"I think about you all the time": the complex revival of female rivalries in TV

Female rivalries in television have always been easy to watch. In fact, sometimes there’s nothing better than watching two women go for each other’s throats. It’s entertaining, it can be hilarious to watch and, most importantly, it delves deeper into what female relationships onscreen can look like. But is the female rivalries trope overdone, or too saturated with misogyny or based around boy-drama to have any influence over television nowadays? 

Absolutely not. Here are just a few examples of how female rivalries can be done properly onscreen. 

1. Killing Eve (2018) Eve Polastri and Villanelle

Eve and Villanelle are arch-enemies turned lovers in the cat-and-mouse thriller Killing Eve. They have a mutual fascination with each other, which- throughout the series- becomes competitive and obsessive. I loved watching Killing Eve because I admired the show’s flatline refusal to make either character begrudge the other for more fickle reasons... E.g. the most commonly used tropes of fighting over a man, or becoming jealous of each other’s material possessions. They both openly voice their attraction to each other by the end of the series, and their refusal to leave each other alone makes for great thriller TV. 

2. Fleabag (2016) - Fleabag and Godmother

Perhaps not what you would commonly think of for a female rivalry, and yet, it's the one that makes the most sense. Having a silent yet extremely passive-aggressive rivalry with an older woman is something that a lot of women have experienced- perhaps even more common with new, slightly manipulative step-mothers. Fleabag and Godmother’s silent feud - paired with Fleabag’s father’s complete ignorance - makes for great comedic scenes, but hints at a more sensitive undertone. Stepmothers and children rarely get space on television, and this duo helps open the floor to more discussions on rivalries between non-blood-related families. 

3. Wednesday (2022) - Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair

Everyone’s had a roommate they’ve hated before, right? Wednesday and Enid are complete opposites: from their aesthetic to their motives, they just don’t seem to click. However, what I loved about these two from the beginning was Enid’s constant persistence in getting to know Wednesday, despite the particularly unfriendly atmosphere she gives off. Whilst the Wicked rivalry between Elphaba and Glinda was so popular, consider how it was shown in television first: a bright, colourful girl meets a girl who only wears black, and after a long school rivalry, they eventually end up joining forces. Sound familiar? 

As cringeworthy as it may seem, it can be refreshing to see female rivalries-turned-friendships onscreen without fighting over a boy, which it so often seems to be. With so many female relationships beginning to be depicted in more depth over the last decade, I’m hopeful that the ‘female rivalries’ trope will continue to be developed in more complex television shows, and that we can finally leave the overdone 2000s trope of forced female rivalry alone. Let women hate each other because of their actions, not just when a man threatens to cheat.