Write On: 'Three Women' Creator Lisa Taddeo

“One of the things that I really wanted to focus on, and I felt
it immediately after meeting Lina the housewife in Indiana
[played by Betty Gilpin in the show], whose husband no longer
wanted to kiss her on the mouth, I felt like this woman was as
important as the Queen of England, as important as Napoleon. I
felt her dreams and fears are just as universal as someone who
has defeated an army and the only reason we're not hearing about
her is because we have these sorts of rules in place for what
possesses historical significance. And I don't really think that
that's necessarily true,” says Lisa Taddeo, author of the book
Three Women, on which her new TV show is based. 


In today’s episode, we speak to Lisa Taddeo, creator of the show
Three Women that stars Shailene Woodley, Betty Gilpin, DeWanda
Wise and Gabrielle Creevy as “ordinary” women searching for their
sexual identity and fulfillment in disparate and surprising ways.
The show is an intimate, often stark portrayal of forbidden
female desire and the consequences of that desire – both good and
bad. 


We also talk about writing the “female gaze” into the scripts,
filming with prosthetic penises, the power the book Twilight has
on teenage girls, and the uncanny way our mothers influence our
own sexuality. 


“My mother made up her face every morning, even when she wasn't
going to leave the house. Who is she? My father sees her before
she puts on her face as they say, so it's not for him. Nobody is
coming to the door today, so it's not for them. It's certainly
not for me, because I see her without makeup when she washes it
off at night. So, who is it for, you know? And that was a
question I had but didn't really know how to frame,” Taddeo
says. 


To hear more about the groundbreaking show Three Women that’s
airing on Starz, listen to the podcast.

Trigger warning: contains mentions of sexual explicit material,
sexual assault and trauma.