Warning: Rivals spoilers ahead.
Welcome to ‘Showtime with Emily Maddick’, in which GLAMOUR’S Assistant Editor and Entertainment Director brings a unique perspective to the month’s most hyped film or TV show. For October’s instalment, Emily dissects the Disney+ adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s 1988 so-called ‘bonkbuster’, Rivals. While there had been some concern that recreating Cooper’s notoriously sexist world could be problematic in 2024, Emily argues that this fabulously-executed TV show is not only surprisingly progressive, but also a harbinger of #MeToo – exposing toxic workplace standards thirty years before the global movement that held so many men to account.
I love Jilly Cooper. I have always loved Jilly Cooper, and I really love the new Disney+ adaptation of her 1988 ‘bonkbuster’ Rivals. It’s a debauched, excessive and escapist breath of fresh air in these dismal times; a televisual gorge of glamour, greed – and, yes… gratuitous, unbridled bonking. It’s also, more seriously, representative of a time nearly forty years ago when sexism, homophobia and racism was rife. A time when men, especially in the fictionalised Cooper Cotswolds confection of Rutshire, often treated women as little more than pieces of meat – here’s looking at you Mr Campbell-Black. (Reader, please note, this is not why I love Jilly Cooper, so do bear with me.)
Sanne Gault/Disney+
Since it was announced that Disney+ would be recreating the goings-on at the fictional TV network Corinium, complete with a stellar cast including David Tennant, Aidan Turner and Emily Atack, there has been talk about how problematic Cooper’s books could seem today. Many thought that recreating the 1980s Cooperverse in 2024 could be seen as regressive and tone deaf – after nearly forty years of progress. Which, if handled incorrectly, it could very well have been.
Thankfully, this is not the case. In fact, in many ways, Rivals taps into the zeitgeist of right now. It’s straight from the playbook of the recent smash hits that are Saltburn and The White Lotus (even down to a similar theme tune and opening credits) with its pitch-perfect skewering of the British class system and the filthy rich (filthy being the operative word here.) Its plot – focusing on the behind-the-scenes machinations of a TV station – draws comparisons to Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston’s brilliant The Morning Show or even the colossus of all recent television series that is Succession.
But Rivals is camp, self-aware and blisteringly witty – and has a banging ‘80s soundtrack to boot. Never mind the blue eyeshadow, perms and shoulder pads galore.
