‘Boardwalk Empire’ Shuts Out Women

The start of the new TV season has spawned hot debates about the sudden drop in female writers and the rise of "male anxiety" on television. Salon's Matt Zoller Seitz says it's even trickled into HBO's big-budget Boardwalk Empire, which lags behind other critically acclaimed shows in creating complex female roles. "The reflexive counter-argument that Boardwalk Empire is set in a man’s world almost a hundred years ago—and that deeper, more sharply defined, even autonomous female characters would be unrealistic, or anachronistic—doesn’t wash when you compare it to similarly testosterone-driven but superior shows."