During TSCC days we attended a WB. sexual harassment presentation. It was straight forward re "this is, this isn't," what your duties were as a supervisor, etc.
But there was also an entire section on the Friends Writers Room lawsuit, when a woman sued re hostile working environment...
They went into great depth as to the behavior, charges, and why writers' rooms were "allegedly" difficult to adjudicate...
At the end the WB HR person proudly said: "And we won that lawsuit!" I walked away like WTF was that about?
It felt like they were saying: Be careful. Don't do this. Don't do that. But in the writers' room: WE'VE GOT YOUR BACK.
This was the 1st thing I thought re the Kreisberg/WB news. And why, if anything, as a showrunner u need to be extra-aware.
There should be no unsafe space. Anywhere. But writers' rooms need to br safe not only for moral/human/legal reasons. But also for creativity.
People need to be able to share and be vulnerable and take risks. But BECAUSE there's weird gray areas in there, showrunners need to work HARDER.
BECAUSE of things like the WB/Friends lawsuit, it's incumbent on show runners to check all behavior, especially theirs. YOU are the last best hope.
Reading @moryan's article re Kreisberg, it's infuriating to hear him try to spin abusive behavior with the language of a writers' room.
His excuses are fun house mirror distortions of the sometimes grey area which ignore context/intent/the other person involved.
I've written countless action scenes, sex scenes, weird shit, and NONE of it required touching a staffer to explain it. Period.
These aren't messy misunderstandings in an exceptional and gray area type of creative workplace, these are just sexual harassment and abuse.
I'm not tweeting to defend the sanctity of the writers' room, although it's MY safe space and only real happy place.
This is always about the abused and harassed and support/reinforcement for their experience. I applaud them. Every one is welcome on my shows.
As for Kreisberg: get my fucking job outta your mouth.
