Illustration by Ciarán Butler
Growing up, I had a plethora of TV shows about female friendships at my disposal, from The Sleepover Club to H20: Just Add Water. However, most of these shows were sugary, idolized versions of how young girls interact with each other. Given that these were programmes written for children, this depiction seemed acceptable for the target audience. As I’ve grown older, it’s been harder to find such shows aimed at women, rather than little girls, that put female friendships front and centre in all their realistic glory.
In a world still dominated by the male point of view, many ‘female-centric’ shows fall into lazy, baseless stereotypes. This is commonly seen in reality TV, where women are consistently portrayed as back-stabbing and catty to one another. These toxic traits seem to often be tolerated, and such groups of ‘friends’ are deemed normal, despite the individuals not appearing to even like each other most of the time. This is the central problem with Lena Dunham’s controversial Girls, which despite what its title suggests, only seems to focus on the negatives that can come from such friendships.
In contrast, many male characters, who of course have their fair share of similarly dysfunctional and toxic friendships, also exhibit tight, loyal bonds with their respective ‘bros’ or ‘buds’. This perpetuates the misogynistic concept of ‘frenemies’- a word entirely reserved to describe groups of two or more women who may appear friendly, yet have an underlying and fundamental rivalry. All too often in the media, it is as if women are not capable of forming actual platonic relationships with each other. This can in part be blamed on aspects of reality bleeding into fiction. For example, as it is often harder for women to rise through the ranks career-wise, in TV shows, two-dimensional women competing for such positions cannot seem to afford social niceties. However, these narrow-minded depictions are far from the truth; despite our anatomical differences, women and men are both capable of creating fulfilling, loyal friendships.
Thankfully, in this new age of television, there are more female showrunners in the industry pushing female narratives into the mainstream media. I’m now able to see my own experiences and those of my friends represented more consistently on screen, free from failing the Bechdel test. Broad City’s Ilana and Abbi are two twenty-somethings struggling through life in New York City, while navigating the natural ups and downs in their friendship; they fight, they make up, as all women do. They are refreshingly hedonistic, with sugar-coated ideals of girl talk and shopping trips swapped for the nights of debauchery and absurdity more regularly experienced by modern women, yet usually reserved for their male counterparts on screen.
Female friendship is not just restricted to carefully chosen gal pals either. Netflix’s GLOW revolves around a group of women trying to become amateur wrestlers in the 80’s, and is a treasure trove of diverse representation. They each share a common goal, but instead of keeping each other down, they lift each other up (sometimes quite literally), acknowledging that they are not in competition with each other, but rather with the society that discriminates against them. The show’s diversity echoes reality, as women from all walks of life are brought together by work, forming complex relationships of varying intensity.
In a similar way, Parks and Recreation also highlights the way that opposites can attract when it comes to female friendships, like in the case of over-enthusiastic public servant Leslie Knope and laid-back nurse Ann Perkins. Despite not having much in common on the surface, they support each other endlessly and bring out the best in each other, just as their male equivalents have done in umpteen other shows.
These positive portrayals are the antithesis of the picture-perfect aspirational female friendships frequently seen on social media, where groups of powerful, polished women march together preaching #feminism and #squadgoals. These relationships might have real aspects to them, but at the same time can feel manufactured. This idea of glamourised female friendship is usually presented by celebrities and influencers, probably in pushback to the aforementioned ‘frenemy’ stereotype, but is nonetheless just as harmful. Women can sometimes be cruel to their friends just in the same way as men can; over-correcting the situation by pretending we are perfect companions to one another only serves to limit our freedom, not expand it. This is why, in the era of online airbrushing, media outlets including TV shows that explore the complex nuances of female friendships are vital now more than ever.
Despite what my favourite childhood programmes would suggest, female friendships are not all pillow fights and giggling over boys. Yes, these superficial things can be part of our bonds as women, but, just like men, we also have the ability to form lifelong supportive relationships with one another that don’t end in a hair-pulling catfight. Seeing this reality depicted on television allows us to celebrate the good, the bad and the mundane of what it means to be lady friends in the 21st century.
