By Nina Berry Apr 27, 2006, 18:02 GMT
Last week the California Supreme Court unanimously rejected the claim of sexual harassment brought against Warner Bros. and the producers of the TV show “Friends” by a writers’ assistant who claimed she was subjected to sexual comments, gestures, and situation. The defendants claimed the woman was fired for her poor transcribing skills. The studio and producers claim the speech involved was part of the creative process and within their rights under the First Amendment. The court sided, 7-0, with the defendants, upholding a ruling reached by a lower court.
I, for one, say “Amen” to the court’s decision.
I’ve worked in the writers’ room on sitcoms (though I did not work on “Friends”) and I can tell you that the language used there is inflammatory, crude, racist, and sexist in the extreme. It’s also necessary to the creative process and damned funny.
For the majority of you unfamiliar with the workings of sitcoms, here’s a brief primer. Every traditional sitcom writing staff meets frequently in a large room to sit around a conference table and hash out the story and jokes that make up a sitcom script. There’s usually a well-stocked kitchen next door filled with cookies, soda, and crackers to fuel the minds and bodies of the writers. Writers spend long hours in the room, trying to wring maximum comedy out of each moment in the script. Things can get really silly at 2am when you’re fueled up on caffeine and sugar, surrounded by people who got their job because they are funny.
Writers’ assistants take turns sitting in the writers’ room, marking up the script with the changes or transcribing every funny moment so it can be referred to and perhaps used later. You’ve got to type fast if you’re a writers’ assistant, and you’ve got to be savvy enough about the form of the sitcom to know what to write down and what to leave out. You work long hours, making far less than the writers themselves. Often the writers make changes even as the show is being shot in front of a live audience, so you can’t crumble or slow down under pressure. It’s a tough gig. But you also spend much of your time at work laughing. Assuming, of course, you have a sense of humor.
As a writer I can tell you also that there are two phases to writing – one that is creative and messy, which could be called the idea phase. The second phase is stricter, more controlled, and could be called editing or rewriting. Both are necessary to get good product.
In the room during the messy phase, the writers throw out every funny idea they have. Later, during an editing moment, the decision is made on which ideas to include and just how to phrase them. The final decision is up to the head writer. Along the way, these creative people need to feel free to express whatever comes into their heads at the moment, or it may be lost. I’ve heard gay men bashed, women treated like cattle, every ethnicity trashed, and straight white men taken to task. I’ve been introduced this way to all sorts of new swear words, strange sexual practices, and epithets. Rude gestures and loud voices abound. It’s not for the faint of heart, and no one’s kidding themselves that the most offensive material is going to make the final cut. But one crazy, outrageous idea often leads to another, and with a little editing pretty soon you get to a joke that’s both funny and suitable for network television.
If you want to be a writer or a writers’ assistant, thicken your hide. Nowhere in the suit brought against “Friends” does the supposed victim claim that the offensive speech was directed against her. She claimed that the entire environment was “hostile” and thus constituted sexual harassment. As a feminist, I tend to support women who claim sexual harassment. I’ve witnessed and encountered serious harassment in several workplaces, where a woman is demeaned and turned into an object. I have no doubt it happens to men too. But complaining about hostile environment due to speech in a sitcom writers’ room is a lot like the cameraman on a porno shoot getting offended at the nudity. The business cannot succeed without the offending material. So get over it or get out. Move to another business, say – banking. Leave the messy, rude, funny stuff to those who understand the creative process.
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