In his 1957 book, “Mythologies,” the French literary critic Roland Barthes described wrestling as “the spectacle of excess.” It’s not subtle. It’s more storytelling than it is sport. Like ancient theater, he wrote, it “presents man’s suffering with all the amplification of tragic masks.”

In Netflix’s “GLOW,” the suffering — mostly play-acted — is women’s. So are the body slams, the melodrama and the copious laughs. This 10-episode comedy, arriving on Friday, is a high-flying leap off the top rope, a summer treat with spandex armor and a pulsating neon heart.

Set in 1985 in Los Angeles, “GLOW” is based on Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, the real-life league and low-budget TV franchise that sought to cash in on that decade’s wrestlemania. The idea, hot women catfighting, was pure high-concept commerce. (It’s described in a network pitch meeting here as, “Porn you can watch with your kids, finally!”) But “GLOW” turns it into Pop Art.

Like many workplace comedies, “GLOW” is about people who had hoped to end up somewhere else. Ruth (Alison Brie) is a serious-minded actress stuck in a rut of reading for, and failing to get, milquetoast secretary roles. (Ruth, a casting director tells her, is the kind of unglamorous artist directors have in mind when they vow to cast “someone who’s real” — then change their minds once they see her.)