Adult Swim: Still an unequal sea
| By FEM - Dec 5th, 2005 at 4:55 am EST |
For more than a month Adult Swim, the late-night television programming block on Cartoon Network, has been airing the show "Boondocks" based on Aaron McGruder's comic strip. The comic portrays American society through the eyes of a pre-pubescent, African-American boy who has moved, along with his brother, to a suburban middle class neighborhood where they live with their Uncle Grandfather. The show is great, in my opinion, and does justice to the comic and its meaning. Adult Swim is great for many reasons, in my opinion, and for showing a cartoon which provides a subversive discourse on many aspects of American society. Adult Swim's other cartoons include the surreal "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," "Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law," "Home Movies," and of course "The Family Guy" and "Futurama." For many people between the ages of 18-24, the Sunday night programming block is a primary source of entertainment. Adult Swim V.P. Mike Lazzo strives less for formulaic comedy and more for creative enterprise. Adult Swim viewers appreciate this divergence in the cable television industry.
After watching the credits of multiple shows multiple times, I have noticed there are very few women actually writing for any of the shows. Even fewer are creating them. Really, I have not seen one show on Adult Swim created by a woman, though I have not seen all of their shows since there are frequent lineup changes. Lazzo has stated that about half of Adult Swim viewers are women. He attributes this to the strong, risky writing of the shows. If women are watching the shows, why aren't they writing for them too? Is it because there are not many women writers out there who write the kind of stuff which might appeal to Adult Swim viewers? How could this be possible if half the viewers are women? One tactic Lazzo uses to keep Adult Swim on the cutting edge, wherever that may be, is to seek out talented individuals and let them lead or assist in the development of a show. Aaron McGruder is one of those people. There are a lot of talented women out there who could contribute to the Adult Swim lineup. I'll name a few who get my vote: M.I.A., Sarah Silverman, and Jeanine Garafalo.
Come on Lazzo, get your programming with the program.
-Annie
After watching the credits of multiple shows multiple times, I have noticed there are very few women actually writing for any of the shows. Even fewer are creating them. Really, I have not seen one show on Adult Swim created by a woman, though I have not seen all of their shows since there are frequent lineup changes. Lazzo has stated that about half of Adult Swim viewers are women. He attributes this to the strong, risky writing of the shows. If women are watching the shows, why aren't they writing for them too? Is it because there are not many women writers out there who write the kind of stuff which might appeal to Adult Swim viewers? How could this be possible if half the viewers are women? One tactic Lazzo uses to keep Adult Swim on the cutting edge, wherever that may be, is to seek out talented individuals and let them lead or assist in the development of a show. Aaron McGruder is one of those people. There are a lot of talented women out there who could contribute to the Adult Swim lineup. I'll name a few who get my vote: M.I.A., Sarah Silverman, and Jeanine Garafalo.
Come on Lazzo, get your programming with the program.
-Annie
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First off - let me get this out of the way first.
I love the boondocks. The Boondocks is an incredible comic, and I've spent at least a few great wasted hours sitting in the bookstore flipping through "The Right to be Hostile". That said:
The Boondocks is not subversive.
The Boondocks is not subversive.
"The man" is not getting it "stuck to him" by the strip. It's cute, cheeky, and generally fun, liberal-leaning. It is not 'edgy', except in the most "Hi, I'm from Nebraska" sense of the word.
To call M.I.A. 'talented' is stretching it, I'd say. She's come along at the right time to be a poor man's Dizzee Rascal, that's about it. Sarah Silverman's got talent, but she's worked with Adult Swim plenty of times before and has her movie coming out to promote.
Ask yourself this: Does the number of women at adult swim roughly mirror the male/female ratio in comedy-writing in general? Do you have any proof or evidence of discrimination?
The mere fact that there happen to be few women working there does not automatically mean there's a "disparity" to be "addressed" or given "attention". It might just be "the way things happened to work out", as per the politically incorrect science of statistics.
I think you are looking too hard for faults with these cartoons, after all, they are cartoons!
McGruder tackles edgy topics, but he also tackles them from a black standpoint. Read the daily comic and you will get a far better feel for how topical McGruder is. He is also a VERY small minority in the comics section. I can name three comics off the top of my head which feature black characters: Boondocks, Jump Start, and Candorville.
At the moment, I just do not think the women writers and creators are there. Powerpuff Girls, one of the best cartoons for little girls in a long time, were created by Craig McCraken. Are the women creators out there? I am sure they are working their way through the ranks right now. But, we cannot just grab a writer, even a great female writer, off the street and say "We need more women in this place. Can you write off the wall cartoons?"
It is not really a boy's club. Speaking as a comic book geek, we gladly welcome women to the club. I am just not sure the women are beating down the door, trying to write for "Adult Swim".
On a side note, Sarah Silverman was a voice for a piloted series a year or so ago on Adult Swim called "Saddle Rash." Sadly, the show was not picked up.
As for Adult Swim, I agree, there should be more female writers. But in all honesty, there should be more writers, period. Williams Street has a writing staff of less than ten people. But there are many prominent women in charge of things over there: Melissa Warrenburg is the production manager for "Perfect Hair Forever" and "Squidbillies," and Adult Swim itself is run by basically two people, Mike Lazzo and Kim Manning, the head of programming.
You can see interviews with both these talented women at:
Link
http://www.adultswim.com/willi ams/eotm/melissa_warrenburg.ht ml