"Only girl in the room"/ "Scenes from a Canadian's journey through show business"

I'm posting this in honor of International Women's Day Mar. 8.

Mar. 24, 2018 "Only girl in the room": Today I found this article by Ellen Vanstone in the Globe and Mail.  It was book reviews of female TV writer and producer, so of course I had to read it:

Stealing the Show

By Joy Press, Atria Books, 320 Pages

Just the Funny Parts

By Nell Scovell, Dey Street Books, 336 Pages

Every woman who writes for TV has stories about sexism in the industry, ranging from mundane (enduring male-director temper tantrums that would get a female director fired), to gender-equity issues (getting paid less, or not being hired at all because they "already have a woman in the room"), to harassment or worse.

One of my stories is from one of the first shows I worked on. I was watching a rough edit of a scene with the producers, wherein a female character was doing a "walk of shame" (in itself the kind of sexist shorthand that reinforces misogyny. But I digress). 

Beautifully silhouetted against the rosy dawn, she stumbled along in heels and her short, tight, sexy dress from the night before. And nothing else. "Oh no!" I gasped. "Where's her purse?" The producers laughed at my ignorance, explaining that you'd never make an actress carry a purse in a scene like that because it would ruin the line of her outfit and spoil the shot.

I considered, and then – wanting to stay employed – discarded, the idea of suggesting that ruining the line of her outfit might be preferable to making female viewers wonder where exactly she had stuffed her phone and keys.

 But, as I now realize, female viewers were not the point. The male gaze is for a male audience. The standard, "likeable" TV female is not a real, grown-up human schlepping her keys/phone/tampons/whatever around town. She's an ever-accessible sex object, artfully displayed, here to serve at the pleasure of the patriarchy.

Unlike my younger self, I now speak up about these things. But I must say, it's not much fun telling your executive producer boss that his failure to accessorize contributes to rape culture.

So it's great to see two new books support the case that the patriarchal devil is in the male-gaze details. Just the Funny Parts … and a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking Into the Hollywood Boys' Club by veteran TV writer Nell Scovell, is a behind-the-scenes tell-all from various writers' rooms. 

Stealing the Show: How Women Are Revolutionizing Television, by journalist Joy Press, profiles the women who created such ground breaking shows as Murphy Brown and Roseanne, up to Transparent and Broad City.

Scovell, writing from the trenches, pulls no punches, reproducing savagely edited script pages, documenting exactly how male colleagues undermined her and how male crews sabotaged her when she began to direct. 

Amazingly, she doesn't come across as bitter. Aware of her white privilege and thankful for a career that included Newhart, Late Night With David Letterman, The Simpsons, Murphy Brown, a creator credit on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and a collaboration with Sheryl Sandberg on Lean In, she reports transgressions in the spirit of a wide-eyed, albeit head-shaking kid, telling us "and then THIS happened!"

Nor does she spare herself, cheerfully including jokes that never made it when she wrote for U.S. President Barack Obama's White House correspondents dinner speech; her fantasy of winning Letterman's approval even after she exposed his show's toxic work environment in print; describing how she performed fellatio on her abusive boss, Jim Stafford, at a Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour work party. 

When Stafford then dropped her from the show, Scovell took it as a learning experience. She'd submitted to him because she'd feared he would penalize her, yet she writes, "he still penalized me. In a way it was funny." (It also gave her the best line in the book: "Reader, I blew him.")

Even more abusive, in my view, was when Scovell wrote for the Lily Tomlin segment in 2014's The Kennedy Center Honors special. She suggested Kate McKinnon, Reba McEntire and Sarah Silverman, dressed as the 9 to 5 movie characters, blast out the 9 to 5 theme song in a rousing finale. The producers had never heard of McKinnon and didn't think music was necessary.

For men who don't see the foul here: Imagine you're a writer for a tribute to, say, Mike Myers. Your bosses are all women. You suggest a finale with Dana Carvey and other celebrity bros headbanging to Bohemian Rhapsody. The producers haven't heard of Queen. They want something more verklempt. Your head explodes.

In Press's book, the contents page alone conveys the impact of women creators on contemporary TV: 

Shonda Rhimes ( Grey's Anatomy), 
Amy Sherman-Palladino (Gilmore Girls), 
Tina Fey (30 Rock), 
Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project),
 Lena Dunham (Girls), 
Liz Meriwether (New Girl), 
Jenji Kohan (Orange is the New Black), 
Jill Soloway (Transparent), 
Amy Schumer (Inside Amy Schumer), 
Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer (Broad City). 

Two important shows are either missing (Tig Notaro's One Mississippi), or given short shrift (Issa Rae's Insecure.) And Michaela Coel (Chewing Gum) deserves at least a mention. But maybe it's a good sign there are too many women creating good TV to fit into one book.

