I read at a school as part of a volunteer program, and something happened the other day that got me thinking.
One of the kids I read to is named Lola. I say her name because it’s relevant. The other day, she picked two books for me to read, both with characters in them named Lola. One was a Charlie and Lola book, and therefore the Lola in them was white and blond like this Lola. But the other one was “Lola Loves Stories,” where the little girl in the story is black. The Lola I was reading to had no problem seeing a reflection of herself in this little black girl, she loved that book as much as the Charlie and Lola book.
I’ve also seen kids who were able-bodied reading books about kids in wheelchairs or with other disabilities, and seeing a bit of themselves in those kids, too.
The point I’m trying to make is that representation of other races, or of people with disabilities, transgender people, and so on, doesn’t exclude anyone. Having more black/disabled/trans people in media doesn’t exclude anyone white/abled/cis. If this little white girl can see a bit of herself in a little black girl, then you should be able to see a bit of yourself in people of other races/genders/levels of ability, too. And if you can’t, maybe you should take a hard look at yourself and ask yourself “why not?”
With all of this reshuffling of mainstream late-night hosts, one thing’s certain: It’s time for a female host, one who will have more female guests and discuss more issues that directly impact women. Because although over half the population is female, there are still no female hosts on network late night television.
rewatching s1 for like the 100th time--at what point does all the brilliant animal sight gag stuff (eg the croc wearing crocs) get added? is it like, we need to have a croc wearing crocs, where can we fit this in? or do you start out by needing someone to guard the food and say let's do a crocodile--hey, he should wear crocs? or some kind of total afterthought, or something else entirely? thanks. love the show, my favorite of all time.
Hello! I am going to answer your question, and then I am going to talk a little bit about GENDER IN COMEDY, because this is my tumblr and I can talk about whatever I want!
The vast vast vast majority of the animal jokes on BoJack Horseman (specifically the visual gags) come from our brilliant supervising director Mike Hollingsworth (stufffedanimals on tumblr) and his team. Occasionally, we’ll write a joke like that into the script but I can promise you that your top ten favorite animal gags of the season came from the art and animation side of the show, not the writers room. Usually it happens more the second way you described— to take a couple examples from season 2, “Okay, we need to fill this hospital waiting room, what kind of animals would be in here?” or “Okay, we need some extras for this studio backlot, what would they be wearing?”
I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that the croc wearing crocs came from our head designer lisahanawalt. Lisa is in charge of all the character designs, so most of the clothing you see on the show comes straight from her brain. (One of the many things I love about working with Lisa is that T-Shirts With Dumb Things Written On Them sits squarely in the center of our Venn diagram of interests.)
NOW, it struck me that you referred to the craft services crocodile as a “he” in your question. The character, voiced by kulap Vilaysack, is a woman.
It’s possible that that was just a typo on your part, but I’m going to assume that it wasn’t because it helps me pivot into something I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last year, which is the tendency for comedy writers, and audiences, and writers, and audiences (because it’s a cycle) to view comedy characters as inherently male, unless there is something specifically female about them. (I would guess this is mostly a problem for male comedy writers and audiences, but not exclusively.)
Here’s an example from my own life: In one of the episodes from the first season (I think it’s 109), our storyboard artists drew a gag where a big droopy dog is standing on a street corner next to a businessman and the wind from a passing car blows the dog’s tongue and slobber onto the man’s face. When Lisa designed the characters she made both the dog and the businessperson women.
My first gut reaction to the designs was, “This feels weird.” I said to Lisa, “I feel like these characters should be guys.” She said, “Why?” I thought about it for a little bit, realized I didn’t have a good reason, and went back to her and said, “You’re right, let’s make them ladies.”
I am embarrassed to admit this conversation has happened between Lisa and me multiple times, about multiple characters.
The thinking comes from a place that the cleanest version of a joke has as few pieces as possible. For the dog joke, you have the thing where the tongue slobbers all over the businessperson, but if you also have a thing where both of them ladies, then that’s an additional thing and it muddies up the joke. The audience will think, “Why are those characters female? Is that part of the joke?” The underlying assumption there is that the default mode for any character is male, so to make the characters female is an additional detail on top of that. In case I’m not being a hundred percent clear, this thinking is stupid and wrong and self-perpetuating unless you actively work against it, and I’m proud to say I mostly don’t think this way anymore. Sometimes I still do, because this kind of stuff is baked into us by years of consuming media, but usually I’m able (with some help) to take a step back and not think this way, and one of the things I love about working with Lisa is she challenges these instincts in me.
I feel like I can confidently say that this isn’t just a me problem though— this kind of thing is everywhere. The LEGO Movie was my favorite movie of 2014, but it strikes me that the main character was male, because I feel like in our current culture, he HAD to be. The whole point of Emmett is that he’s the most boring average person in the world. It’s impossible to imagine a female character playing that role, because according to our pop culture, if she’s female she’s already SOMEthing, because she’s not male. The baseline is male. The average person is male.
You can see this all over but it’s weirdly prevalent in children’s entertainment. Why are almost all of the muppets dudes, except for Miss Piggy, who’s a parody of femininity? Why do all of the Despicable Me minions, genderless blobs, have boy names? I love the story (which I read on Wikipedia) that when the director of The Brave Little Toaster cast a woman to play the toaster, one of the guys on the crew was so mad he stormed out of the room. Because he thought the toaster was a man. A TOASTER. The character is a toaster.
