Back in March I posted a piece about women screenwriters in LA mostly cribbed from Where Have All the Women Writers Gone? a post by Nealy Swanson in Research Wrap. As Nealy pointed out there aren’t a lot of writers on staff at the top rated US series.
Suddenly this weekend, the post got a flurry of hits and comments including this one:
Indeed Hart Hanson, showrunner of Bones, had mentioned the post in a tweet and that seems to have been what stirred up the new interest in the post.
I took the opportunity to conduct a mini-Twitter interview with Hart — my first ever Twitter interview btw.
(Can a tweet be off the record? I think not.)
The point of all this is that there is still a bias against women writers, that is clear. But there are a growing number of showrunners, who like Hart, have no problem finding qualified women to write their series and find good reasons to hire them. It seems insane and inane that we are still dealing with this in 2010. I think it’s great that Hart is proud of his record and wants it acknowledged. I hope his peers are paying attention.
Diane
Heh, I almost warned you that I posted a link to that post in an exchange with Daniel at HitFix, then Hart Hanson replied which got some people on Twitter in a tizzy who hadn’t read the original context and thought Daniel and I were slagging Bones (we were slagging 24 and the top 20 as listed originally). I figured you might get some comments, too 🙂
Can’t wait to see the controversy if a list of the white/non-white writer ratio is published!