Fox’s Diverse Writers Program Sets Finalists

COMMENTS (7)

• There is a company called The Cartel?

  Dumbasses.

  Comment by The DEA — Thursday February 21, 2013 @ 12:11pm PST  Reply to this post

• Props to the finalists…

  Write something new. Don’t follow the leader.

  Comment by Slayer — Thursday February 21, 2013 @ 12:50pm PST  Reply to this post

• Hope at least one of these writers has a disability. The most underrepresented minority on television. Something needs to change.

  Comment by Don't Ignore Reality — Thursday February 21, 2013 @ 1:09pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Hope at least one of these writers has a disability. The most underrepresented minority on television.

    I assume you mean under-represented on-screen–how the hell would you know if a screenwriter had a disability?

    Excluding non-veterans over 80 years old (but including those with cognitive- or sensory deficits like mental retardation or deafness regardless of age), about 3.5% of us have some level of disability:

    • 0.9% of us suffer severe emotional- or cognitive disability;
    • 0.9% of us require ambulatory aid (cane/wheelchair/walker);
    • 0.7% of us require personal assistance with daily tasks;
    • 0.4% of us are legally blind;
    • 0.2% of us are deaf;
    • 0.2% of us receive military disability benefits;
    • 0.2% of us are non-military amputees

    One of the biggest roles in television is disabled–although Hugh Laurie is not himself disabled. CSI‘s Robert David Hall, however, is a double-amputee. So is Aimee Mullins. Marlee Matlin is deaf–and plays every deaf role in Hollywood. Temple Grandin has Asperger’s syndrome, and R.J. Mitte of Breaking Bad has cerebral palsy.

    If you count all the little people–and I haven’t–the disabled may well be over-represented on television.

    By the way, your comment is right next to a headline that reads, “Handicapping The Original Score Nominees”:

    Comment by vaffangool — Thursday February 21, 2013 @ 7:59pm PST  Reply to this post

• Confused about Zal Batmanglij’s involvement in this program. He’s an indie feature writer/director with no TV experience, and certainly no credits (yet) named “New York Undercover”

  Comment by Huh? — Thursday February 21, 2013 @ 1:27pm PST  Reply to this post

• And may the best person win, and maybe the diversity of this collective body will help to feed the beast of demands the audiences are rising up to become.

  Comment by David Smart III — Friday February 22, 2013 @ 1:50am PST  Reply to this post

• The sad truth is we should not need these “programs.” But we all know that the bigotry, racism and clubbyness in the system pushes out anyone who is not white and male. The WGA and DGA are so embarrassed by their part in it that they no longer publish the percentages of minority employment, opting to only report when there is some kind of “increase.” My (very) unofficial sources tell me that on network, the numbers are both well below 2%.

  Out f this program, one writer will get a shot. The other will fall away and nothing will happen. Meanwhile, Fox gets to keep its minority numbers up by calling the contestants employees.

  All of it is shameful.

  Comment by Anonymous — Friday February 22, 2013 @ 10:36am PST  Reply to this post