When Stephen made a reference to the fact that he only has one female writer, as he accepted his Emmy in August, for “Outstanding Variety Show”, he then apologized, “for some reason”. What I thought he was trying to say when he said that was actually more the opposite. I don’t think he should have to apologize at all. He has done nothing wrong. However, many people in the media seem to disagree judging by the number of recent articles commenting on that one line in his Emmy acceptance speech. So we here at the Hub have delved into this issue, analyzed it and here are the results. The opinions expressed in this piece are mine and not necessarily representative of Colbert News Hub as a whole.
One thing I noticed as I was reading through these articles is that as the media was being critical of Stephen for only having one female writer, he was “apologizing” with 3 women, out of a visible 6 total staff members behind him.
So while he still does have mostly male writers, look behind him.
He obviously is guilty of having a lot of white male writers with Ariel Dumas being the sole recent female addition. Meredith Scardino departed the show earlier this year. You may remember Ariel’s recent appearance as “Abby”.
There is more to the show than the writers, however. Some of the top staff positions are filled by females. Meredith Bennett and Emily Lazar are co-executive producers, Tanya Michnevich-Bracco is a supervising producer. His two senior field producers are Nicole Savini and Liz Levin and for years his head writer was Allison Silverman. Here is another picture from the backstage press area:
Recently, a woman named Chloe Angyal wrote an opinion piece for Reuters in which she claims that both Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart don’t lend out their guest chair often enough to females. She went back 45 episodes into the history of both shows and determined that only 40% of Jon’s guests are female and only 27% of Stephen’s guests were women.
Just for the record, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has been on since 1999 and The Colbert Report has been on since 2005. So what she did was take 1/4 of one season from these shows that have done over 2000 and over 1500 shows respectively.
Ms. Angyal doesn’t appear to have done any other research or interviewed anyone from either show to get a proper unbiased, journalistic perspective. It is an opinion piece, as is this piece, so I get it. It does seem somewhat irresponsible to make these judgments without talking to someone from the shows.
On The Daily Show there is usually one guest. However, on The Colbert Report there is often more than one in an episode, plus Better Know a District and other field pieces.
Did she consider repeat guests and the guests who appear at Stephen’s desk for a short interview? If not, I give you Emily Bazelon, a guest who has appeared 8 times, but only one time has she sat down at the table for the main interview segment.
One of Stephen’s guests mentioned in the Reuters piece was Eleanor Holmes Norton who recently sat down for the first time at the table for a full interview. However, she has appeared two other times. Once for a (very memorable) Better Know a District segment and once for a satellite “desk” interview.
Ms. Angyal is also criticizing those times when women have had to share the table with another guest, but is she counting the times when Stephen had female guests sharing the table with another female?
Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, June 18, 2014.
Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill, October 23, 2013.
Then there was this desk (and baking station) interview that featured two incredibly feminist women and became one of the most memorable segments in the show’s history. Jane Fonda appeared once more (also very memorable) and Gloria Steinem has appeared two more times since then. Not sure when Jane Fonda will be back but that’s another can of worms.
Broadway star and woman with an awesome sense of humor, Audra McDonald, has appeared 4 times. Only two of those times did she sit down for the full interview segment. Two of her appearances involved singing a very operatic version of “White Wedding”, when Stephen married a young couple and in another episode she sang “Baby, it’s Cold Outside” with Stephen as a duet for a Christmas show.
Katie Couric has appeared three times, but only one time was a table interview. In her other appearances, once she was ready to give Stephen a colonoscopy and the other she was occupying the bathroom, brushing her teeth.
Let’s not forget that Nancy Pelosi refused to go on the show for a very long time and she’s obviously got thick skin. It took her 7 years to sit down at the table and she has now done it twice. Wait, hold on. She did appear on the show early on and said she wouldn’t appear on the show.
I could go on. I invite you all to add to these if you so choose, in the comments below. In any case, even if someone determines that it’s true he only has 27% women on as guests, I hardly think that one could seriously argue after watching the above segments, that he is anything close to a misogynist.
Stephen has said, in interviews, that it’s a tough booking and many people will not come on for the sheer reason that it is very intimidating to talk to a character. Even President Obama won’t come on. Speaking of President Obama, who’s that woman he’s married to, you know, the one who’s appeared on the show 3 times? (twice in interviews and once in a sketch)
One final awesome short interview that can’t be ignored: Sister Rosemary.
