Bitches, bad-asses and bombshells: women of the 2010 TV pilots
Katee Sackhoff has agreed to a female lead on a 2010 pilot. (Image via Flickr.)
As I sweat out staffing season here in L.A., I’ve been doing my homework: reading every single one of the drama pilot scripts for all the TV networks, including cable. Which means that over the past two weeks, I’ve plowed through 60 scripts. In other words I’ve spent 60 hours reading about cops and lawyers.
Pilots are the main topic of conversation at these network meetings I’m in the midst of taking. That’s because they’re the shows most in need of staff (for obvious reasons) and thus the best job prospects for new writers like me.
I’ve kept notes on each script, the better to help me distinguish one from the other when I’m nervously trying to impress execs. By my count, here’s how they break down. (Note I’m not narking industry secrets; pilot lists are public and you can find out a lot more on their deets from Nikki Finke and THR’s Pilot Log. Also note some of these shows have already been rolled to next season, fate unknown.)
Law enforcement shows (includes cops, U.S. Marshals, ATF agents, forensics, security and detectives): 26
Lawyers: 9
Superheroes, paranormal or aliens: 9
Spies: 6
Doctors: 2
The rest: con men, criminals, cheerleaders and frat boys.
When I went back and tabulated, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that as many as 20 shows had women as the main character. (A handful more star ensembles that include women.) For some reason I’d come away thinking it was far fewer than a third.
I’m hardly the first to note the dearth of female leads in American TV (read this terrific WSJ article about Showtime’s current dominance in those shows, and this sidebar on strong female characters in TV history). Critics blame the paucity of women writers and show creators. This season, by my count, it’s 13, including guy-girl writing teams.
As a reader and a newbie who happens to rock XX chromosomes, I was excited by a few strong female lead characters in this upcoming pilot season, including the fugitive-nabbing U.S. Marshal in “The Chase” and the Latina mob boss in “Cutthroat.” But note we’re talking about tough, ballsy characters in macho professions. Guys without the junk.
To take it a step further, a couple of scripts were written with male leads — but cast with women (notably Kathy Bates in “Kindreds” and Sissy Spacek in an as-yet-untitled project about a team of medical workers who parachute into poor, unserved areas to provide healthcare en masse). This trend seems encouraging to me, but it makes me wonder why the writers felt they had to go with men in the first place.
Perhaps most importantly, most of these shows seem aimed at male audiences. Cops and robbers, lawyers and murder cases, swashbuckling spies, sci-fi, superheroes…I love me my “The Shield” and “Battlestar Galactica,” but let’s face it, ladies. Traditionally, these play to the boys.
What about a show on a woman in — stay with me here — a traditionally female role? You know: nurse; teacher; secretary. Mom. Wife. Daughter. Do we have to bend genre expectations to write female leads? Aren’t we interesting enough without the badges and briefs?
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I wonder if the lack of prime time TV for women is due to the lack of women controlling the TV during prime time.
Also note the highly rated series such as Sex in the City, Desperate Housewives, and yes, Ugly Betty.
I share your disgust for alien/cop/lawyer/doctor/spy shows. C’mon, there are other plot lines out there.
I’m not up for a show with women in traditional roles because these roles are heavily circumscribed by male expectations. I watch and enjoy Brothers and Sisters on ABC and the women there are annoying enough in their relentless domestic focus. The tensions come from real external forces: illness, infertility, work, the war, so the women are not one-dimensional.
I’m sick of aliens, doctors and lawyers, but neither am I hungry for a show focused on sippy cups. There are women like me who don’t have kids and for whom relentless focus on traditional nuclear family life is not dramatically or comedically interesting.
I’d be very interested in a show with a woman in science or tech, as much as its story possibilities as the badly needed role model for younger women.
Ms. Cullen,
“Meet the new shows, same as the old shows”.
I’d love to see someone do a show with a female lead about the boys club that is the financial industry. Get Michael Lewis or Susan Antilla to consult. Make it a comedy. It would be this decade’s answer to “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and if done well, could shame that industry into cleaning up its act.
Of course you’re not interesting enough without the badges or briefs. Neither are men, though you might not have needed the visual there.
I’m an engineer. There are no engineer shows, never have been, never will. No lab technician shows, no dentist shows, no architect shows.
Every job that CAN remove drama from the job, absolutely does. By far the least likely show is an “aircraft mechanic” show. (Good!)
Only cops and other “first responders”, criminal lawyers, and detectives, plus a few doctors, can possibly have a dramatic day at work, because only they have to react to real-world surprise events. Even they try to eliminate them, of course, but with some major suspension of disbelief you can create some surprises for them.
Hmmm…well, financial traders pop sweat all the time, but their problems are cerebral.
Soldiers got “Generation Kill”, but I don’t see a prime-time, regular network series for that touchy issue. It’s either got to hit on issues like shooting the wrong guy at roadblocks, or be called ‘feel-good US Army propaganda’; a no-win for the producers. Something MASH-like – you could even have female medevac helicopter pilots – is a possibility, but don’t look for it until after the war is over! For years…
I suspect what you mean by traditional-role shows, and a different kind of plot, is simple family/friends drama and comedy.
Teacher shows can go on for a while because there can be so many student co-stars, each with some terrible family problem. But otherwise, you run into the problem that you can only go a season or two at the most mining out every possible life crisis that can happen in one family. There’s only so many exes and archenemies and evil bosses that one family can have. Before my sense of disbelief trips in.
“Friends” and other sitcoms, are kind of science-fiction from the word go, from the impossibly large apartments to their looks. The Friends all had about 100 lovers, a good 10 per series year; that’s ridiculous for most people, but we just accepted it because we were having fun with the jokes.
That’s why I stick with paranormals and aliens and spies. You have to make such a leap of faith to get through the pilot, you’re done for the next five seasons.
I’m pretty sure the appeal of scripted television is escapism. I don’t want to watch fictional shows about “real” guys doing traditional male stuff either: we’re just as boring as women doing everyday things.
Honestly I liked the Japanese miniseries format: heavy story arc, short run (10-12 episodes common) then revive the series when there’s actually a new story to tell.
They have distinct starts, middles, and ends. Then they’re done. Lost and BSG, two other recent heavy-arc formats, could each have dropped a year in wasted episodes without losing the story.
I can’t bear to watch any more series about doctors, lawyers, nurses, cops, firemen, evil aliens, ghosts, shipwrecked survivors (Nobody will ever beat Gilligan’s Island) or dysfunctional extended families on Reality TV.
Community has grown on me, though in a 2-year college, the writing is on the wall, and there are only so many Spanish classes they can take.
I signed up, just so I could comment on your last line. I think it’s great that women are more prominent on television, and I agree that we should have some “everyday” women. Not Desperate Housewives ( though I’m a HUGE fan ), because they aren’t real. They’re too beautiful, their lives are too exciting. Their men are all gorgeous. And not “Cougar Town”, which I think is ridiculous, and has nothing to do with being a cougar.
But more like ‘The Good Wife’. Though her life is slightly glamorous, she’s still kinda normal.
And I do think that the bionic woman types they are putting on tv now, are just some guy’s fantasy. But, ironically, I don’t agree with your final statement.
How many years have women fought to be seen as MORE than housewives or secretaries? Are our memories that short? We were just fighting to prove that we can do whatever a man can do: Play the field, Work his job, AND save his life, when the situation arises.
You’re comment that we should be interesting as ourselves, without the badge or the gun, is great, but there needs to be a balance. We shouldn’t be portrayed as completely tough, or completely feminine, because none of us are THAT simple. We’re both. We’ve always been both, and the media should show us as such.