I forgot that Anne Bancroft had died. Remove her from the list and put in Shohreh Aghdashloo.
**Kate and Ally
Caroline in the City
Gilmore Girls
Clueless (remember it was a tv series too)
Sabrina the Witch
Charmed
**
twitch
Could you list the sitcoms that any of the people you listed were in?
(The only one I can think of was a horrible “Ab Fab” remake that starred Mary McDonnell).
Hey, when’s the last time a woman won Best Actor? Huh? Huh?
For the same reason that there are so few female leads in movies; it’s sexism, pure and simple.
Oh please. From the current top ten…
-
Avatar
stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver -
Sherlock Holmes
stars Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law and Rachael McAdams -
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
more or less animated, but nominally, Jason Lee -
It’s Complicated
stars Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin -
The Blind Side
stars Sandra Bullock -
Up in the Air
stars George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick -
The Princess and the Frog
animated -
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant -
Nine
stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, Sophia Loren and Fergie -
Invictus
stars Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman
There are more women listed than men.
I love it when those who would never think of insisting that there is no such thing as racism or homophobia these days are always the quickest to disparage the notion that sexism against women still exists.
Yes, there are women in these pictures, but notice I said “female leads”. Damned few, and if a woman is the lead character in a film, the film is instantly designated a Chick Flick. And we all know what happens to men who see too many of those.
This is like an exerpt from a book I read that insisted that male predominance in business was a thing of the past because Fortune Magazine once posted a top ten business list of some kind, and seven of the companies had women for CEO’s.
Never mind that out of the myriad of businesses out there, the vast VAST majority of CEO’s are men. Ebay is run by a woman. Sexism is no more.
Sexism on whose part? The audience, who doesn’t want to see female leads, or the networks/studios? Or someone else?
If the people want to see female leads, I would assume the networks/studios would provide those, since they are in the business of making money and all. I mean, if you are a sexist head of a network would you simply refuse to have shows with female leads even if that would mean higher ratings and more revenue for your network (and a bigger bonus for you?)
So, if there is sexism, it would be on the part of the audience. Do you agree?
Also, assuming the above is true, is it only men in the audience who don’t like seeing female leads, or do women, to a degree, prefer seeing men leads? IIRC, in the past, resistance to voting for a woman came from many women, not just men, so I wonder if a similar thing might hold for resistance to seeing female leads in shows/movies.
Yeah, but African-Americans aren’t funny.
What?
To expand/distort what Sage Rat wrote, it is somewhat true that female comedians often have to be hot to get lead roles. Or casting will just hire an actress with no comedy training for a part in a sitcom or comedy, making her seem naturally less funny than her male (and supporting female) cast members. So you get Katherine Heigl as Seth Rogen’s love interest in Knocked Up instead of, say, Mindy Kaling, Rachel Dratch or someone else who can be expected to hold her own when it comes to improv and delivery or outshine him.
FTR, IMHO the best non-animated sitcoms on TV today both have female leads or ensemble casts with strong actresses – 30 Rock, the surprisingly funny New Adventures of Old Christine and Community. Two of the best sitcoms ever, Ab Fab and Arrested Development, opted for funny over sexy (not that Portia de Rossi’s anything to sniff at). Always cast for funny – it makes people hot.
ETA The idea that network execs only look at the almighty dollar and never their own prejudices isn’t always the case, in my experience. Or magazine editors. Or casting agents. Even if, I don’t know, Oprah wanted to do a show for them, someone would say ‘I don’t know… a chubby black woman?’
Great job quantifying what I qualitatively thought to be true.
Yes, I agree. The sexism is on both sides. Take the statement from earlier in this thread. “Because women will watch something with a male for a lead, but a male won’t watch something with a female for a lead.” True or false?
False? But it certainly seems a popular concept on the entertainment production side of things. 14 to 6 male leads counted over female. Sexism on the producers’ side.
True? Then the sexism lies with the audience.
Personally, I believe the sexism lies buried in both. I just get sick of hearing that sexism doesn’t exist anymore.
All of those sitcoms are off the air. If this was what led you to post, you should have titled your thread “Why were there more…”
I dispute your numbers. Sadly, a couple people have already taken them as gospel.
First issue is that you counted four cartoons. Cartoons are not sitcoms. Is South Park a sitcom? If (generic) you say yes, you’ve got issues.
Second, you’re counting abysmal failures as evidence. A strong argument could be made that grand failures like Hank and Brothers – both cancelled after only a handful of episodes aired – demonstrate compelling evidence that whatever they were doing is not what the current trend of tv is all about. In other words, you can’t say that something is wrong or bad about tv and then point to dismal failures as evidence of that thing. Like you couldn’t point to Cop Rock as evidence that tv went all musical. An objective view would show that the reality was just the opposite.
So, removing cartoons and dismal failures, what are we left with? One note: You don’t seem to be familiar with a lot of these shows. I watch pretty much all of them. I’ll correct where you guessed, corrections bolded.
