This pilot season looks like it will be a historic one for women directors and creators. According to a report from Variety, “female creators and directors saw gains virtually across the board.” The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements are at least partially responsible for this growth, as feminist activism has inspired networks to look “for ways to increase female representation.”
For the most part, those efforts have been a success. There are more women creators at ABC, CBS, and The CW this pilot season than last year. Thirteen female creators are behind ABC pilots this season, as opposed to 2017–18’s nine women creators. Among them are Courtney Kemp (“Get Christie Love”), Diablo Cody (“Most Likely To”), and Liz Meriwether and J.J. Philbin (“Single Parents”).
Eight of this year’s 18 CBS pilots are women-created — compared to last year’s four — including Gloria Calderon Kellett’s “History of Them”, Michelle Nader, Kristin Hensley and Jen Smedley’s “I Mom So Hard,” and Diane English’s “Murphy Brown” revival.
The CW features seven women creators on six of its nine pilots. The “Charmed” (Jessica O’Toole and Amy Rardin) and “Roswell” (Carina Adly MacKenzie) reboots are among them. Only two CW pilots hailed from women last year.
As for the remaining Big Five networks, NBC’s pilots boast four women creators, even with last year, and Fox features six female creators versus last year’s seven. Aseem Batra and Jessica Goldberg are among NBC’s pilot creators and Liz Meriwether, Lake Bell, Ilene Chaiken, and Melissa Scrivner-Love are some of Fox’s.
On the directing side, all of the networks hired more women as pilot directors than in the 2017–18 season; women will helm 32 percent of this year’s pilots, a marked increase from last year’s nine percent. Six women will direct ABC pilots, such as Regina King, Pam Fryman, and Liz Friedlander. Only two women directed pilots for ABC last year.
Fryman, Rosemary Rodriguez, Victoria Mahoney, and Zetna Fuentes are the four helmers directing CBS pilots this year. Last year Fryman was the only female pilot director the network hired.
Over at NBC, seven women will direct 50 percent of the network’s 2018–19 pilots, including Gail Mancuso, Julie Anne Robinson, and Minkie Spiro. The network hired zero female pilot directors last year.
The CW featured no women pilot directors for 2017–18, either, but this year has hired Rachel Lee Goldenberg and Julie Plec to helm dramedy “Playing Dead” and the “Roswell” reboot, respectively.
Four women — Bell, Kat Coiro, Sanaa Hamri, and Patricia Riggen — are directing Fox pilots this year, as opposed to last year’s one.
The general increase in women pilot directors and creators is encouraging — and it’s a welcome surprise to learn not only that studios felt “immense pressure” to improve female representation behind-the-scenes, but actually did something about it. Hopefully this positive trajectory will continue next pilot season, the one after that, and beyond.
