So, audiences are still watching All’s Fair. Despite being lampooned by critics and initially earning an impressively harsh 0% Rotten Tomatoes score, the show has turned out to be a major success for Hulu ratings-wise. This week, the streaming network announced that it would be renewing the show, which everybody said couldn’t (or shouldn’t) exist, for a second season.
With its two-episode season finale set to release on December 9, the question remains: Why? Why did this show come into existence? Why are we being made to watch Allura (Kim Kardashian) bounce unrhythmically atop her cheating ex-husband? Why does Milan (Teyana Taylor), a law firm receptionist (or an assistant? There is a major difference), drive a BMW and live alone in what appears to be a multimillion-dollar Los Angeles home? Why are these women served Michelin-starred quality lunches by in-office butlers? But, most importantly, why can’t audiences seem to look away from a show that critics labeled “an atrocity,” “nonsense,” and “the worst TV show of the year”?
What if the reason—co-creator Ryan Murphy and Kardashian’s “why”—is that they did it all for feminism?
Stay with me.
The same week that All’s Fair debuted, The New York Times published an unhinged editorial conversation, first titled, “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?” then renamed, “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?” Debates ensued, think pieces were written, and our smartest and brightest locked in to argue the virtues of “liberal feminism” and the existence of “conservative feminism.” Then, in the midst of the chaos, came more chaos in the form of All’s Fair: a workplace drama, where an all-women’s Avengers-esque clique of divorce attorneys opts out of working with men in the office altogether. Just less than 10 minutes into the pilot, All’s Fair threw its hat (and there are so many hats) into the feminist-debate ring, declaring loudly and clumsily that the show is some form of utopia realized.
“We stepped away from the patriarchy and toward something of our own,” says Emerald Greene, played by Niecy Nash, as a disembodied arm serves her espresso. (Only the rich are allowed to speak or be seen in this feminist utopia.) What follows is a glorious 120 minutes of Birkin bags posed indiscreetly in the background of almost every scene, the hull of a private jet as the stand-in for an ensemble cast’s “casual meeting place,” and the shameless pursuit of wealth via direct transfer from man to soon-to-be ex-wife. In these initial images, All’s Fair proposes an oversaturated alternative to feminist theories born out of academic discourse, a canon on feminist thought that has also been lampooned—reduced to pop culture memes about cat ladies and crocheted pussy hats. All’s Fair’s feminism is the richer and much prettier cousin to the sort of feminism so many people love to hate.
