#that’s a perfectly appropriate thing for a teenager to be into & im right for encouraging it

[juniperhillpatient]

no one ever talks about how the signature adhd thought process that gets you from one place to another illogically from the outside but the sequence makes total sense To You can be so Toxic actually omg like. it can go from silly to dark & back in moments & sometimes it’s like. Bestie. Chilllle 🙌

[writingguide003-blog]

How Nell Scovell survived male-dominated TV writers' rooms

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How Nell Scovell survived male-dominated TV writers' rooms

She worked on everything from The Simpsons to Charmed and encountered casting couches, bigotry and bullying along the way

Nell Scovell has a lot to teach the next generation of TV writers: how to break the ice on a new set by cracking your dirtiest joke, how writing the episode of The Simpsons where Homer eats a deadly blowfish allowed her comedy to get serious, how she screwed up hiring on the first season of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and how to select used film studio furniture thats less likely to be covered in bodily fluids. (Answer: pick floral fabric, not leather.) Yes, the casting couch is real which, as Scovell writes in her new memoir Just the Funny Parts, is a cutesy name that sounds a lot better than rape sofa and yes, early in her career, the head writer of variety show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour aggressively maneuvered her on one, commanding her not to muss his toupee.

Its a startling anecdote, and perfectly timed to todays #MeToo movement and our global conversation about women in the workplace, especially as Scovell also penned Rose McGowans first season on Charmed and co-wrote Sheryl Sandbergs bestseller Lean In. Im a little sad that they actually came up with the metaphor of waves for feminism, says Scovell on the phone from Los Angeles. By definition, a wave goes in and it comes out. I would really like it to be a tsunami that creates a flood that forever changes the landscape.

In the pages leading up to the violation, Scovell, the only woman writing for the Smothers Brothers, already loathes this misogynist who cut her out of meetings by hosting boys-only parties for the rest of the male staff. Their sole encounter is confusing, cold, unwanted and quick, and when its over, Scovell is fired. But even at the time, she was able to take control of the trauma by reframing the beats into a bleak joke, and when she recounts it today, Scovell gets to write the brutal punchline. She never saw that boss again, and probably never will, since I dont get to Branson, Missouri, much.

Nell Scovell in 1972. Photograph: Courtesy of the author

If women could sleep their way to the top, thered be a lot more women at the top, quotes Scovell. That one-liner belongs to Gloria Steinem funny women come in all forms. And comedy writers should come in all forms. The talents who inspired Scovell ranged from the maniacal Groucho Marx and absurdist Albert Brooks to dazzling Myrna Loy and deadpan Jane Curtin. Beams Scovell: I was pretty strait-laced, so Jane Curtin showed me you could be very professional and funny at the same time.

That her heroes were all also white is a struggle Scovell sees with clear eyes, critiquing herself sharply in the book for not hiring more comedians of color in the mid-90s when she became a showrunner. Later, while assembling another female-led show, Scovell catches herself worrying that the five female actors in the cast would get into on-set catfights a stereotype that couldnt have been more wrong. Sighs Scovell: Were all biased, were all raised in this culture.

You want a diverse writers room not because its the fair thing to do, or the right thing to do, but because its the best thing to do for your show, says Scovell. Ive seen that to be true.

The Coach writing staff. Photograph: Courtesy of the author

Yet, for much of her TV career, shes been the only woman in the room. She used to twist her isolation into a compliment. Rarity meant she was exceptional. Later, she realized that she also just fit the mold as a white, straight, Ivy League-educated jock whod covered sports for the Harvard Crimson. Plus, as she writes, People say, Dress for the job you want, and since I wanted a job that guys had, I dressed like a guy.

Still, laughs Scovell, while her unathletic male friends grumbled about their agents dragging them to hockey games, she never got invited to a single match. Instead, she praises Penn Jillette for welcoming her to join a group adventure to an X-rated strip show.

Let someone make their own choice about what makes them feel comfortable, says Scovell. I always say, Im your colleague, not your wife you can say the craziest things in front of me. She was glad the California supreme court judged that certain types of crass jokes on the set of Friends did not qualify as sexual harassment.

We need appropriate behavior, but also not to think the way to get to that is by having no behavior at all, says Scovell. Otherwise, both men and women are locked into an unhealthy gender dynamic that eventually marginalizes women and comedy.

Nell Scovell. Photograph: PR

She saw that play out during the Bill Clinton scandal when men became self-conscious about being alone with women in the office. Shes seeing it again with Mike Pence and his dumb rule. And she lived it herself as a young late-night writer when she avoided speaking to David Letterman in fear her colleagues would think she was trying to flirt her way to becoming one of Daves Girls. Lettermans dalliances with employees were an open secret for decades after she quit and eventually resulted in the host being blackmailed and investigated for creating a hostile workplace environment, though the network ultimately concluded there was no wrongdoing. Of that power dynamic, Scovell calls Letterman the bully who makes you punch him. Later, when Lean In became a hit, she sent him a copy in Finnish with a teasing inscription that hed never read it anyway.

Since then, Scovell has gone on to write gags for everyone from Barack Obama (Johnny Carsons timing), Hillary Clinton (She does self-depreciation beautifully) and Mark Zuckerberg, the embattled Facebook CEO who could stand to win friends with a good quip. Does she have any he could use? Laughs Scovell, Im not touching that question! Like every entertainment career, public success has been matched by private setbacks rejected jokes, harsh script notes, canceled pilots and inJust the Funny Parts, she drags her flubs into the spotlight, printing a list of every project shes worked on so aspiring writers can see an honest percentage of hits to failures, along with full pages of sitcom drafts with her boss criticisms scribbled in the margins.

Her hurdles are oddly encouraging. So is her harshest piece of advice: dont follow your dreams, follow your talent. Thats like the meanest thing you could say to a high school student, says Scovell. But its true. Shes learned firsthand that sometimes a show works better when you pause the comedy and allow people to get real, citing what she calls the tuna fish sandwich moment on the Mary Tyler Moore Show when Mary and Rhoda would have a quiet beat to establish their friendship before the story hurtled them into chaos.

I think empathy is undervalued in a lot of these comedy writers rooms, says Scovell. And in the culture, too. In that spirit, she sent Letterman a copy of Just the Funny Parts in English. Im sure he has not read it, says Scovell. But he sent me back a lovely thank you note.

Just the Funny Parts is out now in the US and will be released in the UK on 3 May

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us