The Beginning of This Blog Is About Endings

Hello, my as-of-yet nonexistent readers. Welcome to my blog. I've been planning on starting one for quite a while now, and have finally stifled my inner procrastinator enough to actually act on those plans. Here's some basic info: My name is Erica, I'm an English major at Simpson College, and I'm also the president of Simpson PRIDE (the campus LGBTQIA group). If you want to know more things about me, there are some social media links on the side that should satiate your curiosity. If those don't do the trick, feel free to contact me through this blog or social media.

Now that introductions are out of the way, and this blog is about to officially begin, I want to talk about endings. Namely, the very recent ending of one of the best TV shows I've ever had the privilege of watching. That show is a little Canadian show called Bomb Girls.

Just look at those gorgeous Canadian faces

For any of you who don't know, Bomb Girls is set in Canada in the midst of WWII. It follows the lives of women working at Victory Munitions, a factory making bombs for the war, and their struggles with various issues like misogyny, being gay at a time when that was definitely NOT okay, equal pay for both genders, etc. It is exactly as awesome as it sounds.

Immediately before beginning this post, I watched the (likely) last ever episode of Bomb Girls. This was me at the end of it.

Global cancelled Bomb Girls after two seasons. This may not sound too bad, but one has to keep in mind that Bomb Girls started off as a mini-series with only six episodes. It got so much critical acclaim and buzz that Global ordered a second season of twelve episodes. So, Bomb Girls in its entirety consists of only eighteen episodes, less than most American TV shows have in a single season. Global has promised a two-hour TV movie event to wrap things up in the future, but no contracts have been signed and we all know the future Veronica Mars movie is regrettably not the norm.

To add salt to the wound, the news that Bomb Girls had been cancelled arrived on the wind of Glee being renewed for not one, but two more seasons.

The reason this is so maddening is because Bomb Girls actually is what Glee pretends to be. Namely, a socially progressive show with the power to change television as we know it. Where Bomb Girls presents female characters with unique personalities, character development, and the ability to overcome the many obstacles that stand in their way, Glee presents female characters who are thrown to the wayside in favor of the male characters. Where Bomb Girls presents a lesbian character fighting to exist in a time period that doesn't want her, Glee makes the only lesbian storyline about the straight, male football player who outed her.  Bomb Girls clearly opposes slut-shaming and promotes women having agency in their sexual lives. Glee slut-shames shamelessly with no repercussions. Also, Bomb Girls has an ACTUAL PLOT.

Even the cast of Glee is not impressed with this chain of events

There is a campaign going on now to save the show, and there is quite a bit you can do to help. Follow @SaveBombGirls or visit the campaign's website to stay up to date on the latest campaign information. Send emails or letters directly to those in charge of this decision saying why you think the show should be renewed (the article is from before Bomb Girls was cancelled, but the addresses are still accurate). Sign these petitions so Global knows just how many people they are disappointing. You can even donate to the campaign so they can send bandanas in bulk to Global to show how serious they are. If you donate $25 (Canadian dollars) or more, you'll get a bandana for yourself. They say "Keep Calm and Save Bomb Girls" and look pretty snazzy.

We can do it!

The very last scene of Bomb Girls ends with a Winston Churchill quote: "Now this is not the end, or even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning." Let's show Global that this isn't the end of Bomb Girls, but only the end of the beginning.