Why Netflix’s ‘Girlboss’ Didn’t Deserve All The Hate

One year ago, Netflix debuted a sitcom about a scrappy anti-heroine called Girlboss. It was savaged on social media, maligned by critics (The New York Post’s Jennifer Wright called it “a feminist fraud”), and ultimately became the first show in Netflix history to be canceled after a modest one season run.

It’s also a show that I think was, and remains, an underrated gem. Under showrunner Kay Cannon‘s stewardship, the show —a gleeful satire of greed— had sharp writing, great casting, and some truly inventive visuals. It also featured a challenging female lead. Sophia Marlowe (Britt Robertson), a fun house mirror version of real-life “Girlboss” Sophia Amoruso, was framed as a quirky heroine even though she was actually an avaricious villainess. The show itself seemed to understand this. The opening scene shows us Sophia’s selfish solution to how to get her dead jalopy up a steep San Francisco hill. It’s an unsettling introduction to a would-be underdog who will screw people over to get to the literal top.

Girlboss knew what it was up to, but viewers seemed confused. Much of the criticism seemed to fall into one of two camps: those who were disappointed that the show didn’t seem interested in promoting feel-good feminism, and those who thought the show was too kind to the controversial Amoruso. On the first point, Sophia is tempted to be a good friend and to do the right thing, but more often than not she behaves like a rabid monster baby, stealing what she can and never feeling sorry for it. As for the real Sophia Amoruso, she went from being an online retail titan to someone who had to deal with the fallout of a real scandal. The show was loosely based on the beleaguered businesswoman’s memoir, #Girlboss, and ended the first season on the first real high point in her career. These viewers didn’t want to see the Nasty Gal architect’s initial rise. Due in large part to the timing of the show’s release, viewers wanted to revel in her fall.

The first season of Girlboss refused to pick an obvious side. It didn’t make its message easy, and Sophia Marlowe wasn’t always an easy character to follow. Robertson played her with charm, albeit charm that smacked against her obvious moral bankruptcy. You didn’t know if you were supposed to root for her or not. Sometimes she could be a kind friend or a witty ally, but other times she succumbed gloriously to her own greed.

The title of “Girlboss” suggests a feel-good feminism that the show never seemed worried about delivering, and I think that may have been the point. Girlboss rattled some viewers by suggesting that maybe the morals of intersectional feminism —a set of values that seeks to support and lift everyone and not just the chosen few— and old school capitalism don’t jibe. It may very well be impossible to lift everyone up if you’re simultaneously trying to beat them all down.

You see, Amoruso is not the only “girl power” entrepreneur to be lifted up by thrilled feminists only to swiftly fall. Thinx founder Miki Agrawal has come under considerable fire for creating a forwardly facing feminist product — period-absorbing underwear — while maintaining a hellacious office culture that demeaned and undermined female subordinates. Silicon Valley and Wall Street fawned over Elizabeth Holmes until Theranos was revealed to be a multi-layered con. These bright young “entrepreneurs” used their front-facing feminism as a marketing asset. Behind-the-scenes, though, cutthroat cheating reigned supreme.

And maybe that’s one of the points Girlboss was trying to make. Girlboss‘s beauty was in its heroine’s failings. Capitalism gave Sophia Marlowe a warped moral compass that was spinning in circles instead of leading her towards any true north. Hence why almost every episode spiraled around a moral conundrum that forced Sophia to pick between being there for others and gaining a little more ground in her business. In other sitcoms, the right choice would be obvious, and if it wasn’t, the punishment for doing the wrong thing would be swift, brutal, and accompanied by a sobering heart-to-heart. But in Girlboss, the thrill of the dollar always meant more to Sophia than other people’s feelings. Girlboss doesn’t force her to change for the audience’s comfort; it lets her keep winning.

Capitalism works for her except when it doesn’t. Sophia can quietly, painfully deal with a cheating boyfriend, but she spins out of control when she sees her business threatened by mass commodification. She goes on a tear about how mass production of pieces turns people into sheep living, in her own words, “in a jail of capitalism.” But Sophia doesn’t want to bring the house down. She wants to run it. That’s why she’s upset. Sophia Marlowe wants to win at all costs.

Girlboss is not an easy, breezy feel-good feminist sitcom. It has razor sharp barbs and darkly comic satire. It has a leading lady whose role forces us to reconsider what we want from our female entrepreneurs. It also has the stink of being the first show Netflix canceled after one single season.

Girlboss was also incredibly ambitious. It was beautifully shot and full of great performances from up-and-coming stars like Britt Robertson and Cole Escola. It also refused to give us anything less than a complicated portrait of a complicated businesswoman. And it’s stuck with me, a year after its debut. I still think about what it is and isn’t trying to say about feminism and capitalism. I don’t know if I agree with its bleak take on how to succeed in business while throwing everyone under the bus, but I like that Cannon and company didn’t shy away from it.

Ironically, even as Netflix squashed its potential after one season, it also gave Girlboss the chance for eternal life. Other canceled shows might fade away to the annals of TV trivia contests. Not Girlboss. It’s a Netflix Original. Since Netflix Originals will never leave the platform, Girlboss is going to live on streaming forever. It will be there, waiting for new viewers and critics to find it. So maybe, in the end, Girlboss did kind of win.

Stream Girlboss on Netflix