Why Aren't The Networks Picking Up Any Pilots Created By Women?

(Amy Sherman-Pallidino, creator of The Gilmore Girls, with star Lauren Graham)

Jezebel asks, "Why Aren't the Networks Picking Up Any Pilots Created By Women?" And it's a good question, though it does explain a few things (like Big Love).

Apparently, "3 out of 33 comedy scripts that went to pilot were written by women. That is 9%," while only "6 out of 36 drama scripts went to pilot were written by women. That is 16%." In case you're bad at math, those numbers aren't pretty.

So what's the deal? Are we still dealing with a boys club in Hollywood? How else do you explain this ridiculousness (from WomenandHollywood.com):

NBC had no comedies written by women and Fox had no dramas written by women
HBO had one female written pilot in two years. FX nothing. Lifetime nothing. USA nothing.

To quote Jezebel's hortense,"LIFETIME! Television for motherfucking women! In the words of Angelina from Jersey Shore: "Um, hello?!?"

Um, hello!?!? indeed.

The CBS Super Anti-Choice Bowl

Have you all been hearing about this?
That powerful television network CBS is hosting the Super Bowl this year.

We all know that it's fun to watch the multi-million dollar ads during the super bowl show. And CBS's long held policy is that they won't air ads that take sides on controversial issues like gun control, gay marriage etc. In fact, in the past, CBS has turned down advocacy ads it deemed controversial, including ads from MoveOn.org and the progressive United Church of Christ.

HOWEVER.
Apparently attacks on women's rights is not a controversial issue and the network has accepted several million dollars (CBS charges 2.5-2.8 million for a 30second spot) from Focus on the Family (aptly named because women have never focused on their families) to air an anti-choice ad during this years Super Bowl.

CBS has cleared the way to subject nearly 100 million people to Focus on the Family’s extreme agenda by agreeing to air its new anti-choice ad during the Super Bowl. This ad reportedly promotes the decision of one woman to go against her doctor's advice to terminate an at-risk pregnancy, as the right decision that all women should make.

Focus on the Family has an unmistakable anti-choice, anti-birth-control, anti-sex-education, and anti-gay rights agenda. If that wasn’t bad enough, its views on women are just plain insulting and dangerous. For example, its web site urges women facing an unintended pregnancy to seek "wise advice” (presumably from them) because “the hormones and extreme emotions of pregnancy make reasonable decisions more difficult.”
Apparently you have the right to choose but only if it agrees with their agenda.


Hey you crazy dumb bitches, you're all nutso cuz you're preggers right? You can't make your own decisions! Don't eat that! You should be locked away in your house during your pregnancy! Let an extremist religious organization make the decisions for you!! We kill doctors!

Orphans not abortions!! amiright?!?

Super Bowl ads are already filled with a bunch of sexist commercials that completely ignore 50% of their customers/sports fans, reducing women to naggy girlfriends or T&A Beer holders, and now we have to watch an ad that tells us we're dumb and shouldn't be able to decide what we want for ourselves?

Do we really need anti-choice propaganda (or any politics) pushed in our faces during a football game? What happened to just watching a bunch of men run around on a big field in tights and jump on each other?

Here's where you can tell CBS to eat it:
Naral Petition to urge CBS to not run the ad or except money from hate groups

The Women's Media Center's Not Under The Bus Petition

NOW has an email form you can send to CBS

FYI:
Women are vastly under-represented in high-level decision making roles at the television networks (and pretty much all media outlets). Despite this disadvantage, NBC managed to make the right decision last year, refusing to run an anti-choice ad during the Super Bowl. Anti-choice forces are on the offensive. They don't want to help women make informed decisions -- they want to, in the words of Focus on the Family, make abortion "both illegal and unthinkable." We must stand up to their campaign to deny women their fundamental rights.

For re-tweeting:
Tweet: RT @womensmediacntr Tell @CBS and @NFL to scrap Focus on the Family's anti-choice #superbowl ad! #underthebus http://bit.ly/7Zs8jq

Please spread the word!

What the what?!

Apparently for some people crazy Sarah Palin just isn't crazy enough. According to Mother Jones, "For the Denver-based American Right to Life, when it comes to abortion, Palin is as impure as any godless feminist." Palin and feminist in the same sentence, for shame!

The ARTL contests that Palin has bedded down with the heathen feminists as exampled by her description of "the morning after pill as contraception rather than an abortifacient," and by "Palin’s statement to the Anchorage Daily News that she opposes the "use of public funds for elective abortions." This means, according to ARTL, that Palin supports taxpayer funding for non-elective abortions." "

So wait...they're saying we should call Palin anti-choice because of that stuff instead of her stats on reproductive rights? These stats are hard to overlook: Palin's "hometown required women to pay for their own rape examinations while she was mayor, a practice her police chief fought to keep as late as 2000" or "Alaska has the worst record of any state in rape. The rape rate in Alaska is 2.5 times the national average." Kinda makes you wonder what Palin's doing for women if she's not protecting them from violence. Oh yeah, she's probably fighting for the rights of their possible unborn fetuses instead. Unless the you might die during child birth. Then abortion is okay. But not if you're raped. Then the kid is still tops. So you better hope you have a chance of dying if you want to toss that bun.