Sunday - no sitcoms currently running
Sunday totals: 0 male, 0 female
Monday
How I Met Your Mother: Male
Accidentally on Purpose: Female
Two and a Half Men: Male
Big Bang Theory: Male
Monday totals: 3 male, 1 female
Tuesday
Scrubs: Female
Better Off Ted: Male
Tuesday totals: 1 male, 1 female
Wednesday
The New Adventures of Old Christine: Female
Gary Unmarried: Male
The Middle: Female
Modern Family: Ensemble
Cougar Town: Female
Wednesday totals: 1 male, 3 female, 1 ensemble
Thursday - NBC’s night for comedy, still
Community: Male
Parks and Recreation: Female
The Office: Male
30 Rock: Female
Thursday totals: 2 male, 2 female.
Friday - no sitcoms currently running
Sunday totals: 0 male, 0 female
Saturday - no sitcoms currently running
Sunday totals: 0 male, 0 female
Overall totals:
Male leads: 7
Female leads: 7
Ensemble casts: 1
Clearly even.
EDIT: It’s particularly frustrating to hear people keep paroting this “male dominated sitcom” trope in light of this year’s new sitcoms:
Accidentally on Purpose: Female
Scrubs: Female (revamped show, now with a female lead)
The Middle: Female
Modern Family: Ensemble
Cougar Town: Female
Community: Male
4-1-1 in favor of the women, plus an extra two male shows that crashed and burned just to drive home the point that male-dominated sitcoms are NOT the current trend of tv.
Yes, sexism still exists. But when it comes to movies and television? Uh uh.
The movie and TV biz is one of the truly equal places as there are plenty of big parts for everybody. But because everyone wants to be just a little bit better than the competition, there is always bitching that there aren’t enough parts for this group or that group. But you can always find plenty of examples. You can also plenty of people who will complain those examples don’t count.
EDIT: Also, what Ellis Dee said.
I’m pretty sure that was a grammar-based twitch, based on the fact that “women” and “male” are not parallel adjectives. “Female” and “male” are.
Before I begin, let’s get things straight: Either there is an imbalance due to sexism or there isn’t an imbalance in the number of female vs male sitcom leads. We can’t have some people crying “sexism!” while others maintain there is no imbalance to speak of.
Second, the thread that inspired this thread is the one about men shown as buffoons in ads and sitcoms, and in that thread people were maintaining that men are so regularly shown as buffoons in sitcoms only because they so regularly are the stars of the show, and thus it’s OK to show them as dumb. If only women could get some sitcom leading roles, then we would see women buffoons on TV as well. Well, if the current batch of people claiming no sitcom gender imbalance are correct, then we should see a balance in buffoonery in men and women in sitcoms. Do we?
I don’t watch a lot of the new shows (Cougar town, Parks & Recreation, etc), so people who watch them: are the women stars buffoons? The one show I did watch a couple of times, The Middle, the female lead was not a buffoon. Yes she was overly stressed out, and didn’t do things perfectly, but she was not a moron, like many male sitcom leads.
Well, to nitpick: “Family guy” is still on the air, despite your protestations that cartoon sitcoms are not sitcoms. Also, “According to Jim” ended this past July and “King of Queens” ended in July 2007, so it’s not like these shows are from ancient history. They are quite recent.
However, overall, you do have a point that this was an older batch of shows. I’ll address current shows below.
South Park may not be a sitcom, but I would claim that The Simpsons and Family Guy are. These are TV families, with a father, mother, daughter(s), son(s), neighbors, etc who get into comedic situations, just like any other similar live-action sitcom.
This is a good point, but we should also apply it to the new batch of female-led comedies that you mention. Are these doing well? Will they be around next season? If they don’t have staying power, then maybe that’s why, historically, the longest living and successful series are male-led.
Below are some numbers
First: TV ratings for the week of Dec 29 2009: Top 25 shows
Rank Show Viewers (millions)
7 TWO AND A HALF MEN 10.8
10 BIG BANG THEORY, THE 10.0
23 HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER 5.6
24 MODERN FAMILY 5.6
Three out of the four shows are male led and the fourth is an ensemble (as per your own categorization)
Second:Sitcom ratings for week ending Jan 3 2010
Viewers Show Lead
11.1 Two and a Half Men Male
9.9 The Big Bang Theory Male
6.0 How I Met Your Mother Male
5.8 Old Christine Female
5.7 Accidentally on Purpose Female
5.6 Better off Ted Male
5.3 Gary Unmarried Male
5.1 Family Guy Male
4.5 Modern Family Ensemble
4.3 The Middle Female
4.2 The Cleveland Show Male
4.1 The Simpsons Male
4.1 American Dad Male
3.8 The Office Male
3.8 Cougar Town Female
3.5 Scrubs Female
3.4 30 Rock Female
2.9 Parks & Recreation Female
2.6 Community Male
The above shows us
[ol]
[li]The top sitcoms skew towards male leads. In the top 14 sitcoms, only 3 are female-led.[/li][li]The new female-led shows aren’t doing that well. We’ll have to wait and see how long they’ll stick around. As you say, we can’t declare trends out of failures.[/li][li]As of now there are 11 male-led sitcoms, 7 female-led sitcoms, and one ensemble (or 7-7-1 if you exclude cartoon sitcoms, like you do). Whether 11-7-1 or 7-7-1, it does seem more balanced than I had thought (assuming the categorizations you made are correct). As I mentioned though, let’s wait till next season to see who sticks around.[/li][/ol]
Gold sticker.
