VIDEO: “Women and Late Night Television” from the Paley Center

Hey, all! We told you a while back that the Paley Center for Media would be co-hosting a panel on women in late night television (with the Writers Guild of America, East), and they’ve now posted some video from the event. Allison Silverman and Meredith Scardino should be familiar names to Stephen Colbert fans by now, but the panel also features some brilliantly funny ladies from other shows: Ann Cohen (Best Week Ever), Jill Goodwin (The Late Show with David Letterman), Hallie Haglund (The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) and Morgan Murphy (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon).

I can’t embed the video, but click here or on the photo of Meredith and Allison below to watch the Paley Center’s video (photo by Michele Kort, Ms. Magazine blog):

Here are some articles about the event:

• Guest Post: Late Night Women Laughing by Kathleen Sweeney

  “What is the sound of late night women laughing? If the recent panel discussion moderated by Allison Silverman, former Executive Producer and writer for The Colbert Report at The Paley Center for Media in New York is any indication, it’s rather raucous.”

• The Only Women In The Late Night Writers’ Rooms

  “‘I think you’re great, and you write like a man.’ It was the first audience ‘question’ to a panel of women late-night comedy writers last night, an evening of similarly uncomfortable and (in this case, unintentionally) revealing moments.

  . . .

  ‘When are you most aware of being the only woman?’ Silverman asked.

  ‘In the showers,’ deadpanned Morgan Murphy, of Jimmy Fallon.”

• Where Are the Women Comedy Writers on Late-Night TV?

  “I was expecting horror tales of discrimination and sexist exclusion when I attended a gathering of some of the most talented women late-night TV writers in New York City last week. Instead, what I heard was that there just aren’t enough funny women submitting material and applying for comedy writing positions.”

• Late night women writers speak out at Paley Center NYC

  “Of course, having a panel called women in late night, requires a discussion of why there are so few women late night writers and if it is harder for a women to work in this business. One of the best lines of the night came from moderator Allison Silverman, who said “a lot of being a woman comedy writer is being asked what it’s like being a woman comedy writer”. There is much less sexism in this field that you might think.”

With regard to one point repeated throughout these articles — that not enough women apply for writing positions with these shows — I was reminded of this exchange between Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead and The Daily Beast’s Rachel Sklar, in which Winstead noted that she got 150 writer submissions when she was developing The Daily Show … and only three of them were from women. I’d be as happy as the next person out there if this “women aren’t funny” canard were put to death (permanently), but those kinds of numbers go a long way toward refuting the opposite extreme, that pure sexism is entirely to blame.

At any rate, enjoy the video!

(h/t to Katt for some of these links!)