In the Trailer for Godless, A Women-Only Frontier Town Has to Keep Men From Ruining Everything
The trailer has landed for Godless, an upcoming six-episode limited series on Netflix. In the trailer, all the men of La Belle die in a tragic mining accident, leaving the town occupied exclusively by women. While the women take care of themselves, learning to shoot and run things, it isn’t long before men show up with violence and vendettas.
Typical.
“Frank Griffin’s gang terrorizes the West as they hunt Roy Goode,” reads the synopsis on Netflix. “The chase leads to the quiet town of La Belle, made up entirely of women.”
Honestly, this is a premise I’m 100% here for. The Western is traditionally a hypermasculine genre, treating violence as a gendered and given fact of life. I love the idea of turning that tradition on its head, with an all-female gang turning violence back against the men who initiate it – and then having to deal with the consequences of unleashing violence themselves. That sounds awesome, and I was encouraged to see that the women in the trailer seem to present their gender in a variety of ways, all along the femme to butch spectrum – you know, just like in real life. It isn’t all thin ladies in skirts.
However, as with any Western, there are some serious concerns about how they’ll treat people of color. The townsfolk look overwhelmingly white, and though I’m heartened to see a few black and Native American characters in the cast, I hope their stories will be given the same weight and thought as those of the white characters.
The cast includes Downton Abbey‘s Michelle Dockery, Merritt Wever, Elisa Perry, Christiane Seidel, Jack O’Connell, Jeff Daniels, and more.
Godless premieres on Netflix on November 22, 2017.
(Via The AV Club; image via screengrab)
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