Set in mid-1980s Los Angeles—specifically, in an unglamorous warehouse in the San Fernando Valley—two intertwined conflicts drove GLOW’s first season. Inspired by the real-life TV show Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, which aired from 1986 to 1990, Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch’s Netflix series followed the underdog story of a group of struggling actors trying to pass for an all-female league of professional wrestlers.
Those two major challenges: First, the women, few of whom had athletic backgrounds, had to learn how to conquer the body-slams and flying squirrel-like aerial attacks taught by stuntwoman Cherry “Junkchain” Bang (Sydelle Noel) so they could convincingly play real wrestlers on TV. But they also had to grapple with the often-racist foundations of their characters: Take Tammé “Welfare Queen” Dawson (played by real professional wrestler Kia Stevens), who wears fur coats and throws food stamps like confetti, or Arthie “Beruit the Mad Bomber” Premkumar (Sunita Mani), an Indian American medical student who, in the season finale, got pelted with a beer can.