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Tina Fey Expertly Called Out David Letterman on His Lack of Female Writers


Tina Fey is no stranger to making waves in roles where women are incredibly underrepresented: She was the first female head writer on Saturday Night Live. She was the creator of—and writer for—30 Rock and a co-creator and writer for Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Most recently, she’s shown off her talent by rewriting Mean Girls for Broadway (which racked up 12 Tony nominations on Thursday).

So you’d think she’d have a lot to talk about with David Letterman on his new Netflix show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. And she did—although it might not have been what he was expecting. Fey’s spoken about the importance of diversity in the writers’ room before, recently in Variety‘s April “Power of Women” issue. Meanwhile, late-night comedy shows—like Letterman’s old Late Show—still are notorious for being a boys club. Although women are beginning to pave the way for other aspiring female comedians and hosts like Samantha Bee and, most recently, Busy Philipps, gender inequality still prevails in the writers room and in front of the camera.

So when Letterman attempted to explain why he’d had few women employed as writers, Fey put him squarely in his place.

“I didn’t know why there weren’t women writers. There was no policy against women writers,” Letterman, who passed the late-night baton off to Stephen Colbert in 2015, told Fey. “I always thought, ‘Well, geez, if I was a woman I don’t know if I would want to write on my nickel-and-dime, dog-and-pony show anyway because we’re on at 12:30.’”

Thankfully, Fey didn’t let that response slide: “Yeah, we did want to write on it, though,” Fey said.

Fey’s blunt response prompted Letterman to apologize: “But that is my ignorance, and I feel bad for that,” he said. “And it’s changing, has changed.”

But Nell Scovell, who made history as the first female writer on the Late Show in the early ‘90s until leaving in 2009, pointed out on Twitter that things have remained mostly the same for Letterman.

“Meanwhile, on Dave’s new Netflix show, there are 5 Executive Producers and ALL are male,” she wrote. ‘It has changed’ but not on Dave’s shows.”

You can watch Fey’s appearance on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction here.

Related Stories:

-‘Mean Girls’ Leads the 2018 Tony Awards With 12 Total Nominations–Tina Fey and Megyn Kelly Share the Life Advice They Swear By At This Very Moment–’30 Rock’ Called Out Harvey Weinstein Five Years Ago





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This Chart Breaks Down the Lack of Female Best Director Honorees at the Critics' Choice Awards Since 1995


The Critics’ Choice Awards provided an extremely fast follow-up to the Golden Globes, an event where Time’s Up dominated and women’s representation—especially in categories like directing—were hot topics of conversation. The Thursday evening award ceremony, however, lacked a lot of the punch of Sunday evening’s epic kick-off. Gone were the Time’s Up pins and speeches about women’s empowerment—with a few noteworthy exceptions like Gal Godot’s “See Her” award, featuring a rousing introduction by Wonder Woman director (and 2017 Glamour Woman of the Year) Patty Jenkins. There were some uncomfortable moments, like Elisabeth Moss getting played off after accepting her award for The Handmaid’s Tale.

For this award season, we’re eschewing some of the standard fare of previous years—consistent “Best Dressed” round-ups, for example—to focus on spotlighting the ways women are changing Hollywood, from record-breaking awards to the characters redefining how woman are portrayed on-screen. We’re also digging into the data behind key categories at all the major award shows. Just how often do women get nominated? And how often do they win? And are we getting better at being truly representative of the people watching TV and film?

Our reasoning is simple: we believe that better representation—both in front of and behind the camera—means healthier workplaces, and better storytelling.

In the case of the Critics’ Choice Awards, categories like directing are just as lacking when it comes to women as its peers. (The Golden Globes, for example, didn’t nominate a single female director this year, and a woman hasn’t won in this category since 1984.) We break down the honorees since 1995 in this chart. (Note that in some years, there was only a winner that was honored—no nominees—and that years correspond to the year in which film hit screens.) While Greta Gerwig was nominated for Ladybird, the 2017 winner in this category was Guillermo Del Toro. The only female Critics’ Choice Award winner for Best Director since 1995 was Kathryn Bigelow, for The Hurt Locker.

In addition, we looked at the recent data—from 2009-2017—across a variety of gender-neutral categories like Editing and Best Original Screenplay, and found that here, too, women are woefully underrepresented. Categories like Editing, Adapted Screenplay, and Director have had only one winner who identifies a female since 2009; there have been zero female winners for Original Screenplay in that time.

You can filter the results by clicking on any of the categories at the top, and you can also hover over any of the individual squares to see the nominee—male (in gray) or female (in peach)—and the work for which they were nominated.

To be sure, this data is just a limited window into women’s representation in the overall business—and also doesn’t factor in the inequality that women of color, for example, face—but even this limited window offers a stark portrait of how far we have to go. The good news, at least, is that we’re speaking up and getting loud. Change is sure to follow.

Graphic: Condé Nast Data Visualization

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Forbes Addressed the Lack of Diversity on Its Highest-Paid Actresses List


2017 has been a good year for diversity in film across the board. Moonlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture; Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out is the most profitable film of the year; and Girls Trip, a film starring four women of color, was the surprise hit of the summer. That being said, we still have a long way to go. Yes, we’ve made progress, but the majority of speaking roles in major motion pictures still go to white performers—specifically, white men.

And this explains why there are no women of color in the top 10 of Forbes magazine’s highest-paid actresses list this year. The publication released its annual list earlier this week, and people were quick to notice the lack of diversity. Check it out for yourself, below:

  1. Emma Stone—$26 million

  2. Jennifer Aniston—$25.5 million

  3. Jennifer Lawrence—$24 million

  4. Melissa McCarthy—$18 million

  5. Mila Kunis—$15.5 million

  6. Emma Watson—$14 million

  7. Charlize Theron—$14 million

  8. Cate Blanchett—$12 million

  9. Julia Roberts—$12 million

  10. Amy Adams—$11.5 million

Stone getting the top spot this year is a no-brainer; her performance in La La Land earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lawrence, and Melissa McCarthy prove time and time again to be bankable stars, so their appearance isn’t a surprise. And Emma Watson did Beauty and the Beast this year, so, again, duh. But no actresses of color? How is that possible?

Like we said earlier, it’s the lack of roles. Forbes associate editor Natalie Robehmed confirmed this in a statement released yesterday.

“The lack of diversity on the list comes down to roles: Only 28.3% of all speaking roles across formats go to characters from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, according to a 2016 study,” she said, Cosmo reports. “That means there are simply fewer characters—and fewer high-paying roles—written for women of color. When studios, directors and screenwriters begin creating more main characters for women of color in the types of big budget movies that pay huge upfront fees and backend profits, we’ll see more actors of color on the list.”

Hollywood doesn’t have any more excuses for ignoring this issue. Many studio executives, I believe, used to think films about women and people of color were niche—but Get Out and Girls Trip dispel that completely. These films make money—and people want to see them. It’s time for the industry to wake up.



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