woman-helmed network TV shows
A couple of weeks ago or so, chaila43 had a post (which I'm not quite motivated enough to track down) about how she craves more shows in which a woman is truly the protagonist: not just a member of an ensemble, but the character around whom the action revolves. I'd been thinking about this specific distinction, and then gabolange and I talked about it at length last weekend, and finally today, I decided to harness the power of procrastination to count things (maybe I'm getting enough distance from the dissertation to start missing research?). I was curious how many prime-time shows of the major networks have top-billed actors or hosts/anchors who are women.
(Show data is for the 2010-11 season, including shows that are already cancelled and some that have not yet premiered. Info from this wikipedia list, so no guarantees it's 100% accurate. And in most cases I'm pretty confident I was able to determine whose name appears first in the credits--and that was my criterion--but it's possible I'm off a bit there, too.)
Of the five (ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, NBC), the CW comes out head and shoulders above the others. (This surprised me because I associate it primarily with Supernatural, which is not exactly the most woman-friendly of shows.) But of its 11 shows, 8 star/are hosted by women, for a whopping 73% of the total.
Of the bigger networks, ABC and NBC did better than CBS and Fox, which both pretty much sucked.
ABC (home of Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, and V, among others) has a woman as the top-billed performer/host in 11 of their 31 shows--35%. When you look only at scripted shows (and reality TV, in general, is very male host-heavy), it's 9 of 19, or 47%.
NBC (home of 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, the new Harry's Law, and the late lamented Undercovers) has 8 woman-helmed shows of 31 total, or 6 of 20 in the scripted drama/comedy category. Undercovers, incidentally, is noteworthy not just for being one of only two scripted shows with a woman of color in the top spot (the CW's Nikita is the other--and it's the only one still airing), but also for being the only show with co-leads in which the woman's name is listed first (the other possible instance of this, Bones, does make my list, but Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz's names appear simultaneously--even though the show is named after her character).
Speaking of Fox, Bones is one of only 3 of their 24 shows (13%) that has a woman's name appear first in the credits: and as I said, she shares that top spot with her male costar. Another one of the three, Glee, doesn't actually count: Diana Agron goes first because they do the whole cast in alphabetical order, but she's not the star of the show (or even the most prominent character). So really it's just Fringe and Anna Torv that goes unambiguously in the category for Fox.
And CBS is similarly disappointing. It has The Good Wife, and Medium, and some new sitcom called Mad Love, starring Sarah Chalke. And that's it: 3 of 28 shows, or 11%.
As for shows that would pass chaila43's test for the top-billed woman who is truly the protagonist--not just one of a pair or an ensemble--those are even fewer. I don't know all the shows, so I'm not going to try to list them, but yeah.
And as bad as all of this is on the gender front, it's far worse on the race front. Actors of color helming shows: Maggie Q on Nikita, Gugu Mbatha-Raw on the cancelled Undercovers, and the women of color are rounded off in the non-fiction realm by Tyra Banks hosting America's Next Top Model, Elizabeth Vargas co-hosting 20/20, and Ann Curry hosting Dateline NBC. For the men there's Forrest Whitaker in the new Criminal Minds spinoff, Laurence Fishburne in CSI, Jimmy Smits in the (deservedly) cancelled Outlaw, and I believe a kid named Jonathan Castellanos has top billing on Off the Map. Possibly I'm missing one or two people here or there, but overall, it's a depressing (and white, male) state of things on network TV.
Anyway, I don't have a point other than the one we all know. But I counted stuff, so now I feel better.
Mostly: what's a girl who likes female protagonists (and protagonists of color, and female protagonists of color, if we could, please!) to watch? Nikita may be worth checking out on principle. gabolange has also convinced me to give Sanctuary (not a major network show, obviously) another try, by using magic phrases like "Helen is definitely the center of the show," "Helen kicks ass and doesn't apologize for her choices," and "John and Helen obviously had a few shining awesome moments in the 1880s, but now they're the most Fundamentally Irreconcilable Pairing ever." So, um, yeah. Will be trying Sanctuary, keeping in mind that it gets better than it was in the early first season (when I stopped watching before). I'll probably keep poking at Fringe, though it's still yet to grab me. And eventually it will be summer, and there will be new Rizzoli and Isles.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.
