That Joke's Not Funny Anymore

These days it seems that you can’t open a newspaper without reading about another actress or TV presenter whining on about sexism in broadcasting. And then there is all that chatter about ‘rape culture’. And have we decided what the difference is between harmless banter and misogynist hate speech yet? Apparently not, if you tune into some of the comedy being broadcast in the UK at the moment.

Now, let me state for the record, I’m not a pearl-clutching, horrified letter to the Radio Times type. I like my comedy challenging, cheeky, shocking and unfettered by Daily Mail notions of taste and decency, thank you very much. However, the other night I saw something that had me questioning my sense of humour.

I had watched the first two episode of BBC3’s new comedy Way To Go with minimal engagement. I liked the central idea; three of life’s losers solve their financial problems by offering an amateur assisted-suicide service. The three lads were familiar characters; the eternally exasperated lad, the sex-obsessed gobby lad and the dumb lad. And they exchanged predictable laddish banter and got into scrapes. Nothing ground-breaking, but diverting enough.

And maybe that was what Bob Kushell, the American writer had in mind when he wrote episode three. Maybe he wanted to make an impact. That was the episode where we encountered the porn actress who told the Exasperated Lad that she had been sexually abused by her father but the reason she made porn was because she liked “getting shafted on camera” before offering him sex about thirty seconds after meeting him. Later she would be called upon to give an old man oral sex and would be casually referred to as a “dick smoker”.

Meanwhile, the Gobby Lad met a Goth girl at the fried chicken shop where she worked. The very first thing he said to her was about how he was imagining her giving him oral sex. Later, she would be referred to as a “skank” as his friends expressed incredulity that he intended to sleep with her. And sleep with her he did, all the while calling her a “bitch”, “skank” and a “dirty little whore”. But that was okay because she liked being insulted during sex.

By the way, the first words of dialogue from Dumb Lad were “Check out her nips”.

At the end of the episode I was shocked and not in a good way. Not in the “I can’t believe they got away with that, hurray for the BBC” way. I was shocked that such casual misogyny was allowed onto the BBC. The treatment of the Goth girl was particularly horrifying. Let’s imagine that initial encounter in the real world. Imagine that someone walks into your place of work and the first thing they say to you is that they are visualizing you performing oral sex on them. That wouldn’t be funny, that would be sexual harassment.

And the thing is, a lot of women don’t have to imagine that scenario, it happens every single day. If you don’t believe me, visit the Everyday Sexism site where women talk about how being sexually propositioned by strangers makes them feel.

Spoiler Alert: They don’t feel turned on or inclined to sleep with those strangers. They feel threatened and humiliated.

The men they talk about aren’t funny; they’re verbally violent and oppressive. And I should imagine that they use phrases like whore, slut and even dick smoker in everyday conversation.

And it’s that sort of language to which I particularly took offence. It is unacceptable for racist and homophobic epithets to be used in everyday conversation these days. And when used in a script they are used to typify a certain character and that is rarely your happy-go-lucky, hapless hero type. And that’s the way it should be.

So, when will we start extending the same courtesy to women? When will it stop being funny to call someone a whore, slut, slag or a bitch? I’ll give you a clue, it already has stopped being funny. I suggested that Bob Kushell may have been going for impact in the offending episode. Well, what I’d like writers to consider is the real world impact of this kind of language. I’d like to think how real women would feel if they were called bitch, skank or whore. How would you feel if you heard that language used in the workplace, playground or in the street. Would you laugh?

I don’t want any language censored or banned; I want us to take responsibility for its use. That language does filter down and is used by people with a lot less sophistication and intelligence than I would credit Bob Kushell and his fellow (all male) writers on Way To Go with. As writers (including myself) are quick to tell anyone who will listen; without us there is no show. There is a just a blank page. Well, that cuts two ways. If the project starts with us, then so does the responsibility. If you are putting that kind of language on the page then you better damn sure you know what you’re doing and you’re prepared to stand by it.

And maybe a big help would be more women on those writing teams. I’m not suggesting any form of positive discrimination. I want writing to be a meritocracy. And considering the considerable critical and ratings successes that female writers have been having recently, we should most certainly be seeing a better ratio of men to women.

