Period blood got the proper TV treatment in 2020 -- not as a shameful secret or punchline -- thanks to PEN15, I May Destroy You and Big Mouth

Rolling Stone

Sure, shows like Girls, Broad City, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Orange Is the New Black have previously portrayed periods in a progressive light, says EJ Dickson. "Yet even on shows like OITNB or Broad City, showcasing a character’s menstrual blood was intended to be something of a punch line in itself, a shocking gesture toward female empowerment, seemingly meant to generate headlines on millennial women’s websites, but not to offer any genuine engagement with the subject," says Dickson. "Rarely have periods been depicted for what they are: a quotidian part of nearly 50 percent of the population’s lives. With the blood clot scene in I May Destroy You, we may have reached another level in menstrual representation, where periods, and the messy expulsions and viscera that accompany them, are seen not as a sight gag or biological horror, but as a total non-issue. And while increased Clot Visibility may not have been what we were expecting to check off on our 2020 bingo scorecard, considering how dismal the rest of the year has been, we’ll take our wins where we can get ’em."