IN PRAISE OF ELISABETH MOSS

21ST CENTURY TV ICON

Elisabeth Moss - mostly a TV actor so far - is perhaps the televisual equivalent of Kristen Stewart (who she appeared with in On The Road) at this stage in time - the world's most enthralling and important young female icon in their medium - she is acting's Taylor Swift, as it were. Or, this generation's Gillian Anderson, perhaps.

Moss has an impeccable TV resume - as a young person she appeared in two major shows - Picket Fences and The West Wing - both considered key to their periods. More recently, she was central to Mad Men, along with The Wire, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, the most significant TV series of the past two decades.

Meanwhile she is brilliant and again central in two vitally important more recent feminist TV shows - Top of the Lake and The Handmaid's Tale - each superbly-made.

Her characters Peggy Olson, Offred and Robin Griffin are as important to this century as any we can think of. That's what being an icon is. And she inspires more than young women. She is a stunning actor, and only the fact she espouses an eccentric religious view gives one pause at all.

However, putting that aside, since we are not the arbiters of the soul, she is a great cultural figure of our moment, and we must wish her well and hope Moss keeps applying her intelligence and emotional complexity to more excellent projects in the years ahead.

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