I am a big defender of Stephen but I can take it if someone wants to criticize what he does. However, I expect that people who criticize him will have really done their homework. This is why it would’ve been nice for Ms. Angyal to reserve judgment until she scores an interview with the show’s booker.(a female, by the way) We don’t know all the goings-on behind the scenes.
Who turns down the invitations? Who cancels? There are times when we know the story or at the very least we know that someone cancelled but what about the things we don’t hear about? Those examples were two high profile guests so we got to hear about what happened, but there may be many cases we never hear about. The shows should be allowed to defend themselves.
In wrapping up, we will obviously still be seeing a landscape of white men in late night TV for awhile, and that’s okay. We now officially have three white guys named James.
Many critics seem to think that minorities and women have not been given chances in late night TV and we know that’s not true. Chelsea Handler, George Lopez, Chris Rock, Wanda Sykes, W. Kamau Bell and let’s not forget back in the day-Joan Rivers. So why is there no diversity in late night TV? I would start asking the audiences who watch it.
Joan Rivers, a long time ago, mentioned that NBC did a survey and found that late night TV audiences want to watch a male rather than a female. The networks program for their audiences.
I was recently re-watching the wonderful performance by Jon Batiste and Stay Human, back in July. I also remembered that The Roots is Jimmy Fallon’s house band. Would anyone tell Jon Batiste or QuestLove that they should hire people based on anatomy or skin color, rather than musical talent?
Also, I feel that even if Stephen and Jon made a strident effort to get more women on, solely because of these criticisms, we will then see another article that says something to the effect of “Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart don’t employ enough (insert name of minority group here)”. So I personally hope they and all late night talk show hosts just keep doing what they do; hire people based on how funny and talented they are and book people who will make for the most interesting dialogues, not because of their skin color or anatomy.
Chloe Angyal disputes the idea that Jon and Stephen are “liberal lions”. That’s not what the Colbert Report is primarily about. Remember always: It’s a comedy show! As Stephen once said in an interview, “It’s Comedy Central, not Influence Central”.
Why Stephen Colbert Doesn't Need to Apologize
When Stephen made a reference to the fact that he only has one female writer, as he accepted his Emmy in August, for “Outstanding Variety Show”, he then apologized, “for some reason”. What I thought he was trying to say when he said that was actually more the opposite. I don’t think he should have to apologize at all. He has done nothing wrong. However, many people in the media seem to disagree judging by the number of recent articles commenting on that one line in his Emmy acceptance speech. So we here at the Hub have delved into this issue, analyzed it and here are the results. The opinions expressed in this piece are mine and not necessarily representative of Colbert News Hub as a whole.
One thing I noticed as I was reading through these articles is that as the media was being critical of Stephen for only having one female writer, he was “apologizing” with 3 women, out of a visible 6 total staff members behind him.
So while he still does have mostly male writers, look behind him.
He obviously is guilty of having a lot of white male writers with Ariel Dumas being the sole recent female addition. Meredith Scardino departed the show earlier this year. You may remember Ariel’s recent appearance as “Abby”.
There is more to the show than the writers, however. Some of the top staff positions are filled by females. Meredith Bennett and Emily Lazar are co-executive producers, Tanya Michnevich-Bracco is a supervising producer. His two senior field producers are Nicole Savini and Liz Levin and for years his head writer was Allison Silverman. Here is another picture from the backstage press area:
Recently, a woman named Chloe Angyal wrote an opinion piece for Reuters in which she claims that both Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart don’t lend out their guest chair often enough to females. She went back 45 episodes into the history of both shows and determined that only 40% of Jon’s guests are female and only 27% of Stephen’s guests were women.
Just for the record, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has been on since 1999 and The Colbert Report has been on since 2005. So what she did was take 1/4 of one season from these shows that have done over 2000 and over 1500 shows respectively.
Ms. Angyal doesn’t appear to have done any other research or interviewed anyone from either show to get a proper unbiased, journalistic perspective. It is an opinion piece, as is this piece, so I get it. It does seem somewhat irresponsible to make these judgments without talking to someone from the shows.
On The Daily Show there is usually one guest. However, on The Colbert Report there is often more than one in an episode, plus Better Know a District and other field pieces.