Ignoring the general insult, please, please explain by what metric shows like Family Guy, American Dad and The Simpsons don’t qualify as sitcoms. If (generic) you say they’re not life-action, you’ve got issues.
What male lead buffoons? You haven’t established that there are any.
I’ll submit Michael Scott from The Office as a buffoon, on whom Leslie Knope – the lead in Parks and Recreation – was originally based. (She’s gotten toned down in this second season.)
How many other male buffoons are there headlining sitcoms given the baseline that Patricia Heaton’s character on The Middle is not one? I count none. Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, OTOH…
You didn’t apply enough critical analysis to this. New sitcoms period don’t do well. If you listed all those same sitcoms by age you’d get almost uniformly the same order.
What you didn’t notice is that the new male-led sitcoms did far, far worse than the new female ones. Two have already been cancelled, and according to your numbers the only one still breathing is dead last, far behind the new female ones.
Cartoons completely reset every week. They often have characters do things either totally out of character (as in becoming a whole different character) or completely unrelatable to normal human experience. Like, say, when your pet dog hits on chicks, or you have your morning coffee with an alien, or you jump on the space shuttle. Situational comedies are founded on normal human experience. Basically a humorous slant on mundane situations. That’s how they got the name in the first place. King of the Hill is an animated sitcom, for example. Or at least it was.
The less diplomatic way to say it is that sitcoms are targeted to grown-ups. Cartoons are generally targeted at males who are trapped in a perpetual state of arrested adolescence, so it’s no wonder they display sexism. That’s like saying comic books are sexist. Stop the presses on that revelation.
To name a few others not mentioned so far.
The Donna Reed Show (1958-1966)
I Dream of Jeannie (1965-1970)
The Carol Burnett Show (1967-1978)
Alice! (1976-1985): Tell me I’m not the only one that remembers these shows.
Moesha (1996-2001): A UPN comedy that had a spinoff called…
The Parkers (1999-2004): A mother-daughter comedy from Moesha.
Reba (2001-2007): It was only cancelled because the WB and UPN merged to form CW. It was the highest rated comedy on both WB and CW, but was cancelled to keep the urban comedies that UPN imported.
Hanna Montana (2006-2010): One of the highest rated cable shows.
Lizzie McGuire (2001-2004): One of Disney’s highest rated shows and would have ran longer if Disney had dropped their 65 episode limit sooner.
That’s So Raven (2003-2007): Again, another Disney sitcom, but it still beats most shows on cable, such as the complete lineup of the Sci-Fi channel.
Wizards of Waverly Place (2007-?): Another Disney show that’s also a powerhouse in ratings for cable. Sure, it’s about three siblings (two boys and a girl), but there’s no doubt that Selena Gomez is the lead.
iCarly (2007-?): Nickeldoen’s highest rated live show, although it has beaten Spongebob in the ratings a couple of times.
True Jackson, VP (2008-?): Another Nick show that does fairly well in the ratings.
Zoey 101 (2005-2008): Another Nick hit show. Chances are that the show would still be on the air today if Jamie Lynn Spears hadn’t been knocked up.
Sherri (2009-?): Lifetime comedy that has poor ratings.
Rita Rocks (2008-?): Lifetime comedy that did well, until it was paired with Sherry.
Drop Dead Diva (2009-?): Hour long Lifetime comedy. I wouldn’t have included this, but the OP did mention Ally McBeal, which I wouldn’t have listed as a sitcom either.
Wonderfalls (2004): A personally favorite from Fox that was cancelled way too soon.
Ugly Betty (2006-2010): Formerly high rated now a low rated show on ABC.
In the Motherhood (2009): Another low rated ABC comedy that was cancelled.
Nurse Jackie (2009-?): A Showtime comedy.
Moonlighting (1985-1989): It began as a vehicle for Cybil Shepherd, but launched someone else’s career.
Traditionally there have been several ways women get their own sitcoms:
Be a standout supporting star of another show (Mary Tyler Moore, Tina Fey, Patricia Heaton)
Have a successful standup career (Ellen DeGeneres, Roseanne, Brett Butler)
Be on the downside of a movie career and reinvent yourself for TV (Lucille Ball, Donna Reed, Barbara Eden, Candace Bergen).
There’s not a lot of demand for over the hill movie actresses, because they tend to be expensive and their sitcom track record isn’t that good.
Former sitcom performers may be more interested in a fresh start in dramas.
That leaves standup. Get more successful women standup comedians and you’ll have a bigger pool of potential sitcom leads. Of course, that leads to the question, why aren’t there more women standup headliners.