LOL! Is An All-Purpose Epithet

[oselle]

The Wall Street Journal has an article profiling Mad Men as one of the only shows on television with a predominantly female writing staff. Seven out of the nine staff writers are women (interestingly, I found out from this article that one of them is Cathryn Humphris, who's done some episodes for Supernatural, including "Born Under a Bad Sign").

I knew that women were under-represented behind the scenes of television, but I didn't know it was THIS bad:

"According to the Directors Guild of America, the labor union that represents film and television directors, about 13% of its 8,000 directors are female. Women comprised 23% of television writers during the 2007 to 2008 prime-time season, a 12 percentage point decrease from the same period a year earlier. Nearly 80% of TV programs in the 2007 to 2008 prime-time season had no women writers, according to a study by Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University."

Those numbers are DISMAL.

Equally dismal somehow -- at least to me -- is that one of the writers for Mad Men is only 27 years old and caught the attention of series creator Michael Wiener while she was babysitting his kids. See, he was so impressed by the insightful comments she made while watching Emmy Awards screeners.

*facepalm*

I always read stories like this, of people who get big breaks because they somehow displayed such sparkling promise, even in the most commonplace circumstances (commenting on a blog, babysitting someone's kids, writing a letter to the editor) that others just couldn't help but take notice. I never know what to make of these stories. Seriously...how impressive could those comments have been? I read impressive commentary and critique on LiveJournal all day long and as far as I know, no one on my flist is getting calls from executive producers. For heaven's sake. Maybe there'd be more women writing for television if they just managed to get the right babysitting jobs. Hell, I wish I'd been babysitting for the right people when I was 27 instead of flushing my life down the toilet. LOL!

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Babysitting? Seriously? Wtf? I'm glad for her since obviously she's talented, but when you think of all the writers you have to wonder why anybody would have to cultivate their babysitter.

Fascinating to know MM has a female writing staff. No wonder the sexism is so realistically done.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Not to disparage Ms. Gordon's writing abilities, but I'm sure that her being very young and very pretty and very blonde did not count against her when it came to making an impression.

Re: the sexism, yes. There are things that happen in that show that men just wouldn't even be aware of.

[tskterata.livejournal.com]

When I first read your post, I thought, I'll bet she's a hottie. In my experience, most men will listen with rapt attention to anything that comes out of a pretty, young thing's mouth, and take it way more seriously than what an average looking woman says. This is nothing against the pretty girl, who is just as likely to be annoyed by the extra attention as she is to abuse it. Just seems to be a fact of life.

It's sad that there are so few women writing and directing, but considering the lame female roles in most Hollywood films, not surprising. Judging by the content of the journals on LJ alone, there's a ton on overlooked female writing talent out there - too bad Hollywood hasn't tapped into it and instead keeps churning out crap like Transformers and GIJoe.

I'll see your LOL! and raise you a GRRR!

[oselle.livejournal.com]

If you click on the link to that WSJ article, there's a photo of all the women who write for Mad Men and every single one of them is quite remarkably attractive. Again, this is not to say they are not talented writers, because they've proven that they are, but I'm 100% certain that if you got seven male television writers together for a photo, the lineup would be considerably less easy on the eyes. Both men and women are guilty of paying more attention and more favorable attention to someone they consider attractive, but men definitely don't apply the same criteria to other men that they do to women. A man does not have to be good-looking for other men to consider him smart or worth listening to -- in fact, they might be even more prone to be amenable to someone who's just an "average joe" like themselves. In contrast, it's very, very difficult for a woman in just about any occupation to get ahead if she's not attractive. A woman is virtually invisible if men (and sometimes other women) consider her too ugly or too fat or too old -- she's just a non-person with nothing to say. Even if you look at most successful businesswomen and female politicians, most of them are above-average attractive -- the same definitely could not be said for all of their male counterparts. In what universe would a woman who looked like Rupert Murdoch or Harvey Weinstein or Karl Rove ever be a success?

[oxer12.livejournal.com]

That's pretty cool about Mad Men having a mostly female writing staff. Since critics fall all over themselves to praise that show, it's nice to know they are indirectly helping other shows to realize that "hey, maybe those crazy wimmin know what they're doing!" Not that I would hold my breath for too much enlightenment, but I can always hope.

Whenever I think about people being discovered, I always think of David Boreanaz, who was just walking his dog, for cryin' out loud.

I think you need to go out to Hollywood and start babysitting, because you could be on any number of different writing staffs. :-)

[oselle.livejournal.com]

LOL, I'm far too OLD to break into writing for television, especially since I'm a chick. I remember reading that the average age of entry-level TV writers is something like 25 -- and I seem to remember a few years ago, some girl made a stink because she couldn't get a writing job until she started lying about her age, claiming that she was 19 instead of a decrepit...23 or so (I believe she was actually fired when her real age was discovered.) Even in the babysitting field I'd face pretty stiff competition from all those twenty-somethings out for their big break, LOL.

[oxer12.livejournal.com]

How crazy is it that they think a YOUNGER person would inherently be a better writer?? Hello, wouldn't life experience count for something, not to mention all the practice an older person would have at, ya know, WRITING.

Get out there and babysit your ass off! ;-)