But Parks and Recreation is cancelled.
Maybe it’s a backlash, but right now, my favorite characters on TV are good people who do bad things. The female anti-hero. These women are the anti-Knope. I can relate to the anti-Knope. I don’t like Lil Sebastian. I don’t do crafts. I lit’rally hate joining do-gooder organizations. I want to want to join do-gooder organizations, but I don’t.
Thanks to programming on Amazon, Hulu, FX, FXX, F Triple X, and FX times Infinity, we are getting a ton of anti-Knopes right now. These women aren’t fully misanthropic; instead, they have found the best way to suffer fools is with lots of vice and outspoken derision. These characters bumble and stumble.
The anti-Knope is my favorite trope. (Poetry!) Here are my favorites:
Sharon: Catastrophe (Amazon)
Sharon (Sharon Horgan) loves copious amounts of wine, sex in stairwells, and overalls. She can rock a yellow bra and when asked to describe her friend Fran, Sharon says, “She’s a cunt.”
What I most relate to: Sharon loves ankle boots and gets a touch of post-partum depression following the birth of her second child. Sharon is right. Newborns are manipulative.
Gretchen: You’re the Worst (FXX)
Gretchen (Aya Cash) likes Sunday Funday. Gretchen hates relationships because she is bad at honoring the parameters. Gretchen is smart and knows that John Quincy Adams was an American president and not our first black astronaut.
What I most relate to: Gretchen gets that the most romantic thing in a relationship is the ability the reveal your true and damaged self. We don’t need flowers. The right person turns you on and accepts your messiness without judgment, with the understanding you are doing your best to clean it up.
Elizabeth: The Americans (FX)
Elizabeth (Keri Russell) is a KGB spy, living in Virginia circa 1982. She will f*ck, fight, and kill old ladies for her country. She can rock any disguise, and she will break every bone in a corpse’s body in order to stuff it into a suitcase.
What I most relate to: Elizabeth shares my atheism and affection for silk blouses.
Selina Meyer: VEEP (HBO)
Former Madame President Meyer (Juila Louis-Dreyfus) is surrounded by numpties, sycophants, and Jonah.
What I most relate to: She is surrounded by numpties, sycophants, and Jonah. I call my Jonah “Sam.”
And she’s over 40 and still gets pimples at the most inopportune times.
Beth and I are clearly of one mind here. Check out her FIVE TIMES SELINA MEYER WAS MY FAVORITE post from Tuesday.
Fleabag: Fleabag (Amazon)
Fleabag (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) describes herself as this:
I have a horrible feeling that I’m a greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist.
Fleabag is mourning the loss of her best friend and business partner Boo. She hates “making love” but breathy banging is fine.
What I most relate to: She masturbates to Barack Obama. And her friendship with Boo (shown in flashback) is tender and earnest and real. They have a song they made-up and it’s my new fall jam:
Another lunch break
Another abortion
Another piece of cake
Another two…
Fuck attorneys
Another cigarette
And we’re happy
Soooooo happy
To be modern women
Julie: Difficult People (Hulu)
Julie (Julie Klausner) is obsessed with the Real Housewives, punching up on Twitter, and hating participators (aka people who volunteer to participate at live performances).
What I most relate to: Julie has a mother who wants her to be thinner and more successful, only conveying these concerns in a passive aggressive fashion. Also, Julie finds out that threesomes always suck, even the non-sexist kind. (They do. But don’t trust me. Find out for yourself and then come back and tell us all about it.)
The anti-Knope could not have come at a better time. My favorite anti-Knope person in real life? Hillary Clinton. Why? Because bitches get stuff done. Bitch is (still) the new black.