(Show data is for the 2010-11 season, including shows that are already cancelled and some that have not yet premiered. Info from this wikipedia list, so no guarantees it's 100% accurate. And in most cases I'm pretty confident I was able to determine whose name appears first in the credits--and that was my criterion--but it's possible I'm off a bit there, too.)
Of the five (ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, NBC), the CW comes out head and shoulders above the others. (This surprised me because I associate it primarily with Supernatural, which is not exactly the most woman-friendly of shows.) But of its 11 shows, 8 star/are hosted by women, for a whopping 73% of the total.
Of the bigger networks, ABC and NBC did better than CBS and Fox, which both pretty much sucked.
ABC (home of Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, and V, among others) has a woman as the top-billed performer/host in 11 of their 31 shows--35%. When you look only at scripted shows (and reality TV, in general, is very male host-heavy), it's 9 of 19, or 47%.
NBC (home of 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, the new Harry's Law, and the late lamented Undercovers) has 8 woman-helmed shows of 31 total, or 6 of 20 in the scripted drama/comedy category. Undercovers, incidentally, is noteworthy not just for being one of only two scripted shows with a woman of color in the top spot (the CW's Nikita is the other--and it's the only one still airing), but also for being the only show with co-leads in which the woman's name is listed first (the other possible instance of this, Bones, does make my list, but Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz's names appear simultaneously--even though the show is named after her character).
Speaking of Fox, Bones is one of only 3 of their 24 shows (13%) that has a woman's name appear first in the credits: and as I said, she shares that top spot with her male costar. Another one of the three, Glee, doesn't actually count: Diana Agron goes first because they do the whole cast in alphabetical order, but she's not the star of the show (or even the most prominent character). So really it's just Fringe and Anna Torv that goes unambiguously in the category for Fox.
And CBS is similarly disappointing. It has The Good Wife, and Medium, and some new sitcom called Mad Love, starring Sarah Chalke. And that's it: 3 of 28 shows, or 11%.
As for shows that would pass chaila43's test for the top-billed woman who is truly the protagonist--not just one of a pair or an ensemble--those are even fewer. I don't know all the shows, so I'm not going to try to list them, but yeah.
And as bad as all of this is on the gender front, it's far worse on the race front. Actors of color helming shows: Maggie Q on Nikita, Gugu Mbatha-Raw on the cancelled Undercovers, and the women of color are rounded off in the non-fiction realm by Tyra Banks hosting America's Next Top Model, Elizabeth Vargas co-hosting 20/20, and Ann Curry hosting Dateline NBC. For the men there's Forrest Whitaker in the new Criminal Minds spinoff, Laurence Fishburne in CSI, Jimmy Smits in the (deservedly) cancelled Outlaw, and I believe a kid named Jonathan Castellanos has top billing on Off the Map. Possibly I'm missing one or two people here or there, but overall, it's a depressing (and white, male) state of things on network TV.
Anyway, I don't have a point other than the one we all know. But I counted stuff, so now I feel better.
Mostly: what's a girl who likes female protagonists (and protagonists of color, and female protagonists of color, if we could, please!) to watch? Nikita may be worth checking out on principle. gabolange has also convinced me to give Sanctuary (not a major network show, obviously) another try, by using magic phrases like "Helen is definitely the center of the show," "Helen kicks ass and doesn't apologize for her choices," and "John and Helen obviously had a few shining awesome moments in the 1880s, but now they're the most Fundamentally Irreconcilable Pairing ever." So, um, yeah. Will be trying Sanctuary, keeping in mind that it gets better than it was in the early first season (when I stopped watching before). I'll probably keep poking at Fringe, though it's still yet to grab me. And eventually it will be summer, and there will be new Rizzoli and Isles.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.