Top 10 Reasons This Woman Can't Write for Late Night Comedy Shows
In the New York Times, Bill Carter writes ,"very few women make it inside the writing rooms for late-night television hosts, despite that women make up a larger proportion of their audience than men. There are no female writers on the new “The Jay Leno Show,” none on “Late Show with David Letterman,” none on “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.”"
Based on his article and Nell Scovell's personal account in Vanity Fair, I have come to understand why the odds are stacked against my wedging my paw in the door. I still have hope (also known as delusion).
The Top 10 Reasons This Woman Can't Write for Late Night Comedy Variety Shows
10) I will be overcome by desire for my male comedy writing peers and superiors, who are known for their off-white, pasty skin and muscle tonus minimus, akin to albino, soft shell turtles.
9) My lady sensibility is limited to menstruation (hilarious), babies (adorable), and unicorns mating (adorably hilarious).
8) Due to my genetic make-up, I am physically incapable to handle the job, considering the heavy manual labor required in touch typing.
7) The number one rule of comedy is fitting in and I sometimes buck the uniform of orthopedic New Balance sneakers, hoodies, jeans, and t-shirts, with ironic catchphrases like, "Pro-Cashmere. Pro-Cotton. Pro-Choice."
6) The only requests I get as a female comedy writer are to discuss sexism in comedy, instead of political satire about how Sarah Palin is so sick she gives swine flu or scripts like Crones: The Musical! or commercials, maybe, Femedy: A bubble gum birth control for tweens who don't want to ovulate. Period.
5) Late-night comedy requires a male point-of-view, and girls, even ones closer to menopause than teething, can only express themselves in glittery pink (which, fyi, typing in does not fund cancer research).
4) As a lady, I automatically cost less, and in a business where money talks, how will I be taken seriously? I mean funnily.
3) I didn't graduate from Harvard so I lack the cultural capital to craft the erudite, intellectual fodder typical of late-night comedies, like the masturbating bear or gift wrapped genitalia.
2) Hollywood would have to make major changes to catch up with medicine, law, even engineering, in its hiring practices, and we all know how open television is to change. It only took 30 years (and millions of dollars) before CNN let Native American Lou Dobbs quit. (I mean, leave to spend time with his family.)
1) I'd have to be funny and learn how to play Dungeons and Dragons.
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See Jeff Norman's Profile
So it's okay to gratuitously mock the physical appearance of females just as Catie gratuitously mocked the physical appearance of males?
Just want to verify what the rules are today!
Catie,
My impression of your top ten list was that it was not supposed to be "funny". It was truthful and sad. The folks who read it expecting to find some big laughs in it missed your point completely. Female comedy writers can be extremely funny when given the chance. I think, perhaps, had you not made reference to a top ten list then your article would have been better received and understood. Just my thought on the subject. I found the content to be achingly true.
"I am physically incapable OF HANDLING the job"
wow men really don't get women at all!
Underappreciated for wit and humour - you and the brilliant Jenny McCarthy!
See Catie Lazarus's Profile
It is fixed. I apologize for any funky formatting, it may be my Wordpress and/or brain. (I was dropped on my head as a small child. It is not excuse but a long way to say, I hope it's semi-coherent.
From the shows you mentioned to many websites I have visited most of the jokes and articles revolve around male genitalia and sex with loose women. John Belushi was notoriously anti-female comediennes and said it loudly and often that women weren't funny and badgered Lorne Michaels to get rid of Gilda Radner, Lorraine Newman and Jane Curtin. Lisa Campenelli, whom I abhor for her degrading sense of "humor", has fit in nicely with "the boys" of comedy because she continually debases herself in a sexual content. This so-called brand of comedy, by all persons previously mentioned, is misogynistic and I find myself avoiding those shows and sites that endorse and encourage this type of 'humor'. I hope Wanda Sykes new show will flourish and that ALL of her writers will be women. I am still waiting for comedy shows that feature stand-up comics to have more than one token woman per show. Guess I have a long wait ahead of me.
ROFL@ 1) I'd have to be funny and learn how to play Dungeons and Dragons.
HEY! There are funny nerds who never played D&D~! I'm sure there are! ...Somewhere...
Hysterical....and even more hysterical that men don't think this is funny....LOL
Your correct you would have to be funny, even if you were a lady boy.
Or maybe because, if this top-ten list is representative, Ms. Lazarus can't actually write funny.
There's definitely discrimination in the field, but this list is angry and sarcastic without ever approaching laugh-out-loud funny. There's no rhythm to these jokes, and the grammar is atrocious, as if posted moments after completing the first draft, not worked over before being presented to its audience.
Oh come on, 'Femedy: A bubble gum birth control for tweens who don't want to ovulate. Period.' had to at least garner a giggle?
See Catie Lazarus's Profile
I apologized for my illiteracy et al, had more to do with my limited computer skills, but appreciate your concerns, on behalf of Strunk & White.
the top ten reasons women don't work for late night are;
#10-6 are: joke writing sessions are just like college, nerds feel uncomfortable with the presence of real women
#'s 5-1 are: David Letterman is creepy
I find it funny that David Letterman seems to take himself so serious lately after he was dissed by John McCain (who made a special trip to apologize), David has made a career of being stupid & now he's pretending to be important? also, he's still on the air after admitting that he hit on & made out with some of his female staff?
I was totally with you until you dissed Dungeons and Dragons.
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