Hollywood Reporter invited Zooey Deschanel, Christina Applegate, Julie Bowen, Laura Dern, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jane Lynch, and Martha Plimpton to sit down and discuss what it means to be a comedic actress in today's world.
Look how funny they are being
This is a great example of something being thought provoking, but still not very good. I'm not overly impressed with the whole thing, but it gave me a lot of questions about comedy and gender to ponder, so it was certainly worth my time.
First off, Hollywood Reporter spends a strange amount of time showing us footage of them being photographed. I know it was probably for the magazine, and they wanted video they could mix with the audio of the round table discussion, but I felt like waaaay too much of this was just shots of them looking pretty for the camera. If the goal of the discussion was "why aren't women taken more seriously comedy", cutting the interviews with shots of them posing and preening undermines the whole thing.
Also, I felt there are some major undertones of competition and jealously going on throughout the interview. Maybe it's a result of getting that many celebrities to interview each other, or because they are all technically competitors in their careers (didn't the Emmy's just happen?), but there's a part of me that just feels it is because they are women. Get a group of women together, no matter how powerful or assertive, and the same games seem to appear.
For one thing, I heard a lot of apologizing- people saying sorry for what they said, or for losing their train of thought, or saying something that could be potentially embarrassing or contrarian. It seemed to me the main goal was to keep the tone light and happy, more than to make a point or to express a strong opinion. Compare this to 'Talking Funny', which I watched a few months ago (here) where they had no problem calling each other out or flat out disagreeing on topics.
Also, a good amount of time was spent complimenting each other. Not that there is anything wrong with showing respect for your contemporaries, I just felt the motive behind most of these comments was less "I respect you" and more "we're cool, right?". If the interview was all men, I don't think they'd spend this much time talking each other up. It reminds me of a Cracked article that talks about why women take so long to say goodbye at parties:
"In research published by Daniel Balliet, Norman P. Li, Shane J. Macfarlan and Mark Van Vugt of the American Psychological Association in Psychological Bulletin, men cooperate better with other men than women cooperate with other women. Researchers reviewed 272 studies containing 31,642 participants in 18 countries. Each study contained one social dilemma. In a social dilemma experiment, two or more people must choose between short-term self-interest and long-term group interest. The research revealed that women were more likely to cooperate when men were involved and women were less cooperative than men in same-sex situations."
Read more.
I don't know how well any of the women in this interview really know each other, but I got the feeling they wanted us to think they were all best friends.
For the record, I don't blame any of these women for their behavior. I think our gender roles and expectations are hard wired into our brains from a very early age, and those who choose to live in front of the cameras have to deal with them even more often than the average person. So I don't slight any of them for acting this way- it's a result of our gendered society.
You can watch the full interview here:
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