‘Sons Of Anarchy’ Is Secretly A Chick Show — And You Should Be Watching It

The midpoint of the final season of Sons of Anarchy, FX’s Hamlet-on-Motorcycles megahit drama, has come and gone. Blessedly, in this day of streaming everything, it’s not too late to jump on the SoA bandwagon. And you should, especially if you’re into Chick Shows. Because Sons of Anarchy is a total chick show.

Here’s six reasons why.

IT’S A SOAP OPERA

It’s got all the elements of a classic soap opera: Family drama, scheming, shadowy port activities, a hospital setting, and secrets galore. There are even twins! (Dawn and Fawn, hand to God.) The show is (loosely) based on Hamlet, which sees main character and eventual club president Jax in the Hamlet role, reunited in the first episode with former flame and the show’s Ophelia, Dr. Tara Knowles; his step-father Clay Morrow as Claudius; and mother Gemma Teller doing her best Gertrude.

THE CLOTHES

As you’d expect in a show about a motorcycle gang and its cohort, each group of outlaws uses a set of identifying marks to convey their affiliation. So there are colors, jackets, tattoos, jewelry and hairstyles to go along with each gang or criminal consortium. And SoA manages, somehow, to make the little outfits these guys wear entirely hilarious. Their little patches! The jaunty bandanas! The costume design choices have essentially turned the Sons, their friends and their foes into Girl Scouts in leather. Throw in their little rituals (the little fancifully carved table, their little gavel, their little symbolic toasts) and you’ve got something closer to an SAE chapter at a SEC school than a major criminal organization (same thing?).

The show delivers when it comes to the ladies too; the female-centric workplaces include both a porn studio and a brothel, as well as an auto body shop run by Gemma Teller, the club’s matriarch-with-a-heart-of-brimstone. An Emmy in Costume Design show be awarded to the show just for the staggering creativity that must go into creating fresh all-black ensembles for Gemma, complete with an admirable selection of dark-toned nail varnishes.

THE LACK OF CLOTHES

This isn’t even a nod to the aforementioned porn studio and brothel, though both do lend a certain T&A quality to the show. No, it’s the A on the guys that makes Sons of Anarchy such a visual treat for the womenfolk. Starting in Season 1, the show never misses an opportunity to display Jax’s heinie. We see it in the shower, we see it in coitus, we see it post-coitus. To be fair to the showrunner’s choices, it is a very nice heinie. It’s also not the only heinie we’re treated to. Season 7 opens with one of the Sons working out some serious tension by doing naked push-ups. Season 1 features another Son recovering from a dog bite to his rear end. There are a lot of naked butts, is what we’re trying to say here.

THE ARCHETYPES

There are a goodly number of recognizable female motifs represented in SoA—the whore with a heart of gold (Lyla, Colette), the hard working woman-cum-victim (Donna, Tara), the villainess (Gemma, Agent Stahl). But it’s the male archetypes that really make this show so appealing to women: The men fall into boy band-esque archetypes, so there’s something for everyone. Just like the New Kids on the Block for Gen Xers, or the Backstreet Boys for Millennials, the Sons offer up a nice one, a cute one, a class clown, a bad boy, and an odd duck.

THE INCEST-Y MOTHER/SON MOMENTS

Season 7 goes big on hints of an incestual thing going on between Gemma and Jax, giving scores of Flowers In The Attic-loving ladies a thrill that harkens back to their adolescence.

THE MUSICAL MONTAGES

The musical montages are a staple of SoA, closing out just about every episode with an overwrought (in the best possible way) camera pan from one character to another, while the music soars to a dramatic crescendo. The very first montage we’re treated to is set to “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You” by Elvis Presley, to give you a sense of the weight of this particular stylistic choice. It also bears noting that the song accompanies a scene in which the club’s resident Elvis impersonator (yes) performs it for an audience of Asian tourists after beating a rival Elvis impersonator (yes) out for the gig. Rival Elvis, it should be noted, does a remarkable job of not breaking character during said beating. Later, Victorious Elvis shows up for the Sons’ morning meeting at the clubhouse bearing his signature artisanal baked goods. (“Turbinado sugar, organic flour, no processed shit. Not that any of you give a damn.”)

If an Elvis-impersonating, motorcycle-riding, organic muffin-baking grizzled outlaw doesn’t convince you to watch this show, there’s not much we’re going to be able to do for you, lady.

Sons of Anarchy is available on Netflix (Seasons 1-6) and iTunes (Seasons 7).

Jolie Kerr is the author of My Boyfriend Barfed In My Handbag … And Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha, and the writer behind the cleaning advice column, Ask a Clean Person. Follow her on Twitter: @joliekerr