Women in Television

So, I decided to gather some of the projects that have been piling up over the past few months based on women, starring women, directed or created by women. It's easy to conclude that the scenario for women,  in television, may be a very different scenario from cinema. The number of projects that I’ll list here proves us that point on view.

Diablo Cody’s Sitcom, "Alex + Amy".

The Story: It centers on a relationship between a 22 year old guy and 32 year old woman.

Mila Kunis to Executive Produce TV Drama, “Meridian Hills”.

The Story: It sets at a midwestern country club during the the begining of the women's movement in the 70s.  A newly married woman joins the Junior League at the country club and meets a group of women who want to shake things up.

Sydney Sidner is na Executive Producer and and also the screenwriter of the show.

Oprah Winfrey, a complex family drama project for HBO.

The Story: It’s about a wealthy academic who has become the first black president of a prestigious liberal arts college. He and his family are thrust into national headlines, forcing them to present an idyllic public façade, all while engaging in agonizing personal battles and struggling with dark obsessions.

Ben Stiller producing “CompliKATEd”, written and starring Bonnie Hunt.

The Story: It centers around Kate, a confidently insecure woman with a complicated life.

Shonda Rhimes, producing “MILA 2.0”.

The story: It’s a sci-fi thriller about a young woman who discovers that she is a Mobile Intel Life-like Android, Mila, an experiment in artificial intelligence created by the U.S. government and her scientist mother, who kidnapped her when she was found to have human emotions.

It is written by Dave DiGillo.

Rebecca Sinclair (90210) as two projects:

One of the projects, yet untitled, centers on a self-obsessed young pop star – the black sheep of her religious family – who isn’t interested in saving anything but her own career, until a fan claims to have been miraculously healed by her touch and word spreads that she has divine powers.

The other project is called The Lost Girls, and it is based on travel memoir The Lost Girls by Jennifer Baggett, Holly Corbett and Amanda Pressner. The TV project, which adds a mystery element to the story in the book, centers on four very different 20-something American women, each at a point of crisis, who decide to escape their lives and their country, and go abroad.  While in Cambodia, the wanderers bond, happy to find friends who are equally lost. But when one of the women vanishes under mysterious circumstances and the remaining three pledge to find her, they embark on the real journey, a quest that leads them off the beaten path, around the globe and on the road to finding themselves.

Jennifer Garner’s company is producing a comedy, written by Ellen Rapoport.

It’s a semi-autobiographical comedy, it tells the story of Allie, a nerdy, twenty something overachiever who is befriended and taken in by two promiscuous party girls. They give her the adolescence she never had, while she teaches them how to grow up.

Jennifer Lopes is producing a drama called The Fosters. It’s created by Brad Bredeweg and Peter Paige.

The Story: A multi-ethnic family mix of foster and biological kids are being raised by two moms (via imdb).

NBC, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay are producing a comedy based on Leslye Headland’s play, “Assistance”. She’ll be writing the project too.

The Story is loosely based on her time working as an assistant to the Weinstein Co.’s Harvey Weinstein.

Elle Degeneres producing a comedy series. It’s written by Lauren Pomerantz.

The Story: it’s about a successful, proudly independent 32-year-old woman who is convinced she just doomed herself to die alone when she notices she’s listed as “a single woman” on the paperwork for the house she’s about to close on. 

Jane Fonda will also have a show of her own, apparently. It is called “Now What?”

Jane Fonda is a mother who is moving back in with her daughter. The catch is that the daughter has recently written a blog post entitled “Dear Mom, Here’s Why I Hate You…”

The show will be written by Abby Gewanter.

Elizabeth Banks is also producing a comedy show. It is written by Elizabeth Wright Shapiro.

The Story: It’s about an Ivy League graduate who moves to Los Angeles for a professional job. A self-described feminist, she moves in with two Playboy Bunny type women. While on the surface they seem like they have nothing in common, they learn that they are working towards similar goals.

Reese Witherspoon, working as an executive producer for a TV version of Charles Dickens’ classic novel, Great Expectations.

The Story: It’s about a girl who wants to make it big in San Francisco but who is quickly disillusioned about making it in a city. When she’s about to give up, a mysterious and wealthy benefactor comes to her rescue.

Amy Pohler is producing a comedy pilot based on Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer’s webseries Broad City. It will star both of them and it will focus around their day to day lives in New York City with simultaneously hilarious and horrifying results.

Another comedy, created by Rachael Harris, Angela Kinsey and Stacy Traub. It is called Firty Blonds.

The Story: It is based on Harris and Kinsey’s real life friendship of fifteen years and it will focus specifically around the pair after they both divorce which brings them closer together.

Trophy Wifen, executive produced and written by Emily Halpern and Sarah Askins, and it will star Malin Akermna.

The Story: it centers around a woman, Kate (Malin Akerman), a former party girl who falls in love with a man with major baggage which includes terrible children and two ex-wives.

NBC drama created by Patricia Resnick and Scott Stuber.

The story: a semi-autobiographical drama with comedic overtones set around the professional and private lives of the harried staff of a formerly famous novelist suffering from decades-long writer’s block. The hire of an ambitious young writer as the author’s new personal assistant sets off seismic shifts throughout the already unsteady household.

Rachel Zoe will be an executive producer for a comedy semi based in her life.

And there are more.

I don’t know if everything mentioned above will go forward, but some, more than others, sound like an interesting start. It’s sort of like a trend, but at the same time that doesn’t make any sense. It shouldn’t make any sense. What should make sense is saying that all these shows are only, or should only be a representation of the multi-dimensional, multi-racial, diverse American (in this case) society is made of, which is not of only white males being the protagonists of stories, the tragic or not tragic heroes. I think one of the main reasons of this issue in particular is that people forgot about it, forgot about this little detail that not only men are protagonists. Like in any other places around the world, there should be both female and male representations of different fucked up sorts! Because it can get pretty frustating at times...