Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Why ITV’s decision to ban all-male comedy writing rooms is a mistake

Laugher is a universally understood language. If something is funny, we all react the same way. What we find funny can be subjective – dark humour, slapstick, take your pick. But at the end of the day, comedy may be one of the truest forms of meritocracy we have. Regardless of your gender, race, beliefs or background, the question is clear cut: either you make people laugh, or you don’t.

Which brings into question ITV’s decision to ban all-male writing rooms, as part of its strategy to be more inclusive to female writers and comedians.

ITV is a private media company and is free to do what it pleases with its writing rooms – but that doesn’t make it a good decision, nor does it make it compatible with other initiatives within ITV.

The broadcaster’s head of comedy Saskia Schuster has launched Comedy 50:50, an ‘initiative to address gender imbalance in comedy.’ Laudably, it sets out clearly that this is ‘not about hitting quotas or targets as some form of box ticking exercise’ but instead about ‘implementing practical measures as a way to achieve equal representation.’

Yet Schuster’s decision to implement an outright ban on all-male writing teams would suggest the opposite. It does not matter how brilliant, funny, or ground-breaking your show is, if you haven’t ticked the ‘woman’ box on your team, you’re not airing it on ITV.

Even more extreme, if the writing team does have a female writer on board, they may face backlash under the new rules, as allegedly there can ‘all too often be a sense of tokenism towards the lone female’.

If male-dominated teams of writers weren’t given the green light over the years, viewers would never have known Cheers or The Inbetweeners. Some would say these shows could have been made even better by more women being involved in their writing teams.

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