Busting the Myth: What 'Tweeners Are Watching and Why

I was a bit surprised to get an invitation to a Humanitas Master Writer’s workshop called “Busting the Myth: What ‘Tweeners Are Watching and Why.” I must admit I hadn’t given much thought to what we are saying to young girls about the roles of women, not in our primetime fare, but in our programming for children. So I went to the panel discussion at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences where we were treated to a special presentation by SEE JANE, a research and advocacy organization founded by Academy Award Winner Geena Davis. The topic: gender images in the media specifically geared towards the young audience.

Like the rest of society, film and television has been rife with a disparity of roles for females as opposed to their male counterparts in terms of availability and substance. But like in other professions and areas, we have made significant strides in those directions. While the disparity still exists in adult fare, especially for older women, the playing field is a lot more level today than it used to be. How surprising, then, to learn that while there is pretty much parity for females and males in live action aimed at our children, there’s a big disparity in animation and an even larger one in videogames.

Panelists were actor GEENA DAVIS, who co-founded the SEE JANE organization in conjunction with the DADS AND DAUGHTERS national non-profit; DR. STACY SMITH, researcher for See Jane and associate professor at USC; BEN SILVERMAN, executive producer of Ugly Betty and The Office and founder/CEO of Reveille Productions; ERIC COLEMAN, vice president/executive producer of animation & production for Nickelodeon, overseeing Sponge Bob; JONAS AGIN, senior vice president of The Tom Lynch Co.; DOREEN SPICER, co-writer of “Jump In!” film for Disney; and KARIN GIST, co-writer of “Jump In!” film for Disney. Moderator was CYNTHIA LITTLETON, deputy editor of News for “Daily Variety.”

Dr. Stacy Smith reminded us how in the ‘60s, there was concern about violence onscreen in children’s programming and in the 70s, the focus was on children exploitation and sexual exposure. Today, there are grave concerns surrounding sexual stereotyping in programming designed for children and 'tweeners. There’s a concern about equity, because repeated exposure to sexual stereotyping leads to a sexist, gender view of the world. ‘See Jane’ is attempting to reduce gender stereotyping for female children and increase percentages of roles for girls and women.

Actress Geena Davis summed it up best when she said she created See Jane because as an actor, she’s constantly aware that there are fewer roles for women. She admits to selfishly wanting to play baseball roles rather than the cheerleader ones. And she managed to do so… 13 years ago. The two movies that she made back to back, Thelma and Louise and A League of Our Own, increased awareness because she met many women who told her how those movies changed their lives. At the time, the media touted that these movies would start a wave of female buddy films and female baseball films. Unfortunately, it took 10 years for the next one to appear.

As she watched shows with her young daughter, she saw lots of gender imbalance and disparity. Unfortunately, she explained, women will watch shows about boys, but men won’t watch shows about girls. This is said to be human nature. But is that true? she asked herself. Could it be growing up with this disparity, not human nature, which took kids into adulthood perpetuating this inequality into adult fare? What if we change it from the beginning, so that they grow up with a more balanced viewpoint? Perhaps then, they’ll carry that into adulthood. That was the genesis for See Jane.

Dr. Stacy Smith supplied the empirical resources, for she studies gender balance and the amount of roles of male and females in children programming and movies, utilizing G-rated films and 1,000 children shows. Her findings for single-speaking characters aimed at children and tweeners was this:
TV content m:f 1.72:1
Movies content m:f 2.5:1
Videogames content m:f 6:1

In live action, there is almost parity between the sexes. G-rated–TV shows are close to parity. These same ratios are seen in adult and TVG fare. The highest disparities of females to males are in animation. While TVG shows equity, TVY and TVY-7, in particular, need improvement.

But in films, there is a curious phenomenon at work today: women more likely cast in traditional roles, while males (or the male personality) are often portrayed as less intelligent, more action, more humorous, dumb, strong and bad.

