(THE Sheila / Ruth Ship )
Sheila. I really like Sheila . Of all the ‘B’ line characters, Sheila is my personal favorite . Why ? well, because of all the characters, Sheila experienced the most personal growth, going from a ‘friendless loner’ to having a dozen really good friends who accept her as HER.
Season 1 episode 4 also gave the writers an opportunity to show how well meaning and innocent comments can cause emotional harm to others. Especially when those others are affected by an emotional or psychological ‘disorder’. IN Sheila, the disorder is “Species Dysphoria” in particular therianthropy.
In ‘pilot’ Sheila DOES come across as pretty weird ,at first. She is the only girl to show up to the auditions in any sort of ‘costume’ , carried a crumpled up picture of a wolf as her headshot and goes all ‘wild animal’ on another actor when all she needed to do was a hair mare. In the final scene of ‘pilot’ while Ruth is doing her best “Hulk on a Hot Tin Roof” , Sheila keeps herself as far away from the rest of the girls as she possibly could, back in a corner while Debbie and Ruth fought for dominance.
Sheila is no less ‘weird’ in the second episode “Submit” where she gives Ruth directions on how to survive unexpected encounters with a more dominant person. A very funny scene, though, because Ruth follows Sheila’s instructions without question, even starting to get down on the floor.
In episode 3, Sheila is more comfortable in the group, but she is still distrustful of strangers. Notice that while all the other girls are doing the typical female behaviour when talking to a good looking, rich and ,seemingly, successful man: Laughing , giggling ,smiling telling him how funny he is.
Sheila is doing NONE of that . SHe watched Bash as if he might be a threat. Perhaps she just does not recognize human males as potential mates? She finally relaxes a bit while at Bash’s house asking him meat related food questions.
Our first indication that there might be something more to Sheila’s “wolf act” than just an act is the pre title sequence for episod 4 “The Dusty Spur” where we see her “putting on her face”, getting ready for the day: Eyeliner, mascara, tooth coloring , and,finally, wig. She sighs a VERY deep sigh of relief as she looks at herself in her mirror.
( a brief gripe at the producers.. MAJOR continuity error in the next scene.. Why is Sheila dragging her trunk all over when she drives a flippin BRONCO!? –ab) We see Sheila dragging her trunk behind her. Then a cut to her walking up beside Carmen who is VERY excited . Sheila, Well we get a sigh of resignation. She is going to have to put up with ‘people’ 24 hours a day. She walks past the first room , Britannica and Machu Picchu and growls .. She is going to have to deal with a roommate. Next room is Stacy and Dawn’s. She watches them a moment as they smudge the doorway with sage.
She walks into the room she shares with Ruth and is immediately assaulted by Ruth’s overly cheerful demeanor. At times , looking towards the door as if she wanted to run and escape. All Ruth was wanting is someone to be excited with her and helping her find her persona.
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Sheila then explains to Ruth her special ‘rules’ , such as leaving all windows open at all times and no sounds or changes of smell when she sleeps. Ruth promises to do her best and Sheila seemed to be kind of , sort of , okay with that.
Ruth goes on to try to complement Sheila at how committed she is to her character. This causes Sheila some distress with a gasp and a “What character?” . As Ruth goes on about how fully realized and crystalised the “She Wolf” is , she is totally unaware how her well meaning ‘compliments’ are causing Sheila emotional distress. Sheila finally ends the conversation by escaping ,with her trunk, to the bathroom.
Later , during the night, Ruth wakes up to go pee , flushes and almost makes it back to bed when the pipes moaned LOUDLY. Startling Sheila who sits up with her wig sliding off one side of her head , realizes that Ruth just saw her out of ‘character’ and Sheila freaks out begging Ruth to stop looking at her. Ruth , not understanding , tried to calm Sheila by saying it’s okay to sleep without your wig. Not knowing that that made things even worse.
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Which brings us to the next morning , where Sam makes Ruth team up for practise with Sheila and Ruth makes a flub of it by insisting talking about what happened the night before and makes it even worse referring to Sheila’s looks as her ‘gimmick’ , calling it a ‘werewolf thing’. Bash ( being clueless as he often is )asking “Whoa , are we doing a werewolf gimmick?” does NOT help. Sheila has to tell them both that it is stupid because she is not a werewolf and that werewolves are mythical creatures.
THe entire mess finally comes to a head after Ruth finds the dead squirrel that Sheila hid in her bed( a very wolf thing to do) ( that she found and didn’t kill) , followed by Sheila insisting that Ruth sleep somewhere else. Ruth uses a towel to get the squirrel out of her bed , then tells Sheila to take her squirrel and SHE can go sleep somewhere else “You goddamned wolf!” . This takes Sheila totally off guard because no one ever calls her a “Goddamned wolf” but a “goddamned freak”.
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Sheila sets the squirrel outside their door and opens up to Ruth about what and who she is. That ,spiritually , inside, she is a wolf, she knows she is human, and that how she does her makeup and her hair and her clothes is for HER . It isn’t an act or a gimmick. IT is how she IS . When Ruth called Sheila a ‘goddamned wolf’ , it told Sheila that Ruth wasn’t being purposefully cruel just acting from ignorance of how Sheila sees herself. So she decides to open up to Ruth.
I can relate completely with Sheila’s having to put up with inadvertent barbs and insults ( I guess these would be called microaggressions) from those who really do not know what is going on inside of us and just assume everyone feels the same , inside, as they feel. I also understand that the best way to come to an understanding is to take a breath and explain (often over and over again) how you feel and believe. In my case, it is not Therianthropy / species dysphoria but Persistent Depressive Disorder and the ‘microaggressions’ are well meaning people telling me “Go for a walk” or “just think happy thoughts” or “lots of people have it worse than you , cheer up!” none of which do anything but drive even more guilt ( I have no right to be depressed when other people have it worse and Inability to have happy thoughts is the entire DEFINITION of depression) That I can empathise with Sheila’s situation before GLOW is what makes her my favorite ‘B’-cast character for this reason alone. Okay, not that alone.. I like how she can communicate so well with her eyes alone. a very Wolfen trait.
New Blogpost ! "Oh Sheila! " #GLOW #Netflixglow #GLOWnetflix @GLOWwrestling @Glownetflix (THE Sheila / Ruth Ship ) Sheila. I really like Sheila . Of all the ‘B’ line characters, Sheila is my personal favorite .
