Ten years ago, when Terri Minsky started out as a comedy writer on such sitcoms as “Doctor, Doctor” and “Flying Blind,” most of her colleagues were men and the mood around the offices frequently resembled that of a locker room.
“I worked on so many series where I was the only woman,” Minsky said. “The jokes in the writers room were so misogynistic, so hateful, I thought if I go to the mat on this, I’ll be doing that every 30 seconds.”
Now, as the creator of the ABC comedy “The Geena Davis Show,” Minsky has found a different backstage atmosphere. “When we were writing the pilot, I realized about 75 percent of the staff was women,” she said. “In fact, some of the guys were looking around going, `This is really weird.”‘
Minsky isn’t alone in her observation. This season, at least a half-dozen new comedy series were created by women and written by predominantly female staffs. In addition to “The Geena Davis Show,” they include “Madigan Men” on ABC, “Girlfriends” on UPN and “Tucker” on NBC.
Although some of the series have been canceled and none has yet become a breakout success, NBC’s midseason addition “Three Sisters,” created by Eileen Heisler and DeAnn Heline, is already shaping up as a modest hit, and “What About Joan,” a new ABC comedy starring Joan Cusack and created by Gwen Macsai, is scheduled to have its premiere in March.
For Minsky and the other producers interviewed for this article, this new wave of sitcoms signals an increased visibility and power for women off camera and a more female-friendly attitude in the series themselves.
“It used to be that women were hired for `story’ and `character’ and the guys were hired for jokes,” said Amy Sherman-Palladino, a former writer on “Roseanne” and the creator of the WB’s new family drama “Gilmore Girls.” “That cliche is changing now as more women create shows that actually get on the air.”
Female writers and producers have always created sitcoms. But the wave of series created by women this season is potentially the most significant since the late 1980s, when hits like “The Golden Girls” (created by Susan Harris), “Murphy Brown” (Diane English) and “Designing Women” (Linda Bloodworth-Thomason) dominated prime time.
“The era of `The Golden Girls’ and `Murphy’ was silenced during the mid-1990s when you saw the arrival of a lot of comedies about women created by men that portrayed women in silly, goofy ways,” said Heisler, who previously worked as a producer on “Murphy Brown” and “Roseanne.” Those series included “Suddenly Susan,” “Caroline in the City,” “Jenny” and the hourlong “Ally McBeal,” which is still on the air.
Now, Heisler said, that perspective is changing as more women create and oversee series. “The women on our show are not coming from that place,” she said, “because women write women differently than men do.”
And that means a new realism in how women are portrayed in prime time. Staking out a middle ground between the overt feminism of “Murphy Brown” and the sex-and-relationship obsessions of “Ally McBeal,” these comedies reflect the often conflicting concerns of a postfeminist generation.
On her series, Geena Davis plays a single career woman plunged into motherhood when she becomes engaged to a widower with two children. On “Girlfriends,” three of the women are single; the fourth is a married secretary. In Joan Cusack’s series, she plays a conservative public school teacher who turns down her boyfriend’s offer of marriage.
“These women are all over the map,” said Stacey Lynn Koerner, vice president of broadcast research at TN Media, the media-buying division of True North Communications. “They aren’t relegated to the traditional role of wife and mother, nor are they the megaprofessional without a personal life. They are much more complex, and in that regard, TV reflects reality to a much greater degree.”
James L. Brooks, a creator of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and an executive producer of Cusack’s series, said: “Thirty years ago the single career woman on `The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ embodied a whole movement. Today, women don’t have an obvious destiny. It’s all up for grabs.”
Although cyclical trends are common in prime time, this wave of female-friendly comedies is due to more than viewers’ shifting tastes. It reflects larger changes in the television industry, including the growing number of women in important network positions and the increased number of female producers holding lucrative development deals.
“It all makes a huge difference,” Minsky said. “When women become the heads of development, it’s much easier as a woman to find a receptive audience for your idea.”
It also makes it easier to find the money. Although no women have production deals to rival those of Phil Rosenthal and Aaron Sorkin, creators of the top 10 hits “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “The West Wing”–who have signed deals worth $50 million and $16 million, respectively–more women are now receiving seven-figure development contracts.
Cindy Chupack, an executive producer on HBO’s “Sex and the City” and the creator of “Madigan Men,” which was canceled in December, has a two-series development deal at Mike Ovitz’s Artist’s Television Group. Jenny Bicks, another executive producer on “Sex and the City,” has a two-series deal at NBC Studios, which will produce her comedy “Leap of Faith” next season.
“Women are getting more deals and more money in those deals today,” Bicks said. “That really helps when it comes to selling your idea to the networks.”
Bicks should know. As a top writer on “Sex and the City,” she has had a front-row seat in what producers and network executives say has been the single most important factor contributing to the new wave of female ensemble comedies. Although the HBO series about four single women in Manhattan was created by Darren Star (based on the writings of Candace Bushnell), its water-cooler success among both male and female viewers created a ripple effect throughout prime time.
“Absolutely that series affected us,” said Stu Bloomberg, entertainment co-chairman at ABC, home of “The Geena Davis Show” and the upcoming Joan Cusack series. “A lot of women at this company live for that show, because of its frankness about sex; that used to be largely the province of men.”
Chupack added: “A few years ago if you had taken a female ensemble comedy to the networks, you would have heard, `Where’s the male appeal?’ Because `Sex and the City’ became a hot show about women that both men and women would watch–it was not a hit on, say, the Lifetime channel–it changed that attitude at the networks.”