ARL also doesn't like Palin for teaming up with that ole' knight of women's health, John McCain, "whom the National Right to Life Committee dubbed a "significant threat to future advances by the pro-life movement" back in 2000. (It endorsed him in 2008.)" But McCain went and got crazy enough to satisfy the National Right to Life! Is he still not enough of a cowboy for ARL's high standards? Damn, thems some harsh parents.

Beware the ARTL though, in their fanatical self-grandising they believe they have some clout. Did you know it was not Mormonism nor tying the family dog to the top of the car on vacation (see Romeny's Cruel Canine Vacation),that did Mitt Romney in last year, as well all thought? No no, it was actually the ARTL making some crazy commercials that aired in South Carolina and Iowa outing Romney as a fake anti-choicer. Of course, the ARTL spokesman points out that while they "can't say don't vote for Mitt Romney, but you can say Romney is the son of the devil and if you vote for him you'll go to hell." Nothin' like scarin' some hicks into believing you! (heart you iowa)

What's more frightening than how radical these people have to be to consider Sarah Palin pro-choice, is that people like that actually exist. I have to admit though, I'm sort of glad there are some people from the dark side protesting crazy pants Palin. Maybe if both sides hate her she'll go rouge back in Alaska and fade from the national consciousness.

Violence Against Women On TV Has Risen 120% Since 2004

In October the Parents Television Council released a new report titled "Women in Peril: A Look at TV's Disturbing New Storyline Trend"

Normally I would shy away from reading reports by an organization called the Parents Television Council because I'm always a little scared of any type of organization trying to curb 1st amendment rights - not that this org is trying to do that but I'm always brought back to images of people burning books or rap cds or condemning nudity on tv.

However, this report's findings are SHOCKING.

Some of the major findings in the report:

1. Incidents of violence against women and teenage girls are increasing on television at rates that far exceed the overall increases in violence on television. Violence, irrespective of gender, on television increased only 2% from 2004 to 2009, while incidents of violence against women increased 120% during that same period.

• The most frequent type of violence against women on television was beating (29%), followed by credible threats of violence (18%), shooting (11%), rape (8%), stabbing (6%), and torture (2%). Violence against women resulted in death 19% of the time.

• Violence towards women or the graphic consequences of violence tends overwhelmingly to be depicted (92%) rather than implied (5%) or described (3%).

2. Every network but ABC demonstrated a significant increase in the number of storylines that included violence against women between 2004 and 2009.

3. Although female victims were primarily of adult age, collectively, there was a 400% increase in the depiction of teen girls as victims across all networks from 2004 to 2009.

4. Fox stood out for using violence against women as a punch line in its comedies -- in particular Family Guy and American Dad -- trivializing the gravity of the issue of violence against women.

5. From 2004 to 2009 there was an 81% increase in incidences of intimate partner violence on television.

Yowza! Total sad face at this.

One would think that maybe Lifetime's repeats of Mother May I Sleep With Danger? could be the cause of this drastic increase but the study only looked at the major broadcasting networks (FOX, ABC, CBS, and NBC)! Imagine the results if they checked out HBO, USA, Showtime and FX?

It makes sad sense when you see headlines like "15 Year Old Girl Gang Raped As Crowd Looks On" and then read that depictions of violence against teenage girls has risen 400% since 2004.

400 PERCENT

It's true that our rates of violent crimes have been slowly dropping since 1997, but goddamn! We can't see positive portrayals of two consenting adults sexing each other up on CBS?

As a culture are we really that cool with showing women getting raped and tortured on CSI vs some hot nakedness?

I'm totally writing a letter to each channel's president to tell them that as a female viewer, I am disgusted at the amount of depictions of violence against women they choose to feature on their networks and that they can count out my viewership if these alarming trends continue.

Here's the networks addys if you want to write your own emails or letters (ironically 3 of the 4 network presidents are women!):

Mr. Jeff Zucker, President
NBC Entertainment
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
(818) 840-4444

nbcshows@nbc.com
Website

Ms. Nina Tassler
President, CBS Entertainment
CBS Entertainment
7800 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90039-2112
(323) 575-2747

www.cbs.com

Anne Sweeney, President
ABC Entertainment
500 S. Buena Vista St
Burbank, CA 91521-4551

(818) 560-1000 or

(212) 456-7777

www.abc.com

netaudr@abc.com

Ms. Gail Berman, President

Fox Broadcasting Co.
P.O. Box 900
Beverly Hills, CA 90213
(310) 369-1000

Fox's website
askfox@foxinc.com