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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Netflix’s Girlboss review

NICKI PADAR / AGGIE

The ups and downs of Nasty Gal

Last month, Netflix dropped a new original show called Girlboss, based on the life of the creator of the company Nasty Gal, a vintage-type clothing company that started out as an online retailer.

The show follows the life of Sophia Amoruso from her humble start selling clothes on eBay to the successful launch of her website. This show has received mixed reviews, because it’s so hard to sympathize with the main character; this is a good show to binge if you want to watch something so bad it’s good. However, the rags-to-riches story is a common tale and hits home with many American ideals.

Sophia is a mess, to put it lightly, and we see this throughout the show. It begins with her life going nowhere but her attitude going everywhere. She is rude, tough and cocky, which causes a lot of problems for her. She can’t keep a job for her life so she decides to make her own business. She has a knack for finding pieces of clothing, transforming them and selling them on eBay. She then becomes the biggest seller of vintage clothing on eBay, and because of her success, the other sellers feel threatened. They boot her off of eBay and inadvertently give her the idea to start her own business.

This gives her the opportunity to sell herself as a brand; the name Nasty Gal arises as representing everything Sophia stands for. The show itself is shot in a grungy style that helps the viewer insert themselves into her life. She is a heroine who is sometimes hard to root for, as she is overwhelmingly selfish. At the beginning of the season we see her more as a child, but as the season grows, so does she. She is full of ups and downs that go along with learning how to be an adult, which adds a degree of relatability to the show. By the end of the season, I felt sympathetic for her and wanted to see her succeed, but her overbearing attitude was overpowering.

The show’s timing is a little unfortunate given that, in November, Sophia stepped down as CEO and Nasty Gal filed for bankruptcy. To make it worse, the show was announced in February.

Just like Sophia, the show is messy and is in its early stages of creating a successful show. The dialogue is amatuer, to the point where I’m tempted to call the writers and help out. I love the idea of making a show about a successful woman business owner, but I wish the show portrayed Sophia as more than a bossy alpha female.

 

Written by: CaraJoy Kleinrock — arts@theaggie.org

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