And while multi-channels and more media outlets make it seem like it should be easier to find one’s niche, the reality is that all we get is more of the same.

As a network representative, Eric Coleman explained that when a project comes in, he first looks at the content and idea. He doesn’t seek out gender shows to do, but the reality is that certain networks have more girls watching than guys. The bottom line, he reminded, is that “hit shows are the driving force of programming. We’re giving them what they want.”

Doreen Spicer answered him that perhaps we should be looking at it as “something like: ‘If you build it, they will come.’ – If you do it, and it’s successful, then other people will copy it.”

Coleman went on to elaborate that networks want strong female characters and balance because it’s smart for business. “But it’s not enough to say, ‘got to have more females.’ You need to bring something to the table… a show that’s so awesome that it’s gonna break through.”

One such series brought to the table this season is Ugly Betty. Executive producer Ben Silverman thinks it’s fantastic how many people embraced the character and suggested the enthusiasm shows that many people want this kind of program. In the Spanish world, Ugly Betty is seen as successfully challenging the stereotype of what is beauty. Its predecessor originated in Columbia -- a country under attack for corruption -- where Miss Columbia is more popular than the president. Hence, there, Ugly Betty stands for purity, an absence of the corrupt world, not the vapid world often shown.

In the US, however, Ugly Betty is seen more from the looks angle. It’s ‘The Ugly Duckling’ syndrome and its popularity points out an underserved audience. Even so, it didn’t surprise Ben that the first note he got from the Network was “We need an angry guy.” The audience laughed but Ben said he had been okay with that note.

One of the things that makes this kind of programming difficult, Eric offered, is that we’ve shut down the discussion of race and gender politics in the real world.

To which Ben proudly responded that The Office may insult many different groups but it also shines a light on problems through its humor – e.g., who’s in prison, who’s running the company. Hence, with Michael Scott as today’s ‘Archie Bunker’ who sees his female boss just as a sex object, Ben sees The Office as promoting dialogue on the subject.

It was then that Doreen Spicer and Karin Gist weighed in. They had done a very successful coming-of-age film for Disney, called Jump In! It’s about double dutch jump roping tournament in inner city Brooklyn. Originally meant to be a movie about just girls, the studio wanted a boy in. I suspect the studio was thinking along the lines of what Geena said: That boys won’t watch girls without a significant guy interest in it. But she didn’t elaborate.

Doreen Spicer was very familiar with skipping rope and she knew boys didn’t do double dutch, especially not in Brooklyn. Since you have to give the studio what it wants, she asked herself, how can I get a boy in? Doreen decided that the only way a boy would get involved in a ‘girl thing’ is if he’s hooked in by thinking it’s interesting and fun, then finds it challenging, plus… he likes a girl doing it and wants to spend time with her.

Karin explained that then the central question becomes, will he be seen as a wuss by his male peers if he joins the double dutch team? He’s fearful that he will be teased about something only girls do. The idea of creating a script of a boy doing something out of the box excited Karin, for most scripts have girls coming out of the box, doing things, not boys.

What came out of these ruminations is a movie in which a boy, whose family owns a boxing gym, is expected to be the third-generation boxing champ of the family by winning the Golden Gloves. When he is forced to take his younger sister to a double dutch tournament, he discovers two things: jumping rope takes talent and creativity and the girl he has a crush on is on the team. He joins the team as they prepare for the city-wide competition and has to overcome obstacles such as a bully disseminating a picture of him double dutching with the caption of ‘loser’ and a dad who sees this as the reason his heart isn’t in the ring and labels him weak. In the end, he learns to follow his heart, not someone else’s dream, and about family support and love.

Turning gender stereotypes on their head was so satisfying to Karin that she craves this kind of projects now: the boy-driven, out-of-the-box kind. The point of tweeners shows like this is to ‘empower’ the kid. To have them see a kid finding his dad dumb as a cliché. To have them explore their inner strength without having their parents look stupid.

