Is the Netflix show Sirens with Julianne Moore truly feminist?

By Violaine Schütz.

As society has evolved in recent years, especially with the #MeToo movement, we’ve seen the rise of women on screen. Whether it is in series like Scandal, The Crown, Game of Thrones, Homeland, Baron Noir, The Politician with Gwyneth Paltrow, The Regime starring Kate Winslet, Mrs. America, The Diplomat, or the film G20 starring Viola Davis, women have ascended to the highest ranks of power by force, intelligence, or cunning.

When series put women in charge

Yet, power isn’t necessarily political for fictional protagonists. In The Morning Show, TV journalists Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon wield immense media influence. In Nine Perfect Strangers, Nicole Kidman, who also plays a girl boss with a soft spot for BDSM in Babygirl, embodies a guru with a powerful seductive force. In all these cases, the reflection these characters offer real women is one of new ways to assert themselves. And even when they play antagonists, these heroines manage to assert themselves in a male-dominated world, something that remains a challenge for many women in real life.

Following in the footsteps of these figures, who exudes power and fascination over those around them and over the audience, is Julianne Moore’s character in Sirens. Released on Netflix in May 2025, the series portrays the seemingly unhealthy relationship between Simone (Milly Alcock), a personal assistant who comes from a poor family, and Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore), a redhead with translucent skin running a charity who appears to mistreat the latter.

Julianne Moore as a magnetic tyrant in Sirens on Netflix

Created by Molly Smith Metzler, the woman behind the well-acclaimed series Maid, Sirens initially seems to draw the portrait of a new despotic socialite, driven by luxury and her enigmatic silhouette – a witch figure draped in a goddess-like attire (she’s married to a billionaire) with an ethereal beauty. One Hitchcockian shot even frames her with a bloodied bird next to her face.

Right from the start, we’re inclined to dislike her. She snubs her employees’ smoothies and is highly demanding regarding her staff. The term “sirens” indeed evokes the mythological hybrid sea creatures who lured sailors with their songs, only to make them fall in love with them, and eventually, drown them. But after all, aren’t they just captives trapped between sea and land?

Gradually, we realize this is a game of deception. A host of problematic men evolve around Michaela, Simone and Simone’s sister, Devon (wonderfully played by Meghann Fahy) – a falafel shop worker and former alcoholic obsessed with men. Among them are a toxic and unfaithful lover, a rich heir going through a midlife crisis, a depressed and abusive father… Those are the men riding these women to a fall, as much as their own inner demons – especially Peter (Kevin Bacon), Simone’s seemingly benevolent philanthropic boss, who secretly schemes to divide them.

Complex, yet not Manichaean, female characters

The women in Sirens ultimately reveal themselves to be as flawed and human as their male counterparts. While they may be deemed “monstrous” by the audience – like young Simone who does not hesitate to steal her boss’s husband and turn her back on her family and social background – we eventually come to understand them.

Simone has suffered since her mother’s death in a tragic accident when she was a child. The authoritarian Michaela mourns never having been able to have children, a pain her husband makes sure she feels everyday. Meanwhile, the unstable Devon has done everything to protect her sister, at the cost of losing herself in the process.

Although the series Sirens sometimes feels confusing as it tries to blend the atmospheres of The White Lotus, Nine Perfect Strangers, social satire, and reflections on sexism, it offers an intriguing portrait of womanhood and the pressures imposed on women nonetheless.

Right from the start, the audience is misled by these control-freak, temptress-like women because we are all trapped in our own sexist prejudices. We judge them as patriarchy judges them and project vile motives onto them. As a matter of fact, it is a rare thing to see female characters on television that are well developed, complex, and nuanced as those in this Netflix series.

Sirens, created by Molly Smith Metzler, is available now on Netflix.