No more toxic male spaces at ITV comedy.

The feminists have taken over. It's for the best. Quotas are amazing. The lack of experience and confidence of female comedy writers has nothing to do with innate drives, or men being funnier; I won't have it.

Absolute mega-hooray for more jokes about mortifying social situations based on periods, queefs and accidentally tucking your skirt into your pants. Really looking forward to some amazing jokes about how useless men are!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48668652

"Vagina!!! Yeah...woooo!!"

Crikey that article starts with a photo of Scarlett Moffat. Is that an example of the exciting new talent ITV are to use for their comedies in future?

I don't think its right to have what appears to be an outright ban on all male writing teams. If that had been in place in the 80's, 90s and noughties we would not have had Black Adder, Father Ted, The Office, Extras or the IT Crowd. Maybe redress the balance somewhat with commissioners purposively looking for female writers although the overriding concern should be that what they commission is actually funny. Too many of the younger comedians getting picked up by UK networks these days are just not funny - e.g., Zoe Lyons, James Acaster, Angela Barnes, Ellie Taylor, Rachel Paris.

Or maybe these guys are funny and i am just out of touch.

stengos wrote:

Or maybe these guys are funny and i am just out of touch.

You're out of touch? I don't even know who the fuck any of them are!

I mean that worked so well for Rick and Morty

They really don't get it that comedy teams work because they gel in the right kind of pub atmosphere this woman complains of.

Mixed or all-female comedy writing teams can work. It didn't hurt The Young Ones to have Lise Mayer on their team. Absolutely Fabulous was a great comedy (at least in its prime) and mostly all written by Jennifer Saunders.

But if the writing team are forced by dictate to accommodate someone who might not gel with them at all purely for the sake of positive discrimination, then it loses the spark and dynamism. The writers can't lose control through their material the way comedy often demands, because it's become a more corporate, feminist environment.

They'll probably be afraid to explore certain ideas for fear of offending the matriarchy.

And rightly so. It's about time free thought processes were abolished.

Why isn't 50% of the Hive's moderating team female? I nominate Tannann for the snip!

Maxill will just have to tuck it between his legs

Commander Maxil wrote:

stengos wrote:

Or maybe these guys are funny and i am just out of touch.

You're out of touch? I don't even know who the fuck any of them are!

Me neither!

The sooner traditional TV networks and film studios die the better. Their lack of accountability to the public has enabled those in charge to behave like utter pigs, spitefully desecrating beloved franchises with impunity and paternalistically force-feeding viewers what they think is good for them. The continuing rise of streaming services can only be a good thing, democratising the entertainment industry by making it directly accountable to an audience capable of withdrawing funding at any time.

ClockworkOcean wrote:The sooner traditional TV networks and film studios die the better. Their lack of accountability to the public has enabled those in charge to behave like utter pigs, spitefully desecrating beloved franchises with impunity and paternalistically force-feeding viewers what they think is good for them. The continuing rise of streaming services can only be a good thing, democratising the entertainment industry by making it directly accountable to an audience capable of withdrawing funding at any time.

There's a guy on youtube called The Distributist who makes a case for what fan culture across the board needs to do in the face of the 'woke' and snooty modern entertainment industry.

You beat me to it, boofer - I was just hotfooting it here to post the link! Looks like the next Galton/Simpson, Lloyd/Croft, Mayall/Edmonson, Jay/Lynn or Clement/La Frenais have just taken another potential blow to their hopes.

It's fair to say itv's comedy output lately displays there's concerns far beyond banning all-male writing teams. Judging by the increasingly lame Birds Of A Feather and Jack Dee's latest middle-of-the-road effort I'd hate to see what scripts this bright spark's been throwing out. They were doing much better sitcoms in the 1980s and frankly even the much-maligned (but massively popular) On The Buses looks like a shining gem in comparison to current meagre efforts.

They're all committing suicide in the name of nonsense.
Who even watches terrestrial TV anymore anyway? No one under 60. And behaving like misandrist losers is not going to change that.

Its pathetic, absolutely pathetic.

Its hilariously condescending to women. Apparently women can't succeed in the entertainment industry on their own?

The real reason women aren't featured in as many comedies is simple. People aren't as willing to laugh at women's pain, misfortune and terrible luck as often as they are men.

Comedy depends on characters failing, suffering and being presented in an unsympathetic way. Look at Basil Fawlty, Blackadder, The Young Ones, Alan Partridge etc, they all fit that criteria.

Dear god, imagine Bottom with two women? Yeah I'm sure the feminists would love watching a show about two fat, ugly women, constantly ridiculed for their weight, whose entire lives revolve around trying to find men, and who men regularly reject, make remarks about their tits being too small and who are regularly beaten up and even killed in certain episodes.

You could say its a double standard against both sexes. On the one hand perhaps the fact that men can play these roles more often is symbolic of people having less sympathy for men's problems, but on the other women don't get a chance to play as many good comedy roles. Take a look Red Dwarf. The guys play the losers and unsympathetic characters, whilst the woman plays the boring straight character.

