Quick Hit: Women writers (or the lack thereof) in late night TV
The NY Times has an article about the sad fact that late night television has a severe lack of female writers behind the big host shows. For example, the Jay Leno Show, David Letterman or Conan O'Brien has not-a-one woman writer.
Courtney's friend and Daily Show writer Hallie Haglund says in the piece, "When you're writing for late night, you're writing through one person's prism, and that person at the shows you're looking at is always a dude." Indeed.
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Not to embrace the standard already in place, but I wonder if the demographics trend towards male viewers more than female? Doesn't make it right, but might explain the discrepancy.
The NY Times article this post links to reports a greater number of female viewers for all the shows.
I dated a Daily Show writer in the late 90s, and he said there were no female writers. At the time, ALL the writers were white Jewish males...exactly like Jon Stewart, who I've been told from more than one source is a great guy. I don't think he's consciously sexist, but it certainly seems like the hosts of these shows hire people just like themselves.
The DS writer used the, "Well, there are plenty of women working at Comedy Central," excuse that came up in the NYTimes article. The writers are literally the mouthpieces of these shows, though, which means women's voices are lacking. The demographics of the writers have literally changed only marginally in TEN YEARS.
That's messed up.
Comrade Kevin, that is so...intresting. I still wish there were more women in comedy