Did she consider repeat guests and the guests who appear at Stephen’s desk for a short interview? If not, I give you Emily Bazelon, a guest who has appeared 8 times, but only one time has she sat down at the table for the main interview segment.
One of Stephen’s guests mentioned in the Reuters piece was Eleanor Holmes Norton who recently sat down for the first time at the table for a full interview. However, she has appeared two other times. Once for a (very memorable) Better Know a District segment and once for a satellite “desk” interview.
Ms. Angyal is also criticizing those times when women have had to share the table with another guest, but is she counting the times when Stephen had female guests sharing the table with another female?
Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, June 18, 2014.
Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill, October 23, 2013.
Then there was this desk (and baking station) interview that featured two incredibly feminist women and became one of the most memorable segments in the show’s history. Jane Fonda appeared once more (also very memorable) and Gloria Steinem has appeared two more times since then. Not sure when Jane Fonda will be back but that’s another can of worms.
Broadway star and woman with an awesome sense of humor, Audra McDonald, has appeared 4 times. Only two of those times did she sit down for the full interview segment. Two of her appearances involved singing a very operatic version of “White Wedding”, when Stephen married a young couple and in another episode she sang “Baby, it’s Cold Outside” with Stephen as a duet for a Christmas show.
Katie Couric has appeared three times, but only one time was a table interview. In her other appearances, once she was ready to give Stephen a colonoscopy and the other she was occupying the bathroom, brushing her teeth.
Let’s not forget that Nancy Pelosi refused to go on the show for a very long time and she’s obviously got thick skin. It took her 7 years to sit down at the table and she has now done it twice. Wait, hold on. She did appear on the show early on and said she wouldn’t appear on the show.
I could go on. I invite you all to add to these if you so choose, in the comments below. In any case, even if someone determines that it’s true he only has 27% women on as guests, I hardly think that one could seriously argue after watching the above segments, that he is anything close to a misogynist.
Stephen has said, in interviews, that it’s a tough booking and many people will not come on for the sheer reason that it is very intimidating to talk to a character. Even President Obama won’t come on. Speaking of President Obama, who’s that woman he’s married to, you know, the one who’s appeared on the show 3 times? (twice in interviews and once in a sketch)
One final awesome short interview that can’t be ignored: Sister Rosemary.
I am a big defender of Stephen but I can take it if someone wants to criticize what he does. However, I expect that people who criticize him will have really done their homework. This is why it would’ve been nice for Ms. Angyal to reserve judgment until she scores an interview with the show’s booker.(a female, by the way) We don’t know all the goings-on behind the scenes.
Who turns down the invitations? Who cancels? There are times when we know the story or at the very least we know that someone cancelled but what about the things we don’t hear about? Those examples were two high profile guests so we got to hear about what happened, but there may be many cases we never hear about. The shows should be allowed to defend themselves.
In wrapping up, we will obviously still be seeing a landscape of white men in late night TV for awhile, and that’s okay. We now officially have three white guys named James.
Many critics seem to think that minorities and women have not been given chances in late night TV and we know that’s not true. Chelsea Handler, George Lopez, Chris Rock, Wanda Sykes, W. Kamau Bell and let’s not forget back in the day-Joan Rivers. So why is there no diversity in late night TV? I would start asking the audiences who watch it.
Joan Rivers, a long time ago, mentioned that NBC did a survey and found that late night TV audiences want to watch a male rather than a female. The networks program for their audiences.
I was recently re-watching the wonderful performance by Jon Batiste and Stay Human, back in July. I also remembered that The Roots is Jimmy Fallon’s house band. Would anyone tell Jon Batiste or QuestLove that they should hire people based on anatomy or skin color, rather than musical talent?
Also, I feel that even if Stephen and Jon made a strident effort to get more women on, solely because of these criticisms, we will then see another article that says something to the effect of “Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart don’t employ enough (insert name of minority group here)”. So I personally hope they and all late night talk show hosts just keep doing what they do; hire people based on how funny and talented they are and book people who will make for the most interesting dialogues, not because of their skin color or anatomy.
Chloe Angyal disputes the idea that Jon and Stephen are “liberal lions”. That’s not what the Colbert Report is primarily about. Remember always: It’s a comedy show! As Stephen once said in an interview, “It’s Comedy Central, not Influence Central”.