‘GLOW’ Decided to Film Its KKK Wrestling Match the Day After Trump Was Elected

Among the memorable scenes of “GLOW,” one stands out as especially bold: a wrestling match between two women wearing Ku Klux Klan robes and two black wrestlers. According to co-creator Carly Mensch, the scene might not have happened had the 2016 election gone the other way. “Before [the election], there was some trepidation,” she explained last night at Vulture Festival.

“We’re doing this very taboo thing. Even though it’s wrestling and it’s part of the blood of wrestling, there was some nervousness. And then Trump got elected, and we were like, ‘We’re doing that episode!’”

Said star Alison Brie, “We were there with Kimmy [Gatewood] and Rebekka [Johnson] as they were rehearsing for the first time in their KKK shrouds, and we were holding their hands, and we were like, ‘Yeah, fuck yeah,” Alison Brie said of the scene.

“It did just feel like, ‘Thank god this is where we work and thank god these are the stories we’re telling right now,’ as opposed to what we were all thinking [about] how it was going to go with, ‘Wow! Won’t this be so fun when we have a female president while we’re making a show about women?’ The importance and the weight was added,” she said.

The first season of “GLOW” earned much acclaim, including a Golden Globe nomination for Brie and several nods from both the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America. Season two premieres June 29.