When the floor was given to the audience to ask questions, a woman asked how parents could combat this gender stereotyping. Geena Davis explained that parents presenting their views to their child while watching the show with their child can mitigate a lot of bad parts. For example, she said, if you are watching violence, ask the child, “Wouldn’t that hurt if it happened to you?”

All agreed that the danger is for writers to write down to the child audience, especially when teenagers think they know everything and speak from that place. To this, Geena added that animation writers have told her it’s too hard because the girl needs to be more beautiful and smarter than anyone, stronger. The stereotype has become that the girl is the smartest and does the best and is the best behaved. Karin Gist agreed with Geena, for even writing Jump In!, she had to write the character description as “pretty but…”

The answer to this might be to have more girl characters, so each character doesn’t have to be everything – doesn’t have to represent every different type of woman. More choices working and playing together means none need be the spokesperson for all girls or womanhood.

Jonas Agin talked about the network side – saying that broadcasters want to be responsible and want to make the message clear. In fact, they will allow a character to be as flawed as you want, as long as he/she is redeemed in 22 minutes and has a clear message behind it. Networks have a strong sense of responsibility, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because their audience want it. A big part of the appeal of The Simpsons is that Homer may be the worst dad ever, but he shows he has a lot of heart. People hunger for that heart, they just want to be entertained without the heaviness of being lectured.

Ben added that one of the reasons he got the call for Ugly Betty is because the pharmaceutical companies want female-skewing programs. Bringing new revenue sources to television, pharmaceuticals believe it’s the women who make their dumb, put-upon husbands get the colon cancer drug that the husbands wouldn’t necessarily get on their own. So they want to provide programming that will keep the women watching.

But there's still a long way to go. Even though CBS is shifting in personality with a woman running it and the CW is clearly programmed by a woman, there has been no systemic change in the number of women in movies (17%) since 2004, even with some women in the top positions. And, Ben educated us, women watch more reality shows than men. How this all affects what our children are exposed to remains to be seen.

Showrunners: "The Secret to Having a Successful Career"

“The secret to having successful career is to find other talented writers to work with.” So said the showrunners in a panel discussion at an event at Sony held by FIN (Film Industry Network). Four showrunners were invited to speak to a group of writers, actors, directors and producers in a little room off the big Atrium in the once-MGM building across the street from the actual studio lot. It’s a beautiful airy atrium, which has display cases from various Sony movies.

While we were waiting for the doors to open, I explored the atrium and the exhibits Sony had placed there for visitors to peruse. I’m going to scatter pictures of those exhibits throughout the content here, not because they pertain to the showrunners panel -- except in that this represents content from screenwriters and showrunners -- but because it’s nice to have something visual to focus on.

Showrunners on the panel were JOHN MORANVILLE, currently of Drive, JIM PARRIOTT, currently of Ugly Betty, BOB BENDETSON, formerly of Coach and Newhart, and BOB FRASER, the moderator, formerly of Benson.

John Moranville started as DGA Trainee on “Bullitt” – which he left when he got his ‘dream job’ as a $65 per week PA on ABC Sports Golf Tournament. He worked his way up to Producer/Director of ABC Sports. Then in the mid 70s, he became a ABC executive in Daytime Programming, developing for Ryan’s Hope, Family Feud, games, and soaps.

Family Feud gave him his FU money (if you think you know what those letters stand for, you’d be right) so now he doesn’t have to work on whatever project they throw at him, he can work on what he wants. After being fired there, he went to Spelling where he produced and directed Vegas and Love Boat, Dynasty for 5 years and Hotel. Then for Paramount, he produced MacGyver for seven years and Pacific Blue and is now producing Drive which premieres on April 15.

