{"id":87414,"date":"2025-11-13T15:52:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T20:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/?post_type=r_cas_magazine&p=87414"},"modified":"2025-11-21T12:08:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T17:08:32","slug":"tvs-new-landscape","status":"publish","type":"r_cas_magazine","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/arts-sciences\/2025\/tvs-new-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"TV\u2019s New Landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"

Broads, Sisters, Exes: Feminist Millennial Television<\/em>. Courtesy of Wayne State University Press<\/p>\n

By Marc Chalufour<\/p>\n

\"Vincent
Vincent Stephens. Courtesy of Vincent Stephens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What does a low-rated 2015 sitcom have to do with the state of television today? A lot, says Vincent Stephens in his book Broads, Sisters, Exes: Feminist Millennial Television<\/em> (Wayne State University Press, 2025).<\/p>\n

Stephens, an American studies scholar, was so fascinated with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend<\/em>\u2014a genre-bending CW show from 2015\u20132019\u2014he began examining it through an academic lens. Then he noticed a broader theme: Girls<\/em>, Insecure<\/em>, and Fleabag<\/em> were among a wave of shows by and about millennial women.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Broads, Sisters, Exes: Feminist Millennial Television<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re telling stories about characters who we haven\u2019t seen before, and they\u2019re telling those stories in really stylistically refreshing ways,\u201d says Stephens, BU\u2019s assistant provost for faculty development and success and previously the associate dean for diversity and inclusion at Arts & Sciences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese shows pushed and challenged and said, \u2018We need to let more people in. We need to tell broader stories.\u2019 The television industry, in order to survive, had to embrace tastes that were previously considered marginal.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Back to full issue<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What does a low-rated 2015 sitcom have to do with the state of television today? A lot, says Vincent Stephens in his book Broads, Sisters, Exes: Feminist Millennial Television (Wayne State University Press, 2025).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":87575,"template":"","department":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-articles\/87414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/r_cas_magazine"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-articles\/87414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87870,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-articles\/87414\/revisions\/87870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"r_cas_department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=87414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}