It's the details from two earlier shows, Murphy Brown and Roseanne, that most fascinate. Press puts Roseanne Barr's reputation for being "difficult" and "crazy" in a new light when she describes how male producers tried to make her wear purple stretch pants and smocks instead of the vintage plaid shirts she, and her character, favoured, 

or how they almost fired her over a nuance Barr understood instinctively, but which they couldn't get their heads around: She refused to say the line, "You're my equal in bed but that's it," to her TV husband Dan, knowing that her character, as feisty as she was, would never "demean" him that way. 

Press quotes Judd Apatow (who wrote for Barr's stand-up act when he was 22): "A lot of people painted it as out-of-control behaviour, but really it was someone taking control of her world as best she could. She made landmark television for a really long time, and it was done in a unique, eccentric way." 

Note also that Barr, as far as we know, didn't pressure anyone to service her sexually, then fire them.

Barr's fight to give a voice to characters that reflected her reality feels especially ironic in 2018. As Press reports, Barr told the Los Angesles Times her struggling television family didn't trust the left or right wing. "They're somewhere in the middle of it all, not knowing what anything stands for any more." That was in 1992. With a reboot of the show set to begin March 27 on ABC, it'll be interesting to see where the Conner family's politics are now.

Press begins her book with Diane English, who created Murphy Brown in 1988. Two events ensured the show's place in history. First, the day after English submitted her pilot script to CBS, the Writers Guild went on strike.

 This meant network execs couldn't force English to rewrite her "middle-aged woman after rehab" into a thirtysomething career gal "coming back from a spa." The second event was when star, and devoted mother, Candice Bergen said it would be "too tragic if Murphy didn't have a child" and English agreed.

A male room might have come up with the accidental-pregnancy trope. And kudos to CBS execs for not forcing English to segue to the sad (but socially acceptable) miscarriage trope.

 But this baby happened because of two women's combined instincts, and because the female voice was allowed to prevail. And the right wing went nuts. While blaming impoverished, black, unwed mothers for the L.A. riots following the Rodney King beating in 1991, U.S. vice-president Dan Quayle also slammed Murphy Brown for its lack of "family values." 

As Press reminds us, the rebuttal episode had 70 million viewers, and the show went on to record-breaking ratings and ad revenues, multiple Emmys, and 10 seasons in total. Like Roseanne, Murphy Brown is also being rebooted this year, with English in charge.

Meanwhile, Bergen has lately started a handbag-customizing company, Bergen Bags ("from one old bag to another"), with proceeds going to charity. And, just for the record, if you Google images, you can find screenshots from the original run that show Murphy carrying a big, old, ugly purse.

Ellen Vanstone is a journalist and screenwriter based in Toronto.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/reviews-joy-presss-stealing-the-show-and-nell-scovells-just-the-funny-parts-chronicle-life-as-a-woman-in-a-male-dominated-tvindustry/article38318905/?cmpid=rss

Jun. 22, 2018 "Scenes from a Canadian's journey through show business": Today I found this article by Johanna Schneller in the Globe and Mail.  Here is another article about being a female TV writer and producer:

Rebecca Addelman’s life sounds so much like an indie-film heroine’s, I picture her story in scenes.

EXTERIOR, MULHOLLAND DRIVE (lonely road high above Los Angeles) -- 3 A.M.

REBECCA ADDELMAN, mid-30s, smart, vivacious, Canadian writer/director living in L.A., crouches in the bushes to pee. It’s comical, because she’s nine months pregnant with her first child. 

She’s written for Fox’s New Girl and Love, Judd Apatow’s Netflix series. But now, she’s scrambling to get a few final shots for her feature debut, Paper Year, which opens in select Canadian cities and on VOD on June 22.

ADDELMAN (thinks to self): “There’s no cell reception. I could have this baby any minute. This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

FLASHBACK: Born in Ottawa, Addelman studies literature and comedy writing, and does stand-up in Toronto. Her community is tight-knit but opportunities are few: If a TV writing gig comes along, everyone she knows goes for it. So at 26, she sublets her apartment and drives to L.A. She has no job, no friends. She doesn’t even know if her work visa will be approved.

ADDELMAN (voice-over): “All I had was some kind of inner conviction that this is what I should do. Tina Fey was an idol of mine at the time. I thought, ‘I’ll try to be like her.’”

When Addelman’s visa comes through, it’s for comedy. She can perform or write, but she can’t get a backup job at, say, Starbucks. She has to succeed or scram. So she writes series pilots every day, and performs somewhere every night. Slowly, she gets an agent, a manager and interviews for writing jobs.

INTERIOR, SHOWRUNNER’S OFFICE – DAY. 

