The Costumes of Commentary in GLOW

I don’t know what made me crack under the peer pressure to finally watch GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling for short) on Netflix. My friends were bugging me about it, the “entertainment” articles (more like “what is binge-worthy this week?” articles) from Refinery29 and Bustle couldn’t shut up about it on my Facebook feed, and Netflix was constantly yet gently nudging me via notifications that I would probably like this show. I’ve never been much for jumping on hype trains; I’ll watch these “brilliant” shows when I’m damn good and ready, without the influence of mass media, thank you very much. But the moment I saw the trailer for the dramedy, I was pulled into the ring. Somehow, calling out the fakeness of wrestling made the show more appealing than I initially thought. I don’t know where I got this from, but I thought was gonna watch a show that was about making a bunch of skinny, fit, sexy white women (everything I’m not) kick the crap out of each other to make men spend money on a novelty act. Instead, I got was “unconventional women” that look distinguishable, that I could identify with, learn to look like they were gonna kick the crap out of each other to make men spend money on a novelty act. The first ten seconds trailer alone made my skin get the shiver of goosebumps: my tell-tale sign that this show was gonna be good. Really damn good.

I binged the entire series in two days, my boyfriend watching intently alongside me with our little dog reacting to every single time from girls hitting the mats. I haven’t been enthralled by a new series in a long time, let alone a series centered around a sport. I’ve become skeptical of the most recent Netflix Original series centered around the capitalist version of “feminism.” I physically cringed while watching half of the first season of GirlBoss, proof that botched screenwriting can make a badass, feminist business owner seem so unlikeable. And don’t get me started on the visual, body shaming nightmare that is Insatiable. I watched one episode and immediately ranked it as the worst show to ever exist in the herstory of ever. (Who in their right mind decided to renew that shitshow?) I had every reason to steer clear of GLOW with Netflix’s recent track record. So what did GLOW do right that the other shows didn’t? Simple. They didn’t just focus on feminism appeal; GLOW had way more to say when it came to the social commentary about race, class, and body positivity that applied to American culture in 1985 and 2018. One of the visual ways they started this conversation was in the costume designs and physical representations of the women’s wrestling personas.

Let’s start with the main “star” of the GLOW squad, Liberty Belle, portrayed by the character Debbie Eagan. Liberty Belle puts on a great show of being the blonde-haired, blue-eyed All-American darling of the wrestling world, but you don’t need the theatrics of her overacting to understand what she represents. Her costume is immaculate and tailored for Debbie and her perfect Barbie-esque body, a sequined white jumpsuit with red and blue stars shooting across. Any American would know her costume was a nod to the national flag, almost as if she was the pseudo-physical manifestation of the country thought it was in that moment. Even her look is a nod to old-school Americana nostalgia, many of the hairstyles and makeup look she dons in the ring paying homage to the hairstyles of the ‘40s and ‘50s like victory rolls, pin-up curls, and red rouge lips. She is a mom. She is strong. She can kickass, look hot doing it and make you dinner on time. She is what the ideal American girl should be: practically flawless.

But in moments of the show where we are supposed to root for her, we end up hating all that she stands for because it highlights the societal problems in America right now. One episode, in particular, is Season Two Episode Four “Mother of All Matches.” The highly anticipated match is between Liberty Belle and Tamme Dawson’s (an African American woman for the context of this scene) wrestling persona, The Welfare Queen. This match is set up not only to fight for the crown of GLOW but a fight between ideals and (in a twisted, fucked up way) one between who is the superior race. It’s a hard-working white mom vs. a freeloading African American mom who squanders her welfare check on luxury items. Once Liberty Belle “wins” the match, she says some cutting remarks. One particular comment was about “getting [Welfare Queen] an entry level job at her favorite local restaurant” out of the kindness of her heart while putting an apron on Tamme, right after making fun of her for having “many, many kids.” Her only son, a Stanford university student, looks on at the humiliating spectacle in utter disappointment, his nose flaring in suppressed anger, as the crowd chants “get a job” over and over. We hate Liberty Belle in this cruel televised moment while The Welfare Queen cries on stage, as it is obvious the show has taken things too far. Liberty Belle was playing to a white, male, Republican way of seeing what an American should be, one that is shallow, close-minded, cruel, and in the end, as artificial as her “sweet as pie” persona. This scene is a direct statement that the people who believe those who rely on welfare to survive are trashy, tacky freeloaders instead of hard-working people who just need some help to survive or look down on people of color, are what make America look like a disgrace on the national stage. With our political climate where it is right now, it’s a striking remark on society and one that needed to be said outright in such a visual manner.

While we learn to hate Debbie “Liberty Belle” Eagon for many more reasons as the series progresses, one character we do like from the get-go is Carmen “Machu Picchu” Wade. She is a standout from the rest of the girls from the very beginning. She is tall, plus-sized, biracial woman with a round face and an infectious smile. Carmen already knew all about the world of wrestling before auditioning for the show. She teaches the girls basic wrestling movies as she is apart of the Wade family, basically wrestling royalty within the world of GLOW. Machu Picchu struggles with stage fright throughout the show. She manages to get over that stage fright and triumphantly “wins” her match. She has story lines that have nothing to do with her size. She never feels pressured to change who she is to get her love interest’s attention. She is one of the first plus-sized women I’ve ever seen in sports film, literature, or television where her weight isn’t a significant concern in her character development. She is the reason I fell in love with the show. She is fucking amazing. She is my personal hero in the show. There isn’t a lot of characters I can directly relate to in sports anything, period. I’m also a tall-ish, size 14, biracial woman with a round baby face that happens to like food and lifting weights by myself. So when I see characters like Carmen Wade, I have someone that I see myself and feel empowered.

The show makes it clear that she is treated differently from the girls from her costume design. Her wrestling costume isn’t as intricate as characters like Liberty Belle and Zoya the Destroyer. While most of the girls have form-fitting bodysuits, Carmen’s outfit a t-shirt and a skirt with some ambiguous, albeit colorful ethnic print. Other than some boots, that’s it. The costume does nothing to show off her curvaceous body but instead tries to cover up any sign that she might have, I don’t know, body fat on her. There is no sparkle, glamor, or even makeup on Machu Picchu. But as I’m writing this, I realize that Carmen’s character was never about showing off. Her costume isn’t too far off from her regular, everyday clothes. In a way, it’s made clear that while her outfit is different than the rest, it isn’t a bad thing. Her persona and who she is outside the ring are almost identical, and her costume represents that. She makes herself vulnerable by keeping her two identities so close to each other. She is the underdog leading lady of her own story, and that is why I love her so much as a character.

Now that I have binged through the two seasons on Netflix, the documentary on the real-life women of GLOW, and watched some terrible quality videos on Youtube of some of the ‘90s television episodes of GLOW, I understand the alluring appeal of GLOW, even after almost 20 years in syndication. It made controversial statements about the state of America, it was unapologetic, and it was raw for rehearsed wrestling matches. Men got the shallow novelty they want out of GLOW, but women watching the show also got to see strong women where they could see themselves doing, what was thought to be at the time, the impossible. It was engaging, dynamic, dramatic, and energizing.I could understand with that kind of impact why GLOW became a standout show both during its original run and in the Netflix dramedy. It made something in me feel glowy on the inside. Both the fiery kind in the bottom of your gut that makes you feel you can breathe fire and the glowy feeling during a moment self-love you feel when you look in the mirror and don’t hate yourself. Maybe it made other people feel like that too.