Is 'Broad City' The 'I Love Lucy' For Millennials?
By Shannon Carlin
Shenanigans happen on Broad City.
The Comedy Central show stars Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer as best friends Abbi and Ilana—playing heightened and often high versions of themselves—and each and every episode is a hi-jinx-filled lesson in survival.
Sometimes the two women have to clean the house of a diaper-wearing-man-child just to scrounge up enough money to see a Lil Wayne concert. Other times they need to pretend to be RA's to get back the air conditioner (and the weed stashed in the dorm wall) that is rightfully theirs.
But whether it's learning to do one's own taxes or buying marijuana alone for the first time or earning your first substantial check deserving of a Drake-assisted trip to the bank, Abbi and Ilana support one another—no questions asked.
That support can actually be quite literal, as we saw in season one's finale, where an adrenaline-fueled Abbi carries a shellfish-allergy-suffering Ilana out of a fancy restaurant that B-Z (that's Beyoncé and Jay Z) once ate at.
It's the two of them against the world, and the world should probably watch out.
This female dynamic echoes that of another legendary TV duo, Lucy and Ethel, two women who certainly knew their way around a good caper.
In the 1950s, I Love Lucy gave the world two women who could do the housework and have dinner on the table, all while still having a bit of fun. And that fun was even better if you had your best girlfriend by your side.
In hindsight, I Love Lucy is criticized for not pushing hard enough for women's issues. But for a show that was airing before the start of the women's liberation movement, it had its share of feminist moments. It was one of the first TV shows to feature a female lead. It was the first show to feature a pregnant character—despite the fact that they weren't actually able say that word ("pregnant") on TV and were forced to instead use the word "expecting."
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