MALE TV SHOWRUNNER (to Addelman): “Oh, it’s too bad I only met you today, because we’ve already hired a female writer.”

That’s not a joke. That’s the attitude in Hollywood in 2008: You need a woman’s voice in the room, but only one. Luckily, this showrunner (Addelman won’t say his name) is a radical – he hires her.

She learns a tricky balancing act. The men in these TV writing rooms are the smartest, funniest guys she’s met, and some of them become her mentors. But they’re also sexist. 

“It’s in the way they speak and behave, and who they choose to deputize and respect,” Addelman says. They’re racist and homophobic, too, but always under the guise of joking around.

ADDELMAN (V/O): “The women who succeeded knew how to be diplomatic and not get angry. Because if you say, ‘That was offensive,’ suddenly you’re the person without the sense of humour.”

Addelman succeeds: She lands a job writing for New Girl. She lands a job writing for Love – an hour after meeting Apatow. (“One of the many cool things about Judd is how decisive he is,” Addelman says.) 

She also marries young, and divorces a few years later. Then she condenses everything she’s lived into a script, Paper Year.

Addelman begins writing it in 2014, in the wake of her divorce, during her two-month hiatus between seasons of New Girl. Although the specific plot isn’t autobiographical, the realizations are.

“I was trying to write about what young love/lust/hopefulness and big dreams really feel like, all that stuff that gets rolled into our relationships when we’re young,” she says. She also wants to show that just because a relationship ends, it doesn’t mean it failed.

The film centres on Franny (Eve Hewson, who played Clive Owen’s head nurse on The Knick). Eager for her real life to begin, she impulsively marries Dan (Avan Jogia), an actor, and tries not to mind how unambitious he is. She scores a job writing for a reality show.

 Her boss is angry that he can’t sleep with her, but she deflects that. Her married co-worker Noah (Hamish Linklater) is a different story: They share a sense of humour, they share drinks, Franny starts investing him with qualities – and then reality crashes in.

ADDELMAN (V/O): “For me, Noah represents who Franny wants to be, more than who she wants to be with. You can fall into a lot of traps with a job – you want to believe that a job will be the answer for your life.” 

But your job can’t be your lover, just as your lover can’t be your job.

Addelman admits that people – men in particular – might disapprove of Franny’s choices. “But that’s the hill I was ready to die on,” she says. “That’s the whole point of the movie: 

She’s going to make mistakes. Because she’s experimenting, she’s searching for who she is, she does things that don’t make her feel good, that don’t answer the big questions. The hard thing she realizes is that no one is going to give her the answers. She has to do that on her own.”

INTERIOR, L.A. APARTMENT – DAY.

Addelman shows her script to a male friend, and wonders who might direct it.

FRIEND: “Why would you have someone else direct it? You should direct it.”

Addelman is startled. Why didn’t she nominate herself?

ADDELMAN (V/O): “I don’t think my reluctance was biological. I think it’s something the culture teaches us, that we internalize.”

She realizes that every other director had to say to him/herself, “I’m a director,” before they’d directed a single frame. “It’s not arrogant,” she says. “You’re not putting yourself in a position you shouldn’t be in. You just have to make that choice and stick to it.”

MONTAGE: Addelman pulls together a US$1.2-million budget, and shoots her film in 19 days (15 in Toronto, four in L.A.).

EXTERIOR, CREEPY TORONTO UNDERPASS – NIGHT.

Addelman shoots a key scene, Hewson and Linklater in a parked car. It’s the moment where Franny’s fantasies crumble. But the road isn’t blocked off, so strangers amble into her frame. Plus it’s late October, raining, cold. Addelman realizes she’ll only get a fraction of the shots she was hoping for. So she lets the few takes she does get run long. She forces us to live in Franny’s raw, awkward moment. It ends up being the hinge scene of the film.

ADDELMAN (V/O): “I didn’t write or shoot that scene thinking, ‘I need to make sure I’m representing this from a female point of view.’ It was just the way I, as a human, as a woman, experienced it. 

But for so long, the culture was dominated by men. We didn’t think, ‘This is a male point of view.’ We thought, ‘This is a director, showing us life.’ So this does speak to the fact that we need more representation, we need more people from all different walks of life sharing their stories.”

FINAL MONTAGE: Addelman, in the editing room until the day her daughter (now 15 months old) is born. Addelman, doing the sound and colour correction while nursing.

INTERIOR, WRITERS’ ROOM – DAY.

