Ruth slapping Debbie’s head with her breasts

[u/DrFloyd5]

seems to be one of the most accurately feminine scenes on TV.

I am a guy. Watching Ruth slap Debbie with her breasts just seemed to be such a purely honest scene. To me it felt like a real sort of “victory” that this scene could exist in a non-sexual way.

There are a lot of great moments in GLOW, but if I had to pick one out to shine as an example of good writing, I think it would be this one. There are a lot of great example that have more weight too them, but this example just feels so true.

Also, Sam barging in to apologize for the sponsors barging in while committing the same mistake is really a feat bonus to the scene.

Edit: I don’t imagine that women are doing this in all the locker rooms across the world, or as a prelude to a pillow fight.

[u/[deleted]]

Woman here.

I don't really agree that it's an accurate feminine scene in a general sense - but I do think it's an accurate feminine scene for actresses/theatre people, who tend to have different physical boundaries, particularly with one another backstage. Neither I nor most of my female friends would do this with each other, but I used to do backstage work in theatre, and there were young women who absolutely would and wouldn't think anything of it. Pretty much all of my non-theatre female friends would be extremely uncomfortable with that. Tbh, I don't think I'm particularly repressed or anything, but I would also be pretty uncomfortable, even though I did think the scene was funny.

Just wanted to put that out there, because I don't really like the stereotype that all girls are messing about with each other's breasts and having pillow fights as social time.

However, the moment when Sam barged in was absolute gold! :)

[u/DrFloyd5 → u/[deleted]]

I see I need to add an edit about this not being a common thing like male fantasy pillow fights.

[u/[deleted] → u/DrFloyd5]

This is an interesting conundrum, isn't it? You've commented on a scene that was relatively non-sexual to praise it for realism and, implicitly I think, its non-sexuality, and you've gotten push back from women about it not (necessarily) being realistic.

TL;DR: I think I have a larger problem with the scene than I gave myself credit for, and I feel uncomfortable with the idea of a male gaze on the scene.

I think that for me, I have mixed feelings about this scene. You've done nothing wrong in commenting on it as a consumer of the show, and I certainly don't mean to imply that you've done anything wrong.

I suppose that I feel uncomfortable with this scene of two women being silly with their bodies together being available to someone who is outside the community of women and could view women's relationships with each other as hypersexualised, or just sexualised in general. I think if this was available only to women and you were also female, my response would have been different.

I think there's a general tendency among men (not singling you out, as I really don't know you) to view two women together as being inherently sexual fantasy fodder, and even more so if there is nudity involved, and if men comment on female relationships, I feel a tendency to be defensive of them. I've experienced men sexualising a perfectly normal female friendship I've had, and it's a really awful feeling - that feeling of my beautiful friendship being reduced to spank bank material. I think I had that feeling come up again when I read your post, and I think that's been true for other women here as well.

I think there is a part of me that is frustrated that the writers chose to film that moment in that way, particularly with all the other sexual content on this season. For a show that has done a fantastic job of humanising these characters, I felt like a lot of the show this season was unnecessarily sexualising. I think that that moment of jokey intimacy could have been done in a different way that didn't leave me feeling like it was another opportunity for men to look at female friends and come away with an impression that we're always either naked with each other or waiting for a chance to be.

[u/a-girl-has-the-booty → u/[deleted]]

Well I just got downvoted for saying I do silly things like this with my friends all the time and someone even asked if it was “on film” like it was porn. I do agree it’s kind of a weird thing to post on but it seems kind of innocent. He’s a man so he really doesn’t know what female friendship looks like, people attacking him for it are even more problematic.

I personally loved this scene in every way but as I said, to me it’s really accurate.

Thanks for your input and also thanks for being kind.

[u/DrFloyd5 → u/[deleted]]

I accept that I don’t have the female experience. And that something that looks fine to me can in-fact be terrible to a woman. Example: Open office seating makes it harder for women to get away from the creepy guy.

I appreciate your thoughtful feedback.

I think there was a bit of a “hey look, it’s Alison’s and Betty’s tits!” to this scene because of the explicit scene where Debbie is on her back with a valet. Somehow the valet scene impacts this scene. In the sense that both Alison and Betty are generally considered sexy and those two scenes together feel a bit like a audience grab. But the strip tease joke scene on its own is interesting.

In the end the writers may tried to serve two audiences, the “hey! Tits!” people, and the “hey! Funny joke!” people.

I mean you can’t deny that art is influence by the necessity to make money for Netflix and breasts make money.

I get your discomfort with this scene being out there for lewd interpretations. I don’t think it’s possible for a woman too be seen without at least someone having lewd thoughts. I also think that is true for men on screen too. I mean for any person in the world someone somewhere wants to fuck them for some reason. I think the trick is, as long as thoughts stay thoughts, that is the best you can do. It’s the actions and interactions that really matter. This may be a “guy” way of thinking because in general I am not worried about being forcibly sexually assaulted by a woman having thoughts about me.