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If I knew back in high school that my life would amount to this, what would I do differently? This is the question I ask myself, along with other pertinent grounding questions frequently. At this point, I believe I am the luckiest unlucky person in the world! Or is it the unlukiest lucky person? Let's delve into the first choice. I'm reminded by people who love me that I indeed have a roof over my head, employment, food, and choices. Is it wrong to want more? In my eyes, anyone can have what I have and I didn't get here by luck. It was hard work along with the great ability to heal quickly from the many stab wounds in my back from all those whose soul purpose in life is to see me fail.
So here I am. What does tomorrow hold that I wasn't able to accomplish today? Hope.
I hope I make it into the writer's room. I hope he finds me (yes, there is someone I have my eye on). And I pray I don't lose all intellect toiling through the mindless day to day existence. I must admit graduate school was easy for me. More education at this point would be a further waste of money.
Nancy. What's it like on the other side? Can you see through the crap?
Despite the success of series like “Black-ish,” “Empire,” and “Fresh Off the Boat,” the broadcast networks’ push for diversity hit a stumbling block with the rollout of the new fall lineup. A Variety investigation into new scripted shows for the 2016-17 season reveals that 90% of showrunners are white, and almost 80% are male.
This is based on information provided by the five broadcast networks, which gave Varietythe names of the showrunners of their new scripted programs (a total of 50 across 38 new series). Variety independently confirmed the race and gender of each, via multiple sources. All names and data used for this story is available below. (Showrunner designations were not yet available for four series — two at NBC and two at ABC — and information on those programs was not included in the statistical analysis of the new season.)
Showrunners not only determine the creative direction of their programs; they also oversee the hiring, firing, and mentoring that gives the next generation of creators a chance to ascend. Shows run by white men tend to lead to more shows led by white men.
A lack of inclusion behind the scenes also affects storytelling. A study from USC Annenberg’s Institute for Diversity and Empowerment noted that actresses are more likely to receive speaking roles if women are creators. But that organization’s most recent study, which was published in 2015, reported that men outnumber women as creators by more than 3 to 1 in all realms of TV, including cable and streaming. Meanwhile, for the 2014-15 season, 19% of broadcast network programs had no speaking roles for African-American characters, and 59% had none for Asian characters, Annenberg says.
Of the 50 showrunners for the new season, two are women of color, and three are men of color. Studies by the Writers Guild of America show that non-white writers have constituted no more than 13% of writers-room employment for several years (and in some years, the figure has been even lower).
Variety found that women, who constitute 51% of the American population, will run 22% of the new shows. That’s not much better than the state of affairs in 1997-98, when 18% of the shows on the broadcast networks had women creators, according to San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film.
