In this golden age of entertainment, TV is not only better than ever, but more diverse. It’s incredibly refreshing to see that some of today’s best comedies and dramas feature a ton of women as well as people of color in prominent roles. Unfortunately, it looks like it’s still a bunch of white dudes behind the scenes at some shows. The Writer’s Guild of America West (WGAW) recently released statistics that reveal a depressing disparity in TV writing staffs. While there’s been an increase of women and POC writing for television, the numbers are still terribly low– out of a total of 1722 writers, 30.5 percent were women, while only 15.6 percent were people of color.
To draw attention to this disparity, WGAW released a list of the shows that hired neither women (19 shows) nor people of color (a whopping 55 shows). A lot of these results are disappointing (Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Veep is present in both categories), while some aren’t surprising at all (did you really think there were any POC writing for Gossip Girl?):
Television Shows That Hired No Women Writers During The 2011-2012 Season
America’s Funniest Home Videos
Big Time Rush
Californication
Comedy Bang! Bang!
Dancing With The Stars
Eagleheart
Enlightened (Creator Mike White wrote all the episodes)
Futurama
Geniuses
Gurland On Gurland
The Insider
Kickin’ It
Locke & Key
Magic City
Psych
Teen Wolf
Veep
Workaholics I
Workaholics II
Television Shows That Hired No People Of Color As Writers During The 2011-2012 Season
America’s Funniest Home Videos
Anger Management
Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader
Baby Daddy
Best Friends Forever
Big Time Rush
Blue Mountain State
Boss
Breaking Bad
Californication
The Client List
Comedy Bang! Bang!
Dancing With The Stars
Eastbound and Down
Enlightened (Creator Mike White wrote all the episodes)
The Firm
Free Agents
Futurama
Game of Thrones
Free Agents
Geniuses
A Gifted Man
Glee
Good Luck, Charlie
Gossip Girl
Gurland On Gurland
Happily Divorced
Hart of Dixie
Homeland
How To Be A Gentleman
The Insider
Jane By Design
Kickin’ It
Lab Rats
Last Man Standing
The League
Longmire
Make It Or Break It
Man Up
Mike and Molly
Napoleon Dynamite
Once Upon A Time
One Tree Hill
The Protector
Ray Donovan
Revenge
State of Georgia
Stevie TV
Two And A Half Men
Veep
Web Therapy
Weeds
Workaholics I
Workaholics II
Check out more of the statistics at Think Progress.
