Conversations about pay equality, the #MeToo movement, and gender and race representation have dominated cultural headlines lately, and The Hollywood Reporter’s recent Showrunner Summit was no different. The publication hosted two roundtables — one for comedy series showrunners, another for drama. Five of the 12 participants were women: Lena Waithe (“The Chi”), Pamela Adlon (“Better Things”), Whitney Cummings (“Roseanne”), Amy Sherman-Palladino (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), and Courtney Kemp (“Power”).
The showrunners discussed the unique responsibilities that go along with running a TV show — such as filming sex scenes and getting network approval for controversial plotlines — as well as how their jobs as storytellers have changed in the post-Weinstein world.
Highlights from the Showrunner Summit are below.
Waithe on maintaining a safe work environment: “I’ve been very involved in Time’s Up and that movement, and for season two, we’re making sure that women feel safe on the set and we’re hyper-aware of what that means because there are sex scenes there. We want to make sure we’re talking to these actresses and also talking to our male actors and making sure they’re aware. Because I don’t play. I’m like, ‘Look, it’s the city of Chicago, people die every day. So if you wanna play that game and be disrespectful or misbehave on set with an actress or anyone, I will happily call Showtime and say, ‘This person has to go,’ and you will get shot up and it’ll be a wonderful finale.'”
Kemp on shooting sex scenes: “On sex scene days, I actually have thrown people off set. ‘It’s a closed set, so, like, why are you here? What is your function? If you’re not holding the boom or operating a camera and you’re not holding the robe. … Like, there are 10 jobs that are necessary for a sex scene. Other than that, get off set.’ And I will go around and boot people. In a way, there is something about having a woman showrunner, which means that I have asked you to take your clothes off and go through this sex scene and I’ve promised you you’re going to be safe on my set and you believed me because I was also female.”
Sherman-Palladino on #MeToo’s effect on “Maisel”: “My show came of age, for the eight episodes that I’ve done so far, when Weinstein and all that started happening and suddenly people were like, ‘Oh, it takes on new relevance.’ I’m like, ‘Really? Because women have been gettin’ a finger up their twat for years.’ … If we start not being able to do stories because viewed through the lens of #MeToo or this or that … that you can’t suddenly have anyone have an apolitical position or thinking about the message that it’s sending out, there is no comedy. Comedy is over, it’s dead.”
Adlon on network interactions in the #MeToo era: “Before the #MeToo thing happened, I would get the obligatory letter from my network, ‘Dear showrunners, please hire women.’ And I would be like, ‘What the fuuuuck?’ ‘Please hire all diversities and whatever.’ I’m like, ‘Is this not …?’ (Motions to herself.) So, now I have [#MeToo] to tackle and people are like, ‘You can address this all directly in your show. This is your voice and your show.’ And it’s like, everybody just relax. Let me try to maintain the climate of my show. … We want to be able to tell whatever story we wanna tell. My network never says no to anything, never mandates anything, but when it came to the storyline at the beginning of the season about my 16-year-old daughter dating a 35-year-old, they were like, ‘Eeehhh.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know that she slept with him. I honestly don’t. He is procuring her. I want to tell this story.'”
Waithe on pitching as an “other”: “The truth is, going in to pitch is hard, period, but what people don’t realize is that when you’re someone who is ‘othered’ — and it’s not just for black people, it’s if you’re a trans person, if you’re someone who maybe has a disability and you want to come in and tell a story about that — if you’re sitting with people for whom that’s not their experience, yeah, if you have something that’s phenomenal and they can just kind of relate and get it, they’ll do it, but oftentimes there is a level of not understanding and not being able to relate. Also, the top execs, the people with greenlight power, they live in Brentwood, their kids go to private school. It’s ‘Big Little Lies.’ So, if you’re not pitching ‘Big Little Lies,’ sometimes they’re like, ‘Huh, I don’t get it.’ Or they say yes and then try to make it more relatable to them.”
Kemp on representation onscreen and off: “When we start to say only this person can write this narrative, those of us who are of color or somewhat othered, that means we can only write ourselves. Uh-uh, I ain’t signin’ up for that. I am not going to say that only people of color can write people of color because that means only white people can write white people and that’s not OK. Every writer should be able to write anything, if you do the research and you’re sensitive enough to ask the questions.”
Waithe on creating successful representation: “Look, almost 80 percent of showrunners are white, straight men. And as the times change that number will hopefully change because that means most of what we’re watching is a very similar narrative. Even if people are writing different stories, you can’t help it, that’s where you come from. So, a big thing for me is if you’re a white, straight, male showrunner and you want to tell a story that isn’t like your life, that’s totally cool but you’ve gotta have somebody whose life you’re writing about right next to you. And you gotta be asking them. Because what I don’t love is the white male straight showrunner who acts as if they have the audacity to tell a narrative that isn’t theirs without asking for help.”
