Netflix’s new smash hit Maid is on track to dethrone last year’s The Queen’s Gambit as the streamer’s most successful miniseries and provides insight into a particular aspect of viewer interest. The Queen’s Gambit, which aired on Netflix on October 23, 2020, saw 62 million viewers in its first month and set the record for viewers of a limited series. Maid, another character-driven drama from Netflix, was released on October 1st and its trajectory predicts 67 million viewers within the first 28 days.
The main character in Netflix’s Maid is Alex (played by Margaret Qualley), a young, unwed mother that faces extreme poverty after leaving her emotionally abusive boyfriend. She gets a job as a maid and begins to navigate the enormously defeating regulations of the American welfare system. Maid chronicles Alex’s fight to survive through custody battles, low wages, long hours of manual labor, and homeless shelters. In Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit, Beth Harmon (played by Anya Taylor-Joy) is an orphan with an unprecedented talent at chess. Beth is addicted to tranquilizer pills and riddled with grief as she attempts to infiltrate the male-dominated world of chess in the 1950s and 1960s.
While Maid and The Queen’s Gambit are very different shows, set in different times in history, they share a common thread. Both Maid and The Queen’s Gambit are based on books about strong female characters doing exceptional things despite great odds, and both feature women that choose their own autonomy over romance. The success of Netflix’s Maid and The Queen’s Gambit proves that stories about smart, unconventional women are content gold.
Inspired by Stephanie Land’s 2019 memoir, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive, Alex’s story in Maid is the true story of Land’s incredible journey from homelessness to best-selling author. The Queen’s Gambit is based on Walter Tevis’s book by the same name and follows the fictional Beth Harmon as she overcomes addiction and trauma to become the world’s greatest chess player. Both books tell the stories of remarkable women prevailing over societal and personal obstacles.
Historically, women’s content focuses on romance—an element noticeably avoided in both Maid and The Queen’s Gambit. In Maid, Alex extricates herself from her romantic relationship with her abusive boyfriend, Sean (Nick Robinson). Though Nate (played by Raymond Ablack) presents a healthy love interest, Alex chooses to distance herself from him in an effort to obtain her independence and autonomy. In The Queen’s Gambit, Beth Harmon has a strong affection for the journalist D. L. Townes (played by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), but the relationship never comes to fruition. Like Alex, Beth remains single in The Queen’s Gambit (though she has many lovers over the course of the show), choosing to follow her own path.
As Maid prepares to usurp the throne from The Queen’s Gambit and become Netflix’s most-watched limited series, the massively successful shows reveal the popularity of female-focused content. Maid and The Queen’s Gambit are strikingly different in setting and story, but the most important element is the unbreakable women at their core. Alex and Beth may well be paving the road for more inspiring content aimed not at the romantic lives of women but their perseverance and personhood.