Jim Parriott is a baby boomer with a lot of hyphenates: writer/creator, director, executive producer/showrunner. For me, he is best known for his syndicated cult hit and Gemini Award nominated Forever Knight. But for most people these days, he is probably known as the former EP and showrunner of Grey’s Anatomy. He’s now EP and showrunner of Ugly Betty. Among his other credits are Push, Nevada, American Embassy, Voyagers, Elvis the Early Years, and Matt Waters.

In 1999, he worked with novelist Anne Rice, co-writing with her a CBS’s TV pilot Anne Rice’s Rag and Bone.

Showrunner BOB BENDETSON has earned many nominations: 7 Emmy noms, 4 Golden Globe noms, and a Writers Guild nom. He also garnered 2 People’s Choice Awards. He’s written for The Jeffersons, Facts of Life, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Alf, Newhart, Coach, Home Improvement, and The Simpsons.

BOB FRASER moderated. He started acting at 12, but when Broadway stopped calling, he bought a theater to run in South Dakota and later opened up Comedy Store called Punchline Café on Hollywood Blvd. When faced with the choice of going to Alaska as an actor in “Terra Nova” or a staff job on Love Boat, he chose the latter. That panned out because two years later, he was showrunner on Benson.

These guys offered us great advice and insights, mainly through stories they related about working on various shows. However, I hesitate to repeat these inside tales in such a public venue. Even so, there are a couple of fun things I can repeat: For example, when Bob Bendetson was an Executive Story Editor on Alf, everybody quit. The show’s creator told Bob, “If you stay, I’ll make you showrunner.” I’d like to say that’s a nice hefty promotion, but I’m sure there’s more of a story there than meets the eye and if known, wouldn’t make it so appealing.

To which Bob Fraser offered his own story of how after a year on Benson as producer, he was offered a Co-Executive producer credit, but with little money attached. He told them “to keep your title, give me a bucketful of money.” You always go for the money, he said, because you put up with a lot for it. This way when things get rough, you can remind yourself of the money you’re making.

Fraser stayed at producer level (but with making a lot of money) until Tony Thomas felt it didn’t fit the image of their show to have a ‘producer’ making so much money. So they came up with the title of showrunner.

In the early years of his career, Bob Benetson lived a schizoid existence while he was writing scripts for William Morris’s “B” actors. He said that he’d be delivering meat to the same restaurants in the morning that he’d be going over scripts with actors like George Hamilton at dinner in the evening.

In addition to such amusing anecdotes, the showrunners did give us interesting insights and advice on their positions. Bob Bendetson offered that a showrunner has to be both psychologist and creative father figure to the actors and other writers. For the happier people are, the more creative they are. He warns that if a show doesn’t work, the writers can be rewriting network notes from 8pm to 4am. A showrunner also needs to make his actors feel important. Even the puppet on Alf needed to feel like he was getting paid what he was worth. Or in the words of Barry Kemp: treat them like 2-year olds with lots of power.

Hearing some of the nightmarish stories the other showrunners told, Parriott exclaimed, “Thank God I’m in drama!” However, he did admit that in the late 70s and early 80s, actors during the cocaine era were no joy to work with. “A coked-up actor drinks to come down.” Thus, far too often in those years, they had to deal with actors who were coked-up drunks who couldn’t remember lines and swore all the time instead. In tandem with forgetting lines, drunk actors would break down and cry; hence as the showrunner trying to get episodes in the can, he’d end up holding their hands just to get them through the shoot.

Fraser agreed, saying that he loved actors but when drink and drugs come into play, you often just have to deal with it. If the actor is in a certain position, everyone has to overlook it, and the showrunner has to just handle it. He related an altercation he had with a star of one of his shows and how the studio execs took the actor’s side because the show had been picked up for a couple more years. “Name of the game is whatever it takes to make the star happy.”

Parriott mentioned that it’s important for a showrunner to have rules like ‘no call on weekends’ or actors will be calling the showrunner with their personal and professional problems all hours of the night.

