‘”Millennial dumplings” at work: Women’s emotional and aesthetic navigation of creative workplaces, in US comedy dramas series Shrill and Mythic Quest’

This chapter analyses how both aesthetic and emotional labour are presented as a vital yet ambiguous part of women’s inclusion in the contemporary creative workforce, through the examination of two US comedy dramas Shrill (2019–2021) and Mythic Quest (2020–). What is considered appropriate for women to look like, and how they are directed to manage their emotions is not without nuance when working in the cultural and creative industries (industries which often intentionally embrace informality as a way of distinguishing themselves from business-oriented practices). Navigating an environment that both profits from an individual’s authentic creative voice’ whilst also upholding specific (and often ambiguous and imprecise) expectations about what constitutes professionalism within a specific field can be complex and directly relates to multiple intersections of identity (notably the way class and race intersects with gender). This chapter will consider firstly, how the selected comedy dramas represent contemporary creative workplaces (journalism and video games design) and their gendered dynamics, and secondly, how the women protagonists’ embodied experiences of their workplaces are used within the narratives to explore current working conditions for women.