Helen Mirren Praises Taylor Sheridan’s 1923 For Exactly The Same Thing Landman Was Slammed For

Inspired by the immense success his first ever Western show Yellowstone had, Taylor Sheridan has moved on to become one of the most prolific masters of the genre, signing a deal with Paramount+ for the future of his Western-y multiverse.

Multiple series followed in Yellowstone’s footsteps, like the latter’s prequels 1883 and 1923, as well as Sheridan’s latest project Landman, becoming massive hits on streaming and promising the writer-director even more success with upcoming installments.

However, there was still something quite controversial for Sheridan’s fans to talk about, and 1923’s Helen Mirren suddenly joined a discussion, offering her take on the matter.

Helen Mirren Praises Taylor Sheridan’s Portrayal of Women in Westerns

One of two prequels to Yellowstone, 1923 has just debuted its second season on Paramount+, and its lead has a sneak peek to offer to the show’s fans.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mirren gushed over Sheridan’s talent for Western-coded stories and even highlighted his ability to create female characters that stay away from common genre stereotypes, saying that “young women should be very grateful to Taylor Sheridan for writing such great women roles” and stating that her character Cara also belongs to them.

“Those roles didn’t exist when I was growing up in our business. Even as an audience member, I never saw these people on the screen. I never really liked Westerns because the women in them were so awful”, Mirren continued, adding that Sheridan’s female characters are just nothing like that, appearing on the screen as strong and interesting, but still vulnerable and complicated real people.

Fans Don’t Think The Same About Female Characters in Landman

Sheridan’s writing of women for 1923 might still be good, though it doesn’t mean the same rule applies to his other hit show.

With the story unfolding in the present day, Landman is also a very much Western-coded series centring on a very masculine theme like oil production, and that is probably the reason why the female characters in this series just fall short.

“As someone who legitimately works in the oil and gas industry and is also a woman, I literally cringe at every female character on this show”, user False-Refrigerator26 once shared on Reddit, starting a discussion about Landman’s women being predictable and not compelling.

Some others went into complete opposite of what Helen Mirren recently said, pointing out that “Sheridan clearly does not know how to trim his scripts because scenes of the two of them talking about pretty much nothing do not need to go on for 5 minutes straight”.

Redditor Traditional_Limit236 also chimed in, adding that “the writing of the women is so bad it covers up how bad the plotting is. Seems like a man that thinks little of women wrote the whole thing”.

Meanwhile, things might still shift for Landman when its second season arrives on Paramount+ next year.