Angels of the 80s

In the 1980s many issues such as Gender and Race were identity’s that haven't been represented very well before the 80s in such a ground breaking way. For example the representation of independent women on TV really began in 1976 and lend into the 80s with the start of the phenomenon that is Charlie's Angels.

http://www.charliesangelsforever.com/id11.html

The link above is a website completely dedicated to the hit TV show, Charlie's angels that ran from 1976- 1981. The website’s heading is entitled 'Charlie's Angels Forever, Angels as Feminist Heroes' On its home page it says about the show and it significant impact on TV:
"The idea of three female detectives was an entirely new concept for television at the time. Up until the creation of CHARLIE'S ANGELS there were very few female detectives of note. In the 1960's there was blonde bombshell, 'Honey West' (portrayed by Anne Francis) and Angie Dickinson had made her mark as Pepper on 'Police Woman' a few years earlier, but CHARLIE'S ANGELS was the first series to every carry an all-female cast with a male sidekick."

The site goes on to say that this was the first time that women where shown for being more than just beautiful trophy’s but rather women that had great personalities, were incredibly witty and intelligent, physically fit and strong as well as being extremely pretty. At that period of time it was extremely empowering to see a group of girls kicking butt on TV every week out smarting the bad guy or girl. This ideology was repeated in both feature films, Charlie's angels (2000) and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, as well as the short lived TV series remakes in 2011of the same name.

However if you view what’s popular on today’s TV regarding an all young independent female cast, you would find Pretty Little Liars which is about four young girls hiding secrets about a death of a former friend from the town and being harassed by a starker, which leads them in every episode to always being helpless to all the bad things that’s happening to them. There is even a drinking game that viewers of the tv show play is that they drink every time one of the main four looks worried. This is not a very empowering message the TV show generates for today’s women and is not a very good representation