Jill Soloway, now 51, has been the writer and showrunner of many hit TV shows, including “Six Feet Under,” “United States of Tara,” “How to Make It in America,” and “Transparent.” Now she’s starting another provocative show called “I Love Dick,” based off the novel of the same name by Chris Kraus.
The show will appear on Amazon, just like “Transparent” on May 12. The novel, in case you haven’t read it, centers around a couple who begin to have a relationship (or threesome) with another man. So, what made Soloway decide to make a TV show out of the book? Well, she spoke to The Wall Street Journal recently about why she thinks “I Love Dick” is different than anything she’s ever read–and why it’s actually pretty Jewish.
Soloway said it’s the first real show “about a couple where they become obsessed with a man together and really go there…The fact that there’s a real connection between a heterosexual woman and a heterosexual man about another man felt to me like the invention of something and a way of naming the ‘female gaze.'”
Soloway went on to say that she thinks “Transparent” and “I Love Dick” share common themes–and that women are tired of being portrayed as damsels in distress, or perfect housewives, but want to be seen as complicated as they truly are. She stated:
“I actually do think the shows are really connected thematically. I feel like Transparent and I Love Dick both have a lot in them about sex, shame, Judaism, the Holocaust—all that comedy.
Women want a messy heroine, you know? I think a lot of women and people are just feeling like, I’m not pretending to be good anymore. I want to be a monster, too.”
I can’t wait to see the show. This is going to be a long three weeks.
