Why Revenge is Changing the Way Women in TV Operate Forever

Emily and Victoria...

The hit TV drama series of 2012 Revenge is breaking all the rules.

Its two female protagonists, Victoria Grayson and Emily Thorne/Amanda Clarke are carving a place for themselves in history as the first women to showcase both an abundance of talent and roles which snap the female mold in half. And it has proved so popular it is likely more TV dramas will go down the path of Revenge. Women will be finally allowed to kick, bite, fight, be slovenly and slatternly, be covetous and violent, take multiple lovers. Gays will get roles with real integrity and substance, not just as sexual vessels or playful accessories for pure comic relief.

Both Victoria and Emily have two love interests, both male. Victoria's two men are not her husband, the third man in her life. It is a coup for polyamorists everywhere and more audience friendly than Big Love. Even Victoria's affair and the resulting child, her only daughter, is no big deal for this taboo littered drama.

Emily is not only in love with two men simultaneously, she is shown in a bipolar existence, with two names and two very different personas: Emily, the belle of every Hampton ball; graceful, elegant and at the height of etiquette. Amanda on the other hand is the violent bad mannered juvie who beats up men. But so does Emily, when she has to 'defend the nest'.

It is a conflicted and fantastic departure from when television viewers have been fed for decades. These women are not just smart and feisty. They are bad. And the more bad they are, the more glamorous they are. It's a winning formula.

We see women behaving like animals in the wild, unrestrained, with multiple lovers and highly complicated desires. Their scheming sees them win over men every time and the sheer number of tools at their disposal makes them indomitable foes.

We see young Charlotte, the product of her mother's affair with falsely accused terrorist and Emily/ Amanda's father, David Clarke, getting addicted to Oxycontin and start kissing several men. As she falls into bed with her dealer, she follows the path of her mother Victoria and her half sister Emily/Amanda in getting active with more than one man.

It is just so refreshing to see women behaving badly, or naturally, on television and such a welcome departure from the tripe of the tired, sometimes slightly misogynistic dramas we get fed.

And like the rest of the world, I'm hooked.