Netflix has released the first official trailer for GLOW, the neon-colored, spandex-covered comedy-drama about the women’s wrestling league of the same name. The all-female, cartoonish wrestling league is mostly forgotten today, but its legacy can still be seen in the dramatized over-the-top storytelling of today’s professional wrestling leagues. GLOW wrestlers had their own theme songs, acted out skits in between matches, and took wrestling costumes to new heights. Netflix’s new original series aims to capture all of that wildness while telling new behind-the-scenes stories about the formation of the league and the stories of the women involved.
The new trailer for GLOW shows a big-haired Ruth Wilder (Alison Brie) struggling to make ends meet as a fledgling actress in the 1980s. After attending an audition for “unconventional women, whatever that means,” Wilder finds herself in the bizarre, occasionally surreal world of GLOW – the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. “Are you hiring actors to play wrestlers, or are we the wrestlers?” Wilder asks, to which her enthusiastic and perhaps over-optimistic manager Sam Sylvia (Marc Maron) replies simply with “Yes.”
While the series looks to contain its share of cheap laughs and worn-out archetypal characters, the performances of Brie her co-stars could be enough to make GLOW more than an ’80s period piece about one of the most bizarre slices of American pop culture. Instead, the trailer seems to imply that the series is a feminist, underdog tale – just one dressed up in big hair, spandex, and ’80s arena rock. “This is about justice,” Brie’s Ruth Wilder says, “This is about holding on to what’s ours.”
Jenji Kohan and Tara Herrmann, the team behind Orange is the New Black, will serve as executive producers alongside Nurse Jackie producers Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, who will act as showrunners.
All ten episodes of GLOW will appear on Netflix on June 23.
