Among the various professions that exist, female prostitution is one of the most socially scorned yet entertainingly fascinating. While women (or men) give their bodies away to whoever pays them, there is a certain liberation and power they wield at the moment.
This is part of what makes shows like Harlots interesting, which examines the social influence of 18th-century brothels while telling the dramatic story of women trying to be independent. For those who like these kinds of stories, either for the entertainment or the substance beneath it, here are some others worth checking out.
Maison Close
Ten years before Harlots premiered on Hulu in 2017, there was a French show that was also about female prostitution called Maison Close that ran for two seasons. Set in Paris during the 1870s, it focused on three women whose lives revolved around a brothel known as Le Paradis.
One is Vera, an older prostitute who hopes that her rich main client can pay off her debt. Then there’s Rose who’s looking for her mother who was a prostitute but ends up getting forced into prostitution against her will. Meanwhile, Le Paradis’ Madame Hortense is trying to keep her business running while dealing with extortion.
Jamestown
Because of its relation to Pocahontas’ story, almost everyone knows the Jamestown settlement in Virginia. Though what gets ignored is while Jamestown may have been the first British colony in North America to be permanently settled, it was fraught with hardship. In addition, there were mostly men at the colony but very few women.
So a solution was to offer incentives for British women to migrate to Jamestown including marriage. This, in turn, serves as the focus for the Jamestown TV series, which is about three women who arrive in Jamestown to meet their chosen husbands who paid for their voyage.
Secret Diary of a Call Girl
Outside of the brothel scenario, another form of prostitution that exists is the call girl. Usually self-employed, she has clients call a phone number to arrange private meetings with them.
She also tends to be secretive about her profession, unlike those who work at brothels, which serves as the central conflict for ITV2’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl. Based on a series of blogs written under the pen name Belle de Jour, it stars Billie Piper, who is mostly known for the part of Rose on Doctor Who. Here, she plays a young undergraduate who leads a double life as a call girl named Belle.
The Crimson Petal and the White
Based on a novel of the same name, this four-part miniseries that broadcasted on BBC Two in 2011 takes the element of prostitution and tells a Jane Eyre-type story. Set in the Victorian era, it begins with rich male heir William Rackham who falls in love with a prostitute named Sugar.
However, he is already married to a mentally unstable wife and has a daughter to boot. Therefore, William attempts to hide his infatuation by pretending to hire Sugar to be a governess at his house. While this is happening, Sugar’s influence over him grows and results in escalated drama.
The Paradise
With the progressive aspects of the 19th century came a new sense of freedom for women in the form of department stores. While we may take this for granted today, back then, women weren’t expected to leave the house or at the very least had to be chaperoned for safety reasons.
Yet when the first department stores opened and offered similar luxuries to home, they became not only fashionable places for women to hang out at but also where they could work. Thus, we get shows like The Paradise which details the inner workings of a fictional department store during this time period.
Cable Girls
While the 1920s were an important decade for women in America, the struggle for independence wasn’t over. This was especially the case in Spain, where a women’s suffrage movement was going on and voting rights were constantly changing.
But as telephone companies started popping up, many of them employed women which serves as the focus for Netflix’s Cable Girls. Also known as Las Chicas del Cable, this Spanish drama examines the lives of four women working for a telephone company in Madrid, Spain. Granted, the show takes some liberties with the actual history as pointed out in Bustle.
The Deuce
As second-wave feminism was reaching its peak in the 1970s, so were pornographic films. Originally an underground industry during earlier decades, it became more mainstream due to lax censorship, ineffective prosecutions, and cultural revolutions about sex in general.
Thus, pornography and prostitution often went hand-in-hand, as is seen in HBO’s The Deuce. Set between the 70s and 80s, it stars James Franco as twin brothers who get involved with the Mafia. At the same time, a prostitute and single mother named Eileen “Candy” Merrell (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) decides to get in on the burgeoning porn industry.
Cranford
Now even though this particular show has nothing to do with prostitution, Cranford does focus on a community of women who are faced with sudden changes. In this case, it’s a small fictional village in Cranford County, England, during the 1800s that is threatened by a potential railroad.
What makes this village unique, though, is the social power possessed by its women, who mostly consist of spinsters and widows. They not only get in on all the latest gossip but are also at the center of a lot of the drama that happens in the village.
Call the Midwife
Following World War II, there came the famous baby boom during the 1950s where multitudes of children were born at a rate that hasn’t truly been replicated since. As a result, midwives were needed more than ever in terms of delivering babies and taking care of them if need be.
There were even nursing convents like the one featured in Call the Midwife, who often helped the poor folks that lived in the slums of urban areas such as London. Currently airing its ninth season, this critically acclaimed series examines the lives of the midwives and the people they helped.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Instead of looking toward the past for examples of female independence during difficult times, The Handmaid’s Tale focuses on the future and how women’s struggles could continue. But what’s most unnerving about this series and the book it’s based on is how plausible this future is.
After the United States becomes a religious oligarchy and women become increasingly infertile, the few who are serve as ‘Handmaids’ that bear children for the ruling class ‘Commanders’. Though one Handmaid named Offred becomes the center of a conspiracy involving a forbidden affair and an underground resistance movement. Currently, it has three seasons on HBO.