I try to think about that when writing new characters— is there anything inherently gendered about what this character is doing? Or is it a toaster?
Thank you Raphael, what a wonderful post. I’m so grateful and lucky to be working with smart men who listen to women! I get deeply bummed out when all the funny weirdo characters in a work of fiction are male. Raph makes me sound really calm here, but I seriously cried and wrote emails at 1am about this slobbering dog character, I felt so strongly about it! It seems so silly now, but it was one of the few times I got worked up enough to risk being perceived as a real pain in the ass.
I’ve made this same mistake, by the way! When I first started drawing my comic Coyote Doggirl, the protagonist was originally male. At the last moment I thought, “wait, why?” So I added a sports bra.
Oh, and yes I put Crocs™ on that crocodile, of course!
"Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) is the first game developed in collaboration with the Iñupiat, an Alaska Native people. Nearly 40 Alaska Native elders, storytellers and community members contributed to the development of the game. Play as a young Iñupiat girl and an arctic fox as they set out to find the source of the eternal blizzard which threatens the survival of everything they have ever known.
In this atmospheric puzzle platformer, you will explore awe-inspiring environments, perform heroic deeds, and meet legendary characters from Iñupiaq stories — all narrated by a master storyteller in the spoken Iñupiaq language.
Unlock fascinating video insights — Elders, storytellers, and other members of the Alaska Native community share stories and wisdom about their culture, values and the amazing Arctic world encountered by players in over 30 minutes of interviews.”
Here is a side by side comparison of how The New York Times has profiled Michael Brown — an 18 year old black boy gunned down by police — and how they profiled Ted Bundy, one of the most prolific serial killers of all time.
this is so fucking fucked up and disgusting look at this trash. HOW COULD ANYONE DENY THIS SHIT IS RACIALLY CHARGED? this is beyond disgusting. what a fucking dishonor
onesmartblackboy
The Bundy comparison is interesting don’t get me wrong but did yall see the article they got for Darren Wilson? Yesterday on Aug. 24 nytimes.com published both an article about Mike Brown and one about Darren Wilson. Look at this:
Officer Wilson, who is divorced, was born in Texas but has spent most of his years in these suburbs that surround St. Louis, records show. Family members, friends, colleagues and a lawyer have mostly refused to speak publicly about him, yet those who do paint a portrait of a well-mannered, relatively soft-spoken, even bland person who seemed, if anything, to seek out a low profile — perhaps, some suggested, a reaction to a turbulent youth in which his mother was repeatedly divorced, convicted of financial crimes and died of natural causes before he finished high school in 2004.
“He was a good kid but also a nondescript kid,” said Barney Brinkmann, who coached ice hockey at St. Charles West High School, where some who knew Officer Wilson say he narrowly got enough ice time his senior year to earn a varsity letter. A former next-door neighbor in the small city of Troy, an hour northwest of St. Louis, where Officer Wilson and his former wife lived for about a year, said he recalled Officer Wilson grilling outside from time to time and never causing trouble. And in Crestwood, southwest of St. Louis, where records show that Officer Wilson now lives with Barbara Spradling, a fellow police officer, neighbors said they rarely made much conversation.
It’s almost surprising how blatant it is. nytimes.com was able to reference an elementary school teacher to claim Darren Wilson was “a good kid” but they couldn’t find one to say the same for Mike Brown? Well then I guess there was no teachers to be found with good things to say about him then. Right?
Except wait, no, I just did. Right here in this article:
"My fondest memory of Mike is seeing a big kid coming in with a smile on his face, his headphones on and a big can of iced tea … and say, ‘Hey, Coach K, What’s going on? …. What do you need me to do this morning?’" recalls Charlie Kennedy, a Normandy High School health and physical education teacher. He says Brown was the kind of kid who’d hold court with "four or five kids around him, cutting up and having a good time."
Kennedy became acquainted with Brown while running a credit recovery program the young man was enrolled in that allowed him to catch up so he could graduate with his class. Brown, he says, could be led astray by kids who were bad influences but by spring, he became focused on getting his degree.
Kennedy also would bring in recording equipment Brown could use for rapping - he wanted to perform and learn a trade to help support himself. “His biggest goal was to be part of something,” the teacher adds. “He didn’t like not knowing where to fit in life. … He was kind-hearted, a little kid in a big body. He was intimidating looking, but I don’t think he ever was disrespectful to me.”
Brown loved music even as a young child. Ophelia Troupe, his art teacher for five years in elementary school, remembers a reserved, polite little boy - he’d always respond ‘yes ma’am’ or no ma’am.’ He kept to himself but lit up when she’d play her son’s beats in class as a reward if the students behaved.
"Michael was the one to say, "Be quiet so Ms. Troupe can play the beats,’" she recalls.
Troupe hadn’t seen Brown for several years until they crossed paths at his high school graduation. After the ceremony, they hugged and he told her he’d like to be a rapper and asked if her son would work with him.
The way language is being used to in those two nytimes to influence/shape conversations about Michael Brown’s and Darren Wilson’s characters isn’t even subtle. At face value one article suggests that one person had all sorts of issues, meanwhile the other person mostly didn’t any issues at all except for hey, he had a troubled childhood! Good for him for not following in his mother’s footsteps, clearly all he ever wanted to do was the right thing. Oh but Mike Brown, well… “he got into at least one scuffle with a neighbor.”
scrapes
say its not about race. say it. you have to be living in a different fucking dimension if you think this is anything BUT race.
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