
Wine Country is dividing grown-up women into two distinct camps.
Camp 1: “This is me and all my friends!”
Camp 2: “Who the hell are this bunch of tragic lushes?”
I am so in camp 1 that I’ve pitched my comfortable tent there, rolled out the faux Moroccan rug and popped the prosecco.
I am so in camp 1 that just a few months ago, my fellow basic friends and I went to our very own wine country, dealt with a lot of emotional shit and drank quite a bit of “white wine”.
I am so in camp 1 that I was in danger of thinking Netflix’s new comedy movie was actually a documentary.
And etcetera.
Watch the full trailer for Netflix’s Wine Country below. Post continues after video…
Grown-up women (bear with me, it’s a descriptor I use instead of “middle-aged”, and so should you) in camp one are so grateful for this show they are practically snorting the screen. In an ocean of streaming-content made specifically for the young and hot, seeing ourselves reflected in the shapes of Amy Poehler (who also directed and produced), Maya Rudolph, Rachel Dratch, Anna Gasteyer, Paula Pell and yes, Tina Fey, feels almost revolutionary. Women who look their age. Who aren’t tugging at themselves and complaining about their wrinkles/waistlines/butt size. Who are playing women with rich lives filled with jobs, partners, sex, kids (in another transgressive act, only one of the characters talks about her children) and friendships that go back decades. With those kind of credentials, Wine Country would have had to smuggle a ‘Vote Trump 2020’ message into its title sequence to seriously piss off its demographic.
But yes, there are some cheap shots. And one of them came in the inevitable face-off with the natural enemy of Generation X – the Millennials. Aka: Younger women.
Over in my comfy camp (there are beanbags here), millennials are not the enemy. I spend the majority of my time surrounded by 20-something women at work and I bloody love it. They’re brimming with passion and energy and have integrity and humour to spare. They are so far from the apathetic commitment-phobes they’re so often portrayed as that I actually understand why they’re offended most of the time (yes, cheap shot, I know).
In Wine Country, the generational confrontation comes when Val (Paula Pell) drags the girlfriends along to an art show that’s being held in Napa by Jade (Maya Erskine), a waitress Val has a major crush on. Jade is exhibiting an entire collection of art inspired by Fran Fine, who – every Gen X-er will know – was TV’s The Nanny. It’s unclear why and it really doesn’t matter but the jokes write themselves – younger generation commandeers older generation’s icons with an ironic twist, they stand around in a circle affirming each other’s earnest, complex interpretations of what are, essentially, just a load of pictures of Fran Drescher. Millennials, why they so serious?
Top Comments
As soon as Amy Pohler went to bed with her CPAP machine I was there for it.