The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday published a roundtable interview with six female comedians who described some of the sexism they’ve encountered in Hollywood.
The interview featured comments from six comedic power players: Lena Dunham, Amy Schumer, Ellie Kemper, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kate McKinnon and Gina Rodriguez.
When asked what the most sexist thing they’d experienced was, Dunham, the writer, creator and star of HBO’s “Girls,” shared a time a male actor made it clear he didn’t like having a woman in control.
“I heard a guy on my show say into his microphone: ‘I hate this job. I can’t wait to be back on a show where there’s a man at the helm,’” Dunham said. “Later, that same guy came up to me at lunch and said, ‘You’re really enjoying that buffet, aren’t you?’”
The women were asked: “What’s the worst thing that’s been said to you?”
Dunham said she’d received rape and death threats on social media and Schumer, of Comedy Central fame, said someone on Twitter once told her they wished she’d get ovarian cancer.
“The way women are spoken to in social media is truly shocking,” Dunham said. “It’s how you imagine people screaming at prisoners in Guantanamo.”
Comedic actress Gina Rodriguez of “Jane the Virgin” described an audition during which she’d been told that she was being evaluated on whether she was “pretty enough.”
“I was up for a role and auditioned in character,” Rodriguez said. “They’re like: ‘We love her. But can she come back in with a tight black dress?’ … I said, ‘That doesn’t make any sense for the character.’ They were like, ‘We need to know if you’re pretty enough to be on the cover of a magazine.’”
Kemper, the star of Netflix’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” said women “can’t go through our lives just being grateful for everything.”
Read the whole discussion here.
h/t Mic
A full range of roles from prostitute to junkie prostitute…
Goldie Hawn
“I was up for a role and auditioned in character,” Rodriguez said. “They’re like: ‘We love her. But can she come back in with a tight black dress?’ … I said, ‘That doesn’t make any sense for the character.’ They were like, ‘We need to know if you’re pretty enough to be on the cover of a magazine.’”
People in Show Business are evaluated on their looks? That seems hard to believe. Next thing you know, you will tell me that TV wrestling is fake.
They are spot on about the stuff on social media directed at women though. Some of the garbage is absolutely vile. Many of those people should be outed, identified or banned or whatever. There is no excuse for that kind of abuse.
lol those are just the only women that writers know, WOOOO! Ric flair noise
And Google execs…