Creator Talks Taylor Swift and ‘Messy’ Female Characters

• “Ginny & Georgia” creator Sarah Lampert hasn’t spoken to Taylor Swift about the season one joke.
• She says she’s grateful Netflix has never given her the note to write “likable” female characters.
• Warning: Spoilers ahead for “Ginny & Georgia” season two.

“Ginny & Georgia” creator Sarah Lampert told Insider she’s still a “big fan” of Taylor Swift, who called out her hit Netflix show for a season one joke that referenced the pop star’s dating life.

The show centers on the complicated mother-and-daughter relationship between the titular characters, who move to the fictional town of Wellsbury, Massachusetts to start a new life after Ginny’s (Antonia Gentry) stepfather dies.

In the season one finale, which was written by Lampert and the series’ showrunner Debra J. Fisher, Ginny scolded her mother Georgia (Brianne Howie) after Georgia inquired about the end of her relationship with her then-boyfriend Hunter (Mason Temple).

“What do you care? You go through men faster than Taylor Swift!” Georgia screamed.

The scene prompted Swift to take to Twitter on March 1, 2021, calling the joke “lazy,” “deeply sexist,” and “degrading.”

—Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) March 1, 2021

But Lampert pointed out the nuance of Ginny’s response, noting that the teenager had just been slut-shamed by her best friend Max (Sara Waisglass) for sleeping with Max’s twin brother Marcus (Felix Mallard). So, Ginny’s actually “deflecting” her pain onto her mother as opposed to criticizing Swift’s love life.

She said she hasn’t had a conversation with Swift (“I don’t have her number”) but that she and her team “just want these characters to be able to be messy.”

“We write them to be flawed and to purposefully not say the right thing and to act out of emotion,” she continued, adding that she’s a “big fan” of Swift because, like the singer, she also uses her personal life as inspiration for her art.

Negative attention has overshadowed the complex writing within the show

 

 

Mike Coppola/BAFTA LA/Getty Images

 

“Ginny & Georgia” made headlines in 2021 because of Swift. The controversy arguably distracted viewers from noticing the complex female characters Lampert created. The show initially evoked comparisons to the WB and CW early 2000s hit “Gilmore Girls.” But Ginny and Georgia have secrets darker than Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel) could ever dream of.

“As a writer, a note that you’ll often get for female characters is, ‘Is this character likable?'” Lampert said. “And I’m so grateful that Netflix never gave that note.”

Georgia is a tough single mother of two, a sexual and physical abuse survivor, and — to protect her children from the same fate — a murderer. Still, it’s easy for viewers to root for her. Georgia’s brimming confidence and sugary southern charm aside (both of which provide ample cover for her crimes), we can understand the lengths a mother would go to in the name of protecting her kids.

 

 

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In the season two finale, the intention behind Georgia’s actions gets blurry when she murders her former nemesis’s sick husband Tom as an act of mercy. Cynthia (Sabrina Grdevitch) had just blocked one of Georgia’s abusers from being allowed to rent in Wellsbury and told Georgia how difficult it was for her and her son to cope with caring for an ill family member.

Lampert said that Georgia thinks she’s alone in the room and is “returning the favor” by killing Tom.

It’s still jarring to watch her swiftly place a pillow on his face and hold it down with resolve — and even more upsetting to know that her son Austin (Diesel La Torraca) is an unintentional witness.

“I think that Georgia is a character who has not been caught for anything she’s ever done,” Lampert explained. “So I don’t think at that moment she thinks she’s in danger of being caught.”

But private investigator Gabriel Cordova (Alex Mallari Jr.) relentlessly watches Georgia and puts enough pieces together to get her arrested for murder in the middle of her wedding reception in the finale. She’s having her first dance with her new husband, Wellsbury’s mayor Paul Randolph (Scott Porter) when she’s cuffed and carted away from her guests.

 

 

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All of Georgia’s wedding scenes are strangely beautiful to watch. Lampert and her team paid careful attention to them, she said, because Georgia’s arrest plays a key role in their four-season plan for the show (which is still awaiting a season three renewal).

A lovely instrumental created by the show’s composers Lili Haydn and Ben Bromfield plays during the arrest, sharpening the shock we see on everyone’s faces. Plus “Going to the Chapel of Love,” originally recorded by The Dixie Cups, is the perfect song to hear as we watch Georgia stare at her family from the back of a police car.

It all reinforces the “anti-fairytale” theme of the wedding, Lampert explained.

“Ginny & Georgia” is its own deliciously soapy anti-fairytale that swaps a perfect role model for a flawed woman who makes mistakes. The hit series wasn’t created to celebrate violent crimes (or offend Swift), but to show the wide, messy spectrum of what it means to be a woman.

“Ginny & Georgia” season two is currently streaming on Netflix.