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Lioness may be a popular show, but its accuracy has been called into question by the actual team that inspired the Taylor Sheridan-created spy thriller.
Zoe Saldaña stars on Lioness as a senior officer at the CIA who oversees the agency’s secret Lioness program, which tasks female operatives with going undercover and getting close with dangerous individuals as a way to collect valuable information. The third season recently premiered on Paramount+.
Three seasons in, Lioness remains popular, but now the series has come under fire for inaccurately depicting Team Lioness.
Ranie Ruthig, an original member of the real-life program, expressed anger over the portrayal. “It makes me mad that it doesn’t follow what we did at all,” she explained to The Telegraph. “They took the Team Lioness name and twisted it into a spy thing.”
While Ruthig praised Sheridan’s writing skills and admitted she’s watched his other shows, she accused the TV creator of taking their history and corrupting it.
Ranie Ruthig: “It makes me mad that it doesn’t follow what we did at all. They took the Team Lioness name and twisted it into a spy thing. I like Taylor Sheridan’s writing – I’ve watched his other shows – but he took our history and kind of corrupted it.”
According to the TV show, Lioness is a program situated within the CIA. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The women chosen to work for Team Lioness were support soldiers in Iraq who weren’t allowed to be in combat positions. They were called in to Team Lioness because female soldiers needed to be the ones searching other women at checkpoints and in homes.
Since Team Lioness was a secret program, most people were not aware that the women working on this operation had been involved in dangerous situations. They were never given their proper recognition, and some even experienced PTSD that was dismissed.
On that latter point, former Lioness Rebecca Martinez shockingly revealed that a psychiatrist once told her that she “didn’t know what PTSD was because I was a supporting [Military Occupational Specialties (MOS)] and female. You’re telling me I don’t have PTSD after seeing my battle buddies being shot? After seeing kids get shot? After being shot at myself?“
Rebecca Martinez: “I had a psychiatrist tell me I didn’t know what PTSD was because I was a supporting MOS and female. You’re telling me I don’t have PTSD after seeing my battle buddies being shot? After seeing kids get shot? After being shot at myself?”
Over the years, there’s been a kind of erasure of what the Lionesses contributed to the war, with Sheridan’s Lioness series continuing that trend.
Daria Sommers, who co-directed a documentary about the program, believes that Sheridan should have “called the show something else” since it has “no basis in reality” because then “we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” She wonders who was actually consulted when Sheridan was creating the series.
Daria Sommers: “The key thing is it has no basis in reality. I’m not critiquing Nicole Kidman or Zoe Saldaña – they should get all the kick-ass adventure roles they want. But if Taylor Sheridan had called the show something else, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Lioness Michelle Dallocchio added that “it feels like appropriation.” Sheridan chose to repackage “history…into something safer and sanitized for mass consumption—while erasing the actual women who lived it.”
Michelle Dallocchio: “It feels like appropriation. I see a really complicated women’s wartime history repackaged into something safer and sanitised for mass consumption – while erasing the actual women who lived it.”
These real-life women who were part of Team Lioness don’t place the blame on Saldaña or her fellow Lioness cast members, which include Nicole Kidman, Michael Kelly, Laysla De Oliveira, Dave Annable, Jill Wagner, Hannah Love Lanier, Thad Luckinbill and Genesis Rodriguez.
When Lioness debuted in 2023, high viewership led Paramount to tout the premiere as the highest-rated launch on its streaming service up to that point.
Reviews have largely been positive over the years as well. Critics gave Lioness very mixed reactions during its first season. However, the two most recent seasons have been a major improvement in their eyes, with the series averaging 76% on Rotten Tomatoes and the currently airing Lioness season 3 holding at 85%.
Lioness season 3 streams new episodes every Sunday on Paramount+.
- Release Date
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July 23, 2023
- Network
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Paramount+
- Showrunner
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Taylor Sheridan
- Directors
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John Hillcoat, Anthony Byrne, Paul Cameron, Stephen Kay, Taylor Sheridan
- Writers
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Taylor Sheridan, Jill Wagner
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Laysla De Oliveira
Cruz Manuelos
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