Great TV Ladies Get Mad Props

Overall it's actually been a pretty rad year for women in television. A pretty rad couple of years, actually, even given some obvious issues. Elle is honoring that in its own way, which means they're putting some of TV's leading ladies on some covers. They include Mindy Kaling, Amy Poehler, Zooey Deschanel, and Allison Williams, and they all look pretty fierce, to steal a term from 2008.

Kaling and Poehler's covers are our personal favorites — though Deschanel's Valentino dress deserves a shoutout all its own and should probably be sent out to every blogger who writes about it as a New Year's present I'm just saying. But anyway, Kaling looks damn elegant and perfect and as usual like we want her to be our funny lady Yoda, and Poehler looks similar but replace "elegant" with "DAYUM."

Each of the ladies in the slideshow — which you can see over at Elle — has accompanying quotes. Kaling's also has one from BJ Novak, her best friend/ex/etc, which we love at least partially because we hope that at least 30 percent of the calls Novak gets is just asking him to say cool things about Kaling.

She also said something really heartbreaking and beautiful about seeing her mom (who died the day that Mindy Project was picked up) in her work:

Any person that’s been in the business knows they’re so lucky to have their show picked up — it happens to such a small fraction of shows. But I was lucky personally, because I needed a distraction so badly from my grief. Still my thoughts flutter toward her in scenes that I’m doing, every night before I go to bed, and every morning when I wake up.

Here's to a great 2014 for each and every one of these ladies.

Images: Carter Smith/Elle