TV & Movies
A Book About Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Inspired The Girls On The Bus
The new Max series may be partly based on the 2016 election, but you’ll spot current references, too.
When you watch Max’s The Girls on the Bus — which follows a group of women reporting on an election year, beginning with the Iowa caucus — you might catch that several candidates feel quite reminiscent of real-life politicians. That’s by design. The new dramedy, premiering on March 14, is partially inspired by a memoir about the 2016 election.
Specifically, it’s co-created by author Amy Chozick, who chronicled her experience covering Hillary Clinton’s campaign in Chasing Hillary: On the Trail of the First Woman President Who Wasn’t.
But while the world of The Girls on the Bus might feel very familiar, it’s by no means a beat-for-beat recreation of a real election. “We knew we didn’t want to relive 2016,” Chozick told Screen Rant of her fellow producers’ vision for the series. “Nobody wants to see that again.”
Meet The Travelers
Instead, the show pulled inspiration from a specific chapter called The Girls on the Bus (a nod to the 1973 book, The Boys on the Bus, about male reporters covering an election). In this passage, Chozick talks about the awkward behind-the-scenes details of riding between campaign stops with her fellow reporters, or “Travelers.”
The women might not have been friends if not for the shared, unusual experience, Chozick writes. But the bus days made “a rowdy, high-strung family” of the reporters.
The Max series also reflects how the political and media landscape has changed since the 2016 election. The character of Lola, for example, was born from the idea of a modern activist-turned-influencer who took an unconventional route to journalism, co-creator Julie Plec told Screen Rant.
A Different Kind Of Political Series
Though watching a show about an election year might seem stressful in an actual election year, Christina Elmore (who plays conservative cable journalist Kimberlyn) told UPI The Girls on the Bus is more “about the bonds between these characters” than anything else.
“I hope people use it as a reprieve from watching the news all day,” she added.
In shifting its focus from politics to the people who cover them, The Girls on the Bus naturally gets into some romantic drama. But Chozick told IndieWire there was one trope the show had to skip.
“I broke a lot of TV writer hearts when I was like, ‘No one can sleep with a source to get a story! These people can’t f*ck, sorry,’” she said, referencing the all-too-familiar device of fictional female journalists striking up affairs with their sources and subjects.
