Some screenwriters are more equal than others.
BY BRIDGET JOHNSON
Tuesday, October 25, 2005 12:01 a.m.
HOLLYWOOD--It's not an understatement to say that there is a wannabe screenwriter or TV scribe around every corner in Los Angeles. Most believe they have the golden box-office or sweeps idea; a few actually turn that idea into a pilot or 120-page feature script, but far fewer will sell it. And according to a Writers Guild of America, west report released this month, most of these successful writers will be white men.
In a town full of dirty little secrets, the composition of writers in Hollywood rises to the level of scandal. Though Tinsel Town pays lip service to liberalism and equality, women and minority film and television writers get work and get paid with a disparity that is striking.
The 2005 Hollywood Writers Report found that among film writers, women represented just 18% of employment while minorities combined stood at 6%. The median earnings gap between men and women, and minorities and white men in film work widened from $12,500 to $19,000 since the WGA's last report was released in 1998.
In television, women accounted for 27% of writers and minorities represented just under 10%. And both are more likely to hold the lower-status title of "staff writer." About 10% of all shows in the 2004-05 season had no women writers on staff, unchanged from the WGA's comparative assessment of the 1999-2000 season. Pay for TV writing was an average of $12,000 more for men than women. Minority TV writers in 1998 earned on average $8,500 less than white men; this gap jumped to nearly $18,000 in the 2005 report.
Women and minority writers also tend to be pigeonholed--for example, much of the TV work for minorities is on black-themed UPN sitcoms. Women are often expected to write romantic comedies or dramatic tear-jerkers. One hears tales around town of women feeling they might have better luck getting their action script accepted if they just put their first initials on the title page. Though the WGA report didn't include a breakdown of genre typecasting, "We do know anecdotally that it occurs," said spokeswoman Cheryl Rhoden.
The hypocrisy is overwhelming. "These guys will mail checks to support the fight for gender equality for oppressed Third World women but it doesn't occur to them to get their hands dirty in that same fight in their own back yard," said Sonya Gay Bourn, co-chair of the Committee of Women Writers at the WGA, adding that she believes the uneven racial and gender makeup is "not so much maliciousness," but "habit more than anything else."
Maybe women just aren't writing as much. Writers Guild spokesman Gabriel Scott told me that scripts written by women make up about 25% of their registry. Are women and minorities just not interested in the business? Hardly. As long as there are agents, managers and publicists--and beyond--there will never be a shortage of people with a story to tell. And Hollywood dreams cut across red states and blue states, all ages and backgrounds.
I asked one screenwriter his opinion on what was behind the gender and ethnic gaps in the business. Rapt audience members are more likely to want to become entertainment writers, he theorized, and there are a lot of white male movie geeks out there. But this theory loses traction when one notes that there is no shortage of aspiring actresses similarly inspired by film and television to pursue Hollywood careers. "It's not so much boys are more fascinated [by film]," observed Ms. Bourn. "Boys have always been taught you can do whatever you want." And it goes without saying that the movie industry is a cutthroat culture where hopefuls can't afford to wither and should posses at least the figurative equivalent of testosterone.
Hollywood may also be reflecting its on-screen stereotypes of women and minorities in its hiring preferences, such as assuming black writers are streetwise fits for "Boyz N the Hood"-type material. And onscreen portrayals of women show little middle ground between damsels in distress or one-dimensional love interests and anime-inspired busty she-warriors.
Industry insiders tend to agree that Hollywood's boys-club culture contributes heavily to the hiring and pay gaps. The Writers Guild will continue to light fires under industry executives about their employment of women and minorities, but any shift will also require greater efforts from the writers themselves never to bypass an opportunity to get out and network. You can't survive on talent alone in this town. And finally, these marginalized writers should never miss an opportunity to tell Hollywood to put its money where its mouth is.
