Image via Starz
8. Max- Black Sails
She’s a woman, she’s of color, and she’s definitely not straight- let’s talk Max (Jessica Parker Kennedy) from Black Sails. Black Sails is silently becoming the best TV show for representation, and not too many people know about it. It’s an adventure series set on New Providence Island and currently in it’s fourth season. This Starz series acts as a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. And the characters in it are revolutionizing TV.
Back to Max. She’s a cunning and manipulative prostitute who falls for Eleanor Guthrie, and through the seasons, quickly makes herself known in the ranks of this series. She uses her seductiveness to get ahead and that seems to work for her. She’s loyal and forgiving, smart and powerful. Her role in Black Sails gets larger with each season and we’re looking forward to her role in season 4, which is scheduled to come out January 29, 2017.
Kennedy appreciates her opportunity to play this role and praises the writers for their commitment to powerful females: “I’m so proud to be on the show, it is a male dominated show, and male heavy show but it’s a show that Starz could have made even more male heavy than they have and instead they brought on some really really incredible, beautiful, powerful women– flawed women of course, but it’s so special to be able to see women with brains in their heads on TV set in something that’s so old.”