Lindy West is one of American culture’s most invaluable voices. Thousands of us turn to her for unflinching, incisive cultural criticism and shattering wit. In May, she published her memoir, Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman, which explores body image and the many ways in which American society teaches women to be small. And now, Elizabeth Banks has optioned West’s book with the aim of adapting it for television.
As the Mary Sue reports, West—who, by the way, is a Jezebel alumna—has teamed with Banks and her company Brownstone Productions in order to create a half-hour television show based on her memoir. So far all of Banks’s projects with Brownstone have featured a female protagonist or have cast an ensemble largely populated by women. Shrill should be no exception.
This project is a well-deserved development for West and a welcome addition to a television schedule still rife with white heterosexual cis-men and the plot lines that celebrate and, when relevant, excuse them. Here’s hoping Banks will also surround herself with a team comprised of women, gender non-conforming people, and people of color. And as the Mary Sue notes, Banks’s Pitch Perfect films, love them though I do, foreground white women, relegating their few women of color and queer characters to the margins.
But this is great news that we should all follow closely as the work progresses. Congratulations again to Lindy for writing such a crucial book with a message soon to reach people both in text and on-screen.