Addelman, five other female writers and one man are hard at work on a Netflix series, Dead to Me, due in spring 2019. It’s about two women in their 40s who become friends in a grief group, although one is keeping a big secret from the other. The showrunner, Liz Feldman, wrote for The Ellen DeGeneres Show and 2 Broke Girls. This room isn’t sexist at all.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/article-scenes-from-rebecca-addelmans-attempt-to-make-it-in-show-business/

Now here are 2 more blog posts about being a female TV writer and producer:

http://badcb.blogspot.com/2020/03/laeta-kalogridis-on-altered-carbon.html

http://badcb.blogspot.com/2020/03/peak-tv-means-peak-stress-for-writers.html

My week:

Mar. 8, 2020 Free newspapers: Last week on Thurs. a customer left an Edmonton Journal at my 2nd restaurant job.  

On Fri., the customer Gregory gave me his New York Times Arts and Leisure section.

Last week my dad picked up a free Tues. Edmonton Journal.

This Mon. a customer left an Edmonton Sun.

Mar. 9, 2020 Revolve Furnishings closing down: I saw an ad in the Edmonton Journal that it's closing down.

https://www.revolvefurnishings.com/

SYTYCD Danny Tidwell died: I was reading this and I totally remember him and Travis Wall on the TV show when I used to watch it back 2006- 2007.

Danny Tidwell, a former "So You Think You Can Dance" contestant who finished in second place in 2007, has died at 35. 

Tidwell's brother, Travis Wall, confirmed his death in an Instagram post Saturday, announcing his heart was broken because "yesterday I lost a brother" and asking that his followers "pray for my mom and my family during this difficult time."

"I’m not ready. But I never think I will be. Because I can’t believe this is real. I can’t believe you’re gone," Wall wrote. "You were more than my brother. You were my inspiration. I idolized you growing up. Wanted to dance just like you. Wanted to be you!" 

David Benaym, Tidwell's husband and a journalist for i24 News, wrote that he was "devastated" to lose "the love of my life," who died Friday night in a car crash "while his friend was driving him home from work."

"We were so lucky to have him, life was so challenging for him," Benaym wrote. "But he was a warrior, and he came back standing, always. We loved each other so much, he was and always will be family. He made me the happiest for so many years."

Choreographer/actress Debbie Allen, a guest judge on Tidwell's "SYTYCD" season, mourned Tidwell on Instagram, calling him “our beautiful dancing genius" and a "Prince amongst Paupers."

"We will always speak your name with love and respect," she wrote. "See you on the other side."

Tidwell grew up dancing at an after-school program in Virginia, where his teacher, Denise Wall, noticed that he hadn't been registered for school and was left unsupervised for long periods of the day, according to a 2007 interview she gave to The Virginian-Pilot. 

Wall later obtained legal guardianship of Tidwell and he began calling her four sons, Travis, Scotty, Tyler and Shannon, his brothers. Travis, who is five years younger than Tidwell, finished in second place during the 2006 season of "So You Think You Can Dance." (He's since returned to the show as a choreographer and mentor.)

It was watching his younger brother during a "Dance" tour performance that Tidwell realized he wanted to pursue the same dream.

"At Madison Square Garden, Danny looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, 'I want to do that,' " Denise told The Virginian-Pilot. " 'My brother's up there on that stage, dancing and living, and I want to do that.' "

"Do that" he did: Tidwell auditioned the following season and made it to the finale, where he came in second to Sabra Johnson. 

“What terrible news. Danny was easily one of the best dancers we have ever had on 'SYTYCD,' " Nigel Lythgoe, co-creator and executive producer of "So You Think You Can Dance," told USA TODAY in a statement. "To hear he lost his life is heartbreaking. On behalf of everyone at 'So You Think You Can Dance,' we send our deepest condolences to Travis, Denise and his entire family.”

Mar. 1, 2020 "Why Hank Azaria is saying no to Apu": I found this article by Dave Itzkoff in the New York Times, but I can't find the link to this.  Azaria is mainly saying he's not doing the voice of Apu because it's offensive and racist.

There was a 2017 documentary called The Problem with Apu by Hari Kondabolu. 

Mar. 14, 2020 Family Potluck and Game night: I was working at my 2nd restaurant job and they were closed for the weekend so I got a lot of free food.

The muffins, danishes, and cinnamon buns I put in the freezer.  I will eat them later.

For the Potluck, I brought a big bowl of ham, cheese, broccoli and pasta salad, and a big bowl of fruit salad, and 5 small quiches like ham and mushroom, the other kind is broccoli and cheese.  Those are from the restaurant and I don't care about this.  After that, Donald got all the leftovers.

Padmandi: A couple bought food from this Asian vegetarian restaurant.  The chicken is not really meat, but it tastes just like chicken.

Just One: We played that board game called Just One.  I played that at the Potluck before and at the 20-30s Fun, Pints, and Wine.

One of the dry erase markers was out of ink, but there was an eraser at the cap so I can use this for my dry erase board.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/254640/just-one