by Sam H.
When a fan on Twitter asked Neil Gaiman what Crowley’s gender is, he responded, “Fallen Angel” and added that Aziraphale’s gender is “Angel (retired).” If not for the female voice who presents herself as God narrating the opening of the first episode, this would be the perfect introduction to the playfulness of gender in Good Omens.
The book, written in 1990 by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, was adapted into a TV show in 2019. For the purposes of this article, I will primarily discuss the TV show because, like many other fans, I discovered Good Omens when its show adaptation was first released on Amazon Prime and fell in love with it after my first watch. To this day, Good Omens is one of the most common TV shows I recommend to people — it's a witty one-of-a-kind show that discusses heaven, hell, and the end of the world in a balanced, humorous, yet touching way. The show itself has multiple strong elements, including its memorable characters, but one of my favorite aspects is how it portrays gender.
Right off the bat, viewers are introduced to the narrator, God, who is voiced by Academy Award-winning actress Frances McDormand. Yes, like that one Ariana Grande song, God is a woman. The best part? The series never explains why. Oftentimes, especially in reboots with all female characters, the show or movie tries to highlight their female characters but often fails to develop these characters beyond the fact that they are women. But Good Omens doesn’t make a big deal about how God is voiced by a woman because it implies that there’s nothing to gawk at because it should be completely normal for women to be in positions of power that Westerners often ascribe to men.
This theme continues throughout the series as gender never remains the focal point of the show but is still addressed in the episodes. Another one of my favorite examples is that Pollution, one of the four horsemen, is nonbinary and is referred to by they/them pronouns. Normally, when there’s a nonbinary character introduced, the other characters make a point to ask about their gender. In Good Omens, none of the characters question Pollution’s pronouns, even if Pollution presents themselves as more traditionally feminine, a stark comparison to how many nonbinary characters in media present themselves as gender-nonconforming. This is refreshing to see because as a nonbinary person who often presents as more feminine, I often don’t feel represented by nonbinary characters who strictly present as androgynous. And though I love Pollution (the character, not the actual concept) in the show, I still wish that the showrunners had cast a nonbinary person to play them.
Good Omens also addresses traditional gender roles. Crowley, a male-presenting demon, puts on lipsticks, wears a black dress, and dons a stylish, short wig that allows him to present as more traditionally feminine as he takes on the role of a nanny. However, instead of caring for a child like a usual nanny would, Crowley indoctrinates Warlock, the kid who the demons and angels had believed was the Antichrist, with evil through his nighttime lullabies. Conversely, Aziraphale portrays himself as a wizened gardener to teach Warlock moral lessons in hopes of counteracting the evil that Crowley instilled.
Of course, there’s also a plotline about witches, a historically misogynistic archetype. Agnus Nutter, a prophetic witch who predicted Armageddon, the end of the world, is persecuted by the village people, and when the villagers rally to burn her at stake, Agnus confidently struts to the pile of wood awaiting her and, as a parting “screw you,” hides gunpowder under her dress so when the fire strikes. She blows up the entire village along with her as revenge, so even though she’s been subjected to misogyny, she still gets her revenge on those who wronged her. Per her family’s wishes, Anathema, Nutter’s descendant, studies Nutter’s prophecies in an attempt to stop the end of the world.
Admittedly, throughout the series, some negative views on witches and women are perpetuated by Sergeant Shadwell, who continuously refers to Madame Tracy, a sex worker, as “Jezebel.” Additionally, Anathema lets her mission to fulfill the prophecies of Agnus Nutter consume her life — she even moves across the world to a remote village named Tadfield in an attempt to discover the Antichrist. But at the end of the series, when Anathema discovers a new book of prophecies that Agnus Nutter wrote, she burns it and frees herself from the burden of devoting her life to solving the prophecies and upending the stereotypical expectation of women’s responsibility to carry on their family legacy, which, in this case, happens to mean refusing to continue spreading prophecies instead of the conventional notion of carrying on the family legacy by bearing a child.
Perhaps the most radical idea, from a Western perspective, about gender in Good Omens is that none of the ethereal beings have a definitive or conventional gender. Archangel Michael has a name usually associated with men but presents as female. Beezlebub presents herself somewhat androgynously with the way she dresses. And, of course, Crowley and Aziraphale, though both traditionally male-presenting, aren’t technically men because they’re not bound by restrictive Western gender categories. By including all these details about gender and gender roles that aren’t the focus of the plot but remain memorable to viewers, Good Omens continues to challenge the construct of gender as presented in Western TV shows and improve upon what they already have done when our favorite Fallen Angel and Angel (Retired) return during the show’s second season.