TV: Wentworth's Bennett & Ferguson

It is really important to me to find inspiration in older women. I know 'older women' is a relative term, but let's just say I mean anyone aged close to forty or above. I love seeing women around me doing cool things and I especially love discovering older women who invoke some kind of excitement within me for whatever it is they're doing. Having cool older women around in my inspirational sphere (I'm picturing this as a crystal ball) helps me to get excited about what kind of a someone I might get to be as I get older, and that's a great thing. I really want to treat age as an opportunity and I've almost always been more excited about getting older than anything else. I used to secretly wish I was thirty five when I was a teenager. I guess I liked the idea of being further along in my life.

Vera's 'getting shot down' face. She wears it a lot.

I mention this because I've been watching some great older women in TV lately. I've been watching Australian women's prison drama Wentworth, and I want to talk about two of my favourite characters, jittery prison officer Vera Bennett and sinister bunhead governor Joan Ferguson, played by Kate Atkinson and Pamela Rabe respectively. There are lots of great characters in the show, but these two are strong favourites of mine. I love them as a duo and I love them apart. They are such different people, but it's so entertaining watching Bennett try to emulate some of the strong-headedness of the downright intimidating Ferguson.

The governor is thinking about cat memes.

Ferguson is such a blisteringly cold and meticulously cruel character, but she is so smart and sly and sharp that I can feel myself rooting for her. She's clearly coded as a villain, but I'm so hypnotised by her. The way she almost mathematically pats her perfect bun of hair, the calm and terrifying stoicism of her face as she speaks to others, the delicate smirks. I'm just so impressed by every flickering expression and movement. She is beautifully, expertly acted.

A gentle halo for Vera.

I have a similar, gentler appreciation for Vera Bennett. She is schoolgirl-like in many ways and we see her struggle through some difficult things, although she remains capable and held-together despite her mousiness, and I love her for that. I want everything to be okay for her. She so represents the part of me that is all full of worries and wide eyed naive nerves and I connect with her because of that, and I keep willing everything to go well for her. The dynamic of the anxious, emotionally raw prison officer whose career is her life and the clever, ruthless governor with an icy glare is so delicious. Whatever happens to them along Wentworth's narrative, they will live on forever in my heart as an enthralling dream team.

This is probably the face you are making whilst reading my blog.