Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany On How The Show Normalizes The Female Lead

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“I think there’s quite a few reasons but I think what it does is it sort of normalizes having a lead female. It’s just, the default. So often the male perspective is our default perspective in television in film and in all kinds of different media and I think what this show does is it just goes, ‘nope.’ Women can be all these different things. It’s played by the same actress but we have the potential for so many things and not defined by how we look necessarily because it’s just me…I don’t feel responsible, I feel proud of it. I don’t feel like it has to be “right” or all-encompassing. I think, Jordan, you’ve talked about that quite a bit with Felix too that we don’t have to represent every type of person out there but it’s just nice to have outsiders as the leads.”Tatiana Maslany answering Cloneversation host Wil Wheaton after he brought up how much the BBC America series Orphan Black has resonated with women.

The Season 2 premiere is tomorrow night and we’ll be joining in on the fun! Keep an eye out!

(image via Orphan Black Tumblr, quote transcribed via Cloneversation)

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Jill Pantozzi
Jill Pantozzi is a pop-culture journalist and host who writes about all things nerdy and beyond! She’s Editor in Chief of the geek girl culture site The Mary Sue (Abrams Media Network), and hosts her own blog “Has Boobs, Reads Comics” (TheNerdyBird.com). She co-hosts the Crazy Sexy Geeks podcast along with superhero historian Alan Kistler, contributed to a book of essays titled “Chicks Read Comics,” (Mad Norwegian Press) and had her first comic book story in the IDW anthology, “Womanthology.” In 2012, she was featured on National Geographic’s "Comic Store Heroes," a documentary on the lives of comic book fans and the following year she was one of many Batman fans profiled in the documentary, "Legends of the Knight."