“I’m not trying to be Tolstoy”: Women’s Authorship in Selected Television Series

Abstract

Authorship in television series is a complicated and self-contradictory notion, particularly given the collaborative nature of such texts. At the same time, the growing recognition of television as a significant art form has entailed the search for an artist to whom it can be attributed, and auteur theory has, in recent decades, become increasingly prominent in television criticism. Notably, the rank of auteur, and the prestige it confers, has been applied predominantly to men. The present article attempts to consider this context while analysing three ac-claimed television series depicting women writers, namely Sex and the City, Girls and I May Destroy You , noting their thematic similarities, including self-referentiality and consistent preoccupation with autobiographical writing and its ethical dimension. In addition, the article addresses the ways in which the three series interpret and deconstruct the figure of the woman artist.