According to the female showrunners for a number of today’s most popular shows including New Girl, Up All Night and Suburgatory, writing rooms that have more women are just as raunchy if not raunchier than shows with mostly men on the writing staff. The raunchy, fraternity-like male writing room may be more of an urban comedy legend than we thought.
DeAnn Heline, the showrunner for The Middle, told New York Magazine, “We’ve had a lot of male writers come in and say, “Oh, because women were writing the show, I didn’t think the writers’ room would be as raunchy.” And it’s more so.” Emily Kapnek, the showrunner for Suburgatory, said, “You want to create an environment where people feel like they can say anything. It needs to have a safety: You can let your mind go to a really weird, scary, not acceptable place in that room, and then carve a story out of that weird, dark hole in your mind.” More »