Amazon announced today five new pilots that it plans to debut at the end of the month. Though the two dramas and three comedies have little in common, they do share one similarity — they’re all created by men. Unsurprisingly, 4 of the 5 shows feature male protagonists, too. (In a strange bit of irony, the one female-led pilot is called Hysteria.)
That’s not to say that we won’t check them out just because they happen to have male showrunners. But looking back on all the non-children’s programming Amazon has greenlit so far, it’s dispiriting to see that only 2 of the 17* shows (12%) it’s offered thus far were created by women: Jill Soloway’s trans drama Transparent and Lily Sparks, Price Peterson and Ryan Sandoval’s (now canceled) animated comedy Supanatural. That’s unfortunately in line with the 12% rate of female showrunners on the other channels and media promising prestige TV.
The percentage of Amazon pilots with female protagonists is admittedly a lot better at 35%, though that’s still nowhere near parity levels.
Meanwhile, Orange is the New Black, which demographically looks like nothing else on TV, continues to reign as Netflix’s most popular program and bask in its 12 Emmy nominations.
* Those 17 shows are Alpha House, Betas, Browsers, Dark Minions, Supanatural, Those Who Can’t, Zombieland, Bosch, The After, Mozart in the Jungle, Transparent, The Rebels, The Cosmopolitans, Really, Red Oaks, Hand of God, and Hysteria. Onion News Network was not counted because it was ultimately picked up by IFC.
[via TheWrap]
