Discussion Thread

[espreite]

Hello again! If you haven't already seen, some interesting articles have been posted in the Prompt/Resource post, like A Thin Line Between Stereotype and Satire from Racialicious on Olivia Munn's first appearance and a behind the scenes article on TDS's editing process (thanks, chatananasand seagullsong!) Any thoughts on them?

And of course, talk about what's going on in the shows, or anything else you find relevant :)

Comments

[politicette]

That behind the scenes article is really cute. Thanks for the read!

[ceilidh_ann]

I found this article really interesting:

http://jezebel.com/5570545/comedy-of-errors-behind-the-scenes-of-the--daily-shows-lady-problem

[erinptah]

Wow. That's...deeply depressing. I'd heard some of Lauren Weedman's story before, and even she acknowledges her lack-of-social-filter, but combined with some of the other female correspondents' reflections - blech.

[sarken]

"The writers want to be able to write for a female reporter — but not too female," says Weedman. She says it was hard to figure out what that meant exactly. "I would pitch something like, can I do a segment on women's self help or on fitness. And they didn't want anything like that…Ed Helms got to have his mole removed [in a segment], but they weren't going to do, a women goes to the gynecologist. They felt like at the time it wasn't their audience."

I think they're kind of right about women's self help and a trip to the gynecologist not being their audience. I'm not looking for a female correspondent to show up and do segments on "woman things." Really, I just want to see some smart, funny women mocking politics and media like the men do. Just because someone is a woman doesn't mean her entire schtick has to be, you know, that she's a woman.

[erinptah]

It doesn't have to be, of course - but it sounds like these were her suggestions. There are certainly mockable media things that are targeted at women, which makes women more likely to notice them and come up with ideas about how to satirize them.

And I can't imagine "some bizarre trend in self-help books directed at women" is inherently less mockable or lol-worthy than "some bizarre trend in tourism directed at gay people", just to take one example. For that matter, everything Sarah Haskins does is patently hilarious, and her show is straight out of the mold of classic TDS bits like "Ad Nauseam". (Random sidenote: if TDS ever hired Sarah Haskins, I think I would implode with glee.)

[politicette]

oh lol i should have read the comments here before i posted

whoops

[neonglitterati]

Ugh. It makes me just so steamed up. I would like to work in and around comedy in the future, and it's just like f. why try.

I'm still going to apply and such for internship positions but this entire article, comments and the ontd_p comments make it seem like a very daunting prospect and a laughable dream.

[erinptah]

I was kind of uncomfortable with the way the comments on Racialicious kept veering into debates over whether she's Vietnamese Enough™. Combined with the way some of the "she deepthroated a hot dog for the lulz!" complaints have a whiff of how she's The Wrong Kind Of Woman™, and it feels like there's this onus on her to Represent All People Of Her Gender, Race, And Ethnicity from the get-go.

And, listen, I get that these are valid issues to think about. But I've seen the debuts of all the current correspondents/contributors except Sam and Lewis, and none of them has inspired anything even close to this level of WTF NO. Can't help but feel like that's correlated with her identity - and I wish people would give her a few segments (individual ones, too, not just ensemble ones) to see how she handles TDS before jumping straight to Okay They Hired A Woman Of Color But She's The Wrong Woman Of Color.

[politicette]

Does anybody want to post this article? http://jezebel.com/5570545/comedy-of-errors-behind-the-scenes-of-the--daily-shows-lady-problem

I would but I am too shy. <_<

[neonglitterati]

I am taking my anger and shouting out into the void but:

I was unimpressed tonight w/ Jon. At the top of the show, he says "Our guest tonight: Helen Mirren. She's pretty."
And then he goes off on a rant and mentions the Jezebel article "Jezebel thinks I'm a sexiest prick"

Instead of saying Helen Mirren, she won an Oscar, he goes go "she's pretty". I don't know if it's just me, but I was like really? really? Really.

What are your thoughts on this subject? I'm sorry if this isn't coherent but it's late :(

[erinptah]

Hm. If TDS introduced all the female guests with "she's pretty" and all the male guests with "he has such-and-such credentials", that would be a problem. But they're just as apt to do things like introduce George Clooney with "...and I will probably ask him out", or gush over the brilliant writing of Doris Kearns Goodwin.

On top of which, that was only the top-of-the-show joke, not their entire interaction. It's not like he didn't bring up Helen Mirren's Oscar when introducing her for the actual interview. And the conversation was about her acting and honors (and the definition of frozen custard), not "how did you get so pretty? Yes, yes, you have a movie, but let's talk about your makeup."

And as jokes go - there's also this pervasive stereotype that Pretty Women = Young Women, you know? Every time an older actress does a role that involves her being an object of desire, there's a flurry of news articles marveling over The Ground-Breaking Idea That Older Women Can Be Sexy. So I do appreciate how TDS is so unselfconscious about that aspect. Helen Mirren is sixty-four and she's pretty and they feel absolutely no need to comment on that being weird or unusual.

(...I don't have any coherent thoughts about the Jezebel mention. They acknowledged its existence, which is more than they have historically given to random hatemongering Internet trolls, so that could in itself be taken as a token of respect; but it's not like they really engaged with it, just namechecked it, which doesn't give us much to discuss.)

[ceilidh_ann]

Jon, I love you but you missed the point of Jezebel's post. I don't think there's much to discuss since it was 1 line but Jezebel didn't call him sexist, they just pointed out the disproportionate number of male to female correspondents, and today the same problem with guests.

And semi related but yes, Helen Mirren is hot.

[erinptah]

...er, Jezebel also said:

"[TDS is] a boys' club where women's contributions are often ignored and dismissed."

"Not long after the continued tension [between Stewart and Smithberg] led Smithberg to quit in 2003, sources say Stewart refused to allow her onstage to accept the show's Emmy, even though her work contributed to the win."

"James Dixon, the comedy agent who recruited [Adrienne Frost] and still represents both Stewart and Colbert screamed at her [while firing her], 'They [Jon&co.] think you're crazy.'"

"It's hard not to conclude that looks mattered more for women [in terms of being hired] than for men."

That's a lot more than just pointing out numbers.