were an actress, I would want to play Livia in I, Claudius. It’s such a meaty and rewarding role that I couldn’t resist playing it if afforded the opportunity. At the same time, I would be terrified of playing Livia because there’s no way I could possibly live up to Sian Phillips.

Livia is…not a very nice person. She will gladly kill anyone who stands in the way of her plan. If someone in her way happens to be someone she loves…well, she’ll still kill that person, only she won’t be glad about it. She is the ultimate pragmatist, poisoning the people she can poison and arranging the deaths of the people she couldn’t poison herself.

What makes Livia so fascinating to me is the way she rises above the role of “entertaining but evil villain.” Livia does many cruel, terrible things in her reign as the emperor’s wife, many acts that can be considered evil – but is she herself evil? I can’t say that she is. She always believes that she is serving in the best interests of Rome. If the best interests of Rome happen to coincide with her own selfish interests, well…so much the better for her, and so much the worse for anyone else.

This is a woman who murdered or arranged the murders of so many people, some of them much younger than herself, and one of them her own son. And yet, when she’s in the twilight of her life, months away from her death, feeling afraid of being damned for all eternity, I still want her to be deified and become a goddess, to avoid suffering in the afterlife.

Keep in mind that Livia shows no remorse for what she did. She is vulnerable because she’s afraid of being damned, but she doesn’t regret the actions she took. She still thinks she was right. And I still want her to be saved. I still want Claudius to protect her soul.

That takes a talent and skill far beyond anything I could accomplish, and far beyond what most actresses could accomplish. Sian Phillips in I, Claudius is my single favorite female performance on television, and I doubt any other performance will take her place in the near future.

I’ve included two clips of Livia. The first is when she addresses the gladiators about to fight in the games she arranged for her late son (whom she wanted dead, mind). It’s hilarious: “These games are being degraded by the increasing use of professional tricks to stay alive, and I won’t have it!” The second scene is one she shares with Derek Jacobi (who is also wonderful and my favorite actor, but this is Women’s History Month, so this post isn’t about him), where she shows real fear for the first time. Bow down. She wants to be a goddess, Claudius, and when she’s in your presence, you believe that she is one.