The way round it is to have more female led series where the women are just as awful and go through just as much punishment as men. Some women comedy performers do do this like Fran in Black Books. She's hilarious because she is as awful as the guys, and goes through as much crap. Same with Daisy in Spaced, and the women in Peep Show.

Still these people don't care about improving comedy, just in agenda pushing so I expect to see the same tired old Jo Brand style jokes about men being pigs.

stengos wrote:Crikey that article starts with a photo of Scarlett Moffat. Is that an example of the exciting new talent ITV are to use for their comedies in future?

I don't think its right to have what appears to be an outright ban on all male writing teams. If that had been in place in the 80's, 90s and noughties we would not have had Black Adder, Father Ted, The Office, Extras or the IT Crowd. Maybe redress the balance somewhat with commissioners purposively looking for female writers although the overriding concern should be that what they commission is actually funny. Too many of the younger comedians getting picked up by UK networks these days are just not funny - e.g., Zoe Lyons, James Acaster, Angela Barnes, Ellie Taylor, Rachel Paris.

Or maybe these guys are funny and i am just out of touch.

You're not. Ironically Scarlett Moffat is the most likable out of any of that lot.

Zoe Lyons is a nasty cunt with no principles. I remember her making jokes about Amy Winehouse's depression and self harm. She also gloated over Amy's death the day it happened, making out that she had killed her.

Flash forward a couple of years and guess who is virtue signalling about mental health awareness on twitter and taking part in charities for mental health awareness. Guess who is virtue signalling about alt right trolls being horrible to vulnerable women online.

Its like that talentless nasty piece of human excrement Frankie Boyle. This is a man who made jokes about Jordan raping her blind son, constantly made nasty remarks about women like Kerry Katona when the media was giving them a kicking, yet now sucks SJW cock and goes on about misogyny and virtue signals by having X amount of women on his lame ass show.

These people are sheep who go with whatever the narrative is. In a few years time if the SJW craze does die down, expect Frankie Boyle to be ridiculing SJWs and back to making vile remarks about women again.

Compare them to say the South Park boys. Now I find a lot of SP funny, but obviously a lot of their humour is nasty and horrible. Their jokes about Barbara Streisand for instance are infantile, pathetic and embarassing.

Still at the very least the South Park guys are not sheep. They DO go after the SJWs and Trump, Islam and Christianity, career atheists and the Catholic church. That's what satirists are supposed to do.

British comedians sadly are just sheep these days. Incidentally I loved the way that they had Eric Cartman be the one who pushed all of the SJW crap in South Park. Very well observed. Its always ones like him that do. Chancers who don't believe a word of it but can use it for their own gain, bullies who think they can use it to push people around, and ironically people who've often had a history of being sexist, racist, and bigoted themselves (like Zoe Lyons and Frankie Boyle) and who have no shame about it.

Talent, schmalent, in the 21st century Commie West, it's what's between your legs that counts!

burrunjor wrote:

stengos wrote:Crikey that article starts with a photo of Scarlett Moffat. Is that an example of the exciting new talent ITV are to use for their comedies in future?

I don't think its right to have what appears to be an outright ban on all male writing teams. If that had been in place in the 80's, 90s and noughties we would not have had Black Adder, Father Ted, The Office, Extras or the IT Crowd. Maybe redress the balance somewhat with commissioners purposively looking for female writers although the overriding concern should be that what they commission is actually funny. Too many of the younger comedians getting picked up by UK networks these days are just not funny - e.g., Zoe Lyons, James Acaster, Angela Barnes, Ellie Taylor, Rachel Paris.

Or maybe these guys are funny and i am just out of touch.

You're not. Ironically Scarlett Moffat is the most likable out of any of that lot.


In a few years time if the SJW craze does die down, expect Frankie Boyle to be ridiculing SJWs and back to making vile remarks about women again.

Scarlett seems to have a pleasant personality I will give you that. She lacks the horrid nature of the likes of Barnes and Lyons but shes not especially funny. Its just the way that in an article about ITV insisting on mixed writing teams (or at least barring all male ones) they have a picture of her, appearing to insinuate that shes the calibre of person they are looking for. I just don't think she would be up to it. Or maybe its just a random photograph.

I'm pessimististic. I don't think the SJW craze will die down in a hurry. Much of it stems from the increasing numbers of women in entertainment jobs over the last decade or so. We now have a higher pecentage of entertainment jobs taken up by women. As they become more influential and hold positions of power then so these types of decisions - e.g., unfairly favouring women writers - will become more firmly entrenched and continue.

Okay there may be some sort of market correction if the products these people produce aren't popular but i don't expect it to be a complete reversal. Some of their output will be popular and that will strengthen their position and their cause. And to be fair some of the output has been good. Happy Valley with Sarah Lancashire was good, the ITV detective drama "The Bay" was very good and while i know its not popular in these quarters i thought series 1 of Killing Eve was quite entertaining if annoying because of the way it treated the male characters.

And yes - i also think Boyle is a dick. To be honest i hadn't heard of him for a long while and so was assuming he had been blacklisted by C4 and the BBC.