A kindly WGAW member we know has leaked this excellent – and dismaying – article from the “If You’re a Member” section of the WGAW’s website:
NPR TV critic Eric Deggans addresses the dilemma of people of color in television. Bigger numbers aren’t enough if the portrayals are stereotypes, he says.
The Cosby Show, which premiered in 1984 and ran for eight seasons, not only revived the beleaguered sitcom genre but in its genius showed America an image that had not been seen for the most part before on network television: the upper-middle class Huxtables, an African American family in which the mother was a lawyer and dad was a doctor. Until then, portrayals of African Americans on TV tended to lean towards characters that were gang members, drug addicts and poor inner city people.read article
A web drama series that we actually enjoy. (And we say that as people who are much more likely to want to watch something and laugh our butts off instead of worry about, you know, something bad happening to the heroes.
Oh, we also like the way this series pretends to deconstruct the whole heroic saga notion while actually injecting it with fresh, and vibrant, life.
Check out the first episode. (Don’t worry. There are plenty more.)read article
Gizmodo has made a video that’s required viewing for everybody who thinks peer production started because of YouTube. What a terrific – and essential – history lesson this is:
Not, not young Ernest Hemingway. It’s Lord Byron, who created the myth Hemingway tried to recreate.
by Nathan Bransford
One of the reasons I came to writing relatively late in life is because I never thought of myself as a creative person, an idea I explore in myguide to writing a novel.
Whenever artists and writers are portrayed in movies and on TV, they’re always moody and flighty and bold and wacky and adventurous. Unbound by societal norms and twitchy with creativity that might spring forth at any moment.
I don’t know many writers that fit this stereotype. To be sure, I know plenty of wacky writers, many of us can be social misfits at times and, and on the whole, sure, maybe writing types are a little more moody and flighty and in our own heads than the general population.read article
Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are=&0=&Speaking of science fiction, Todd Slavkin & Darren Schwimmer (SMALLVILLE) are showrunning Syfy’s upcoming supernatural type series, DOMINION. (So if you know ’em, it’s definitely time to take these boys to lunch. Oh, hell, even if you don’t know em!)
Timothy Patrick McLanahan (evidently a newb) is suing Tom Cruise, Brad Grey and all the production companies and studios involved in the making of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PATROL for, you know, “copyright infringement.” (Which our favorite copyright attorney tells me is exactly the wrong thing to do even if the facts favor Tim cuz there’s a statutory damages limitation on on that particular allegation and legal costs start at fifty gs. Go for more gold, Timmy. C’mon, give the Man real hell!
NPR TV critic Eric Deggans addresses the dilemma of people of color in television. Bigger numbers aren’t enough if the portrayals are stereotypes, he says.
A web drama series that we actually enjoy. (And we say that as people who are much more likely to want to watch something and laugh our butts off instead of worry about, you know, something bad happening to the heroes.