Parriott also laid out the most important parts of showrunning:
1. writing
2. editing
3. telling everybody they did a good job.

“Everybody wants to hear they are doing a good job,” Parriott reminded. Especially the crew as they don’t have the director telling them how good their performances are every other scene. It’s good to buy the crew stuff like a coffee cart or taco shop once a week.

I remember when I was on Viper – every Friday night we were on stage (meaning on the Paramount lot, not location), we had a gourmet coffee cart throughout the evening shoot. When I was on Joan of Arcadia we had many thank you gifts from the studio and from directors: coffee carts and ice cream trucks, even ‘back and arm’ massages from masseurs brought in for the day. Those went a long way to making us feel appreciated. Our next-door stage was for The Guardian and sometimes they’d bring in a truck serving hamburgers like from In and Out.

On the topic of writing in the room and finding writers for the room, Bendetson explained how important vetting writers was. He would get sitcom submissions from agents and read 5 to 10 pages. If he isn’t hooked in that time – “meaning I don’t laugh” – that’s it for that script and writer. When shows get picked up, they have to vet writers fast, because once you find those you consider top writers, you usually find they have lots of offers already.

He explained how a sitcom writing staff worked to those in the audience interested in comedy. First thing the writers would do is talk about what’s going on in their personal lives until they figure out what could translate into a good story. Then they beat out that story. The writers go off and write, come back to get or give suggestions, and then work on the timing. Then they table the script, which is where the actors come in and read their parts in front of everyone. Sometimes the producers have to fill in on the roles if the actors aren’t available to do their roles themselves, for one reason or another.

Parriott described a different process for drama writing. For him, once the story goes out of room, it never comes back in. He believes in empowering writers. This means giving writers notes, but letting them do the rewrite and hand it into the network. Shonda’s approach is somewhat different: she works with the writers and then lets the writers rewrite the script once it comes back, but she also lets writers go to the network themselves to get notes, so it’s a great learning process for them.

Once again, Parriott described another policy he has – the “no asshole policy.” He explained that nowadays there’s only six weeks between bringing writers on and prep, so you have to have people who can work together. As I think of it, he’s not the only one who has that policy. I worked on a pilot with probably one of the best crews I’ve ever seen, with everyone going out of their way to watch each other’s backs… when I complimented my boss on the crew he put together, he, too revealed he had a ‘no asshole policy.’ “Life’s too short to not work with good people,” he said.

In answering a question on what the networks want these days, Parriott explained that the network wants to know the pilot and six episodes. They want a half a page on it and they want to know where they’re going. When Shonda and Jim pitched Grey’s Anatomy, they did even more – they had all 13 episodes, the arc of a whole season. Also, when go into pilot pitch these days, you have to pitch other medias as well.

To answer a question on boarding Grey’s Anatomy, he explained they had one entire board of medical stories and one of other interests.

Moranville revealed that when he was on Pacific Blue, their writers were mainly from General Hospital. Hence, they were used to cranking out scripts. They could easily go into a season with 6-8 scripts ready. Whereas Drive is a totally different situation. The young FOX executives are giving them so much interference that they “don’t have pages to shoot on Tuesday.” He knows where he is shooting (in an orange grove) and who is in it, but he doesn’t have a script yet.

On rewriting one’s own stuff, Jim said to find a passion project and keep writing on it, for it helps through the dead spots everyone has. Emily Brody – American Embassy was such a project for him. “Ability to withhold services is the only power you have,” said Parriott about writing. A network could buy your pilot for the sole purpose of killing it.

On a question about working with actors, Parriott admitted that actors will most seriously test a showrunner. The trick is to have the answers, he revealed. On the series, From Here to Eternity, Don Johnson tested him by wanting to know why a camera was in a particular spot. He had an answer and told him. Next day, DJ came back with a better idea. Instead of being put out by the actor having something better, he went with it. And from then on, he got along fine with DJ. That is one valuable secret to getting along with your actors.