I guess an explanation is needed.
Recently, I just had a pitch meeting at the home of Golden Guilded Teeth and Best Seven Days Eva'. It was for a pilot that we shot with the popular comedian, Rich Vos. Basically, a young beautiful girl goes out on a date with two rich older men trying to determine which one of the guys is rich. Then they all go back in front of a live studio audience, watch the dates, and the girl picks. Pretty simple. Truth be told, the show is fucking hilarious. And yes, the name of the show is called Sugar Daddies.
Anyway, we bring the pilot over to the, "Yeeeaahhh Boooy!" network and screen it for two lovely young female executives. I wasn't really sure if they would like it because Rich Vos works kind of well...blue. But I was hopeful. 10 seconds into the pilot, the girls are laughing. Which continues throughout the entire 21 minutes of the pilot.
Yeeessss.
Usually, after you screen a pilot, the creators and the executives will talk about logistics and other little issues. But since they both laughed throughout the pilot, I knew this was gonna be easy. But the first thing they say to us is:
"Wow. That was really funny. (Pause) I think we're just concerned that this doesn't exactly show women in a very flattering light."
Um...
Wait...
What?!
I politely reminded them of the other shows that air on their own network. They told me that the shows that are airing now don't really degrade women.
Again, um...
Okay. Two things. Number one, Sugar Daddies does indeed degrade women. Sugar Daddies also degrades men. Sugar Daddies degrades Rich Vos as well. The truth is, it's a comedy show. Comedy always has some sort of degradation as humor. In some ways, it's kind of like watching a really vapid, self centered, gold-digging train wreck. I might be wrong but by judging every single reality type based programming that's ever aired on television, with the exception of Extreme Makeover, there's always a character on the show that's degraded in some way with a dash of personal train wreckerism.
Number two, I just watched the second season of Flava of Love. You know, the show where 20 women compete for fame...er, excuse me, love of not really that famous anymore, Flava Flav. Thank God that network doesn't degrade women. Otherwise there would've been a catfight in the first 10 minutes of the show. Oh wait...that happened.
Well, Thank God, the women didn't get drunk and start licking each other on the no-no spots. Whoops...happened.
Nudity...happened.
Girls "dropping it like it's hot"...happened.
My 92 year old grandmother, whoops, I mean Flava Flav, slapping name tags on the butts and breasts of these women...happened.
Let's see, what's left? Well, at the very least a woman didn't take a shit on the floor. Oh, wait...
HAPPENED.
I wonder if a woman watching that show would feel degraded? Gee, I don't know.
Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't about degradation. Maybe, just maybe, those executives (one of whom was only at the network for 2 weeks), has no clue what an audience is looking for. Truth is, those executives wouldn't have put any of the more popular shows on the air if they were in charge.
This is why creatives complain about executives.
Then again, what the hell do I know? I used to be one.
--Tenspeed
posted by Tenspeed & Brownshoe @ 3:00 PM
Comments:
11
