Charlie’s Angels as a franchise is super helpful to understand and see developments in media representations of femininity. [Thread]

First, the new CA movie got criticism as being like “a feminist pandering movie” or whatever but CA originally was widely criticized by feminist

The show was so persistent in its hyper-sexualization of the Angels it (along with Wonder Woman and other sexy-heroine shows) was often referred to as Jiggle TV. Feminists groups saw Charlie as a stand in for the patriarchy, giving orders that the angels compliantly carried out.

The premise was specifically that these 3 women were police academy drop outs who were given low tasks because they were women until Charlie selected them as his own crew.
And it was an instant hit. Absolute cultural phenomenon.

So to start:
-3 white women
-A vague acknowledgment of sexism but no attempts to deviate from it in the narrative
-feminist groups hated it but it blew up
-Jiggle TV, watched in part for the promise of sexy scenes

Then we got the 2000s series and WOAH is that an Asian actress?!?

Remember that Asian actors are less than 1% of Hollywood leads TODAY

Of 3 women they actually included QUEEN Lucy

And again it did well. The baton was passed successfully and with less uproar about the sexualization.

Of course that’s largely because it was a movie rather than a show but it was well recieved enough to get a sequel.

Liu was already a star by any metric but I don’t trust talent to be enough for Hollywood to cast a qualified woman of color.
The story had to be more universal and it had quite a few (oft misguided) attempts at feminism and “relatable content” in the script.

So this one:
- 2 white women and a Chinese-American woman
- Attempted appeal to feminism and a universal woman revved up by the spy game
-still written by men. Still incredibly sexualizing (to a sometimes embarrassing degree)

Let’s skip that 2011 reboot because

2019 Charlie’s Angels
For starters, the fact that it was seen as feminist pandering or whatever people were calling it considering where it started is... insane.
The entire image of what Charlie’s Angels is has utterly transformed. Jiggle TV it was not.

Now don’t get me wrong, the femme fetal is a part of CA, sexualization is expected because that’s a key weapon. And these ladies were hot, no mistakes to be made but the male gaze was actually made fun of more than indulged

Visibly more diverse (we need to talk about colorism too that’s what I want to see changed in the next movie), gentle notes of diverse sexuality, and such a deliberate focus on female kinship

Flawed, yes. Fun, definetly. But wow it deserved a lot better than the response it deserves.
Some criticisms mentioned that it seemed like it was made for teenage girls... usually that’s what we call a target audience but in this case it was seen as a bad thing

And Charlie? That potentially patriarchal figure. SHE is fabulous (oh and she’s also the writer director and producer)

Those attempts at universality in 2000? Try making RBG an Angel! They emphasized the vibrant network. People you know but would never guess

So Charlie’s Angels by being such a consistently present franchise for so long with an ever changing cast and reception is an excellent way to ask how media is changing in regards to femininity and representation.

The question is- what will the next one look like?