A study done by The Writers’ Guild over a six month period in 2011 discovered that only 32% of scripts broadcast on BBC1, BBC2, Radio 3 and 4 were written by women. This seems bizarre to me. After all, who wouldn’t want a Sally Wainwright, Miranda Hart or Heidi Thomas on their writing team? After all, they were the powerhouses behind those rating behemoths Last Tango In Halifax, Miranda and Call The Midwife. Who wouldn’t want multiple and diverse perspectives in their story meetings? Although, as 50% of the population is female, a woman’s POV isn’t exactly “niche”.

To go back to Way To Go, I can’t help wondering if a woman casting an eye over the early drafts of the offending script might have piped up and said something about the language and the truth of the female experience. I know I would have done.

10 New Years Resolutions That Every Writer Should Break (and 5 They Shouldn't)

It’s that time of year again. The time for self-flagellation and not even in the good, 50 Shades way. It’s the time of year when you berate yourself for not being the non-smoking, teetotal, marathon-running fully-rounded, successful human being with a BMI in single figures that you wanted to be twelve months ago.

And writers are the worst offenders when it comes to self-loathing. We don’t watch the new season of TV drama with joy and hope in our hearts. We watch it with barely concealed jealousy and bitter hatred like Gollum with a laptop. Why haven’t we got our own series yet? Why didn’t we pitch a period drama about a fucking nineteenth century shopkeeper? We should have known! We should have had that idea. We wants the precious! Commission, that is.

And so as we watch the Hootenanny over the last of the Pringles and Baileys, we vow that next year will be different. Next year we’ll be watching clips of our show edited together with an edgy cover version soundtrack. Yeah, Original British Drama? We’re having double helpings of that.

Sidebar: Although I still question how ‘original’ the plethora of adaptations, reboots and period dramas actually are, but maybe that’s just me.

And so we make the same resolutions as last year. And then we’ll break them. And on the 31^st of December 2013 we’ll probably be listening to boogie woogie piano and feeling shit again. BUT NO! Not on my watch. This year I’m here to help and tell you not only why you should make those resolutions but why you SHOULD break them. Here’s the top ten…

1. I will no longer procrastinate. I will sit at my desk, fire up Final Draft and just write.

Bollocks. Procrastination is to writers, as breathing is to other more fortunate human beings (the ones that don’t feel compelled to write). Accept that it is part of your process and that whilst you’re googling cute cat videos, you are actually working. The reason you haven’t put your fingers on the keyboard and started to type is because you haven’t anything to type yet. What’s floating about the back of your brain is still making its journey to the front. You have to give it a chance. And you know what will put the pedal to the metal? A deadline. You might still be at your desk at 4am and hating yourself for pissing away days of crystal clear writing time but the next broken resolution will help with that…

2. I will treat my writing like a job and work 9 ‘til 5.

Who died and made you Dolly Parton? This is the year when you will accept that writing is not a 9 to 5. If you wanted one of those then you’d get a proper job. You have to take the rough with the smooth. Sure there’ll be days when you’re sobbing into your keyboard during the wee small hours or bashing away whilst everyone else is watching The X-Factor. But there will also be days when you’ll be able to walk around Ikea without feeling homicidal because you could legitimately go on a weekday; instead of Saturday when all the couples go there for a bag of tealights and relationship endangering argument. Why not? You worked the weekend; you earned your stress free meatballs. Write when you can, not when you think you should.

3. I’m going to totally focus on finishing my one big project.

Well, done, you’ve just committed career suicide. We all have the dream script that we want to write when the time is right. When there are no distractions and when we can do the research, write without interruptions or having to break off. Guess what? That time will never happen. Actually, the more successful you are, less likely that dream time will ever exist. The reality of being a jobbing TV writer who can still pay the rent is that you have to multitask. You have to be writing a final draft, whilst putting together a treatment and pitching for your next job after that. And the reality is that, if you’re lucky, one in ten of your projects will get anywhere. If you focus on just one project you are going to be royally screwed if it goes south. And it more than likely will.

Again, this is the year you will accept that. And maybe the reason you’re still waiting for that mythical golden time to write your dream project is because it’s not ready to be written yet. Diversify. Although, at the risk of contradicting myself…

4. I’m going to generate a new idea every day.

A good idea? Or a box-ticker that you’ll waste your time on. It’s good to diversify. It means you go into meetings with a couple of aces up your sleeve if your big idea falls on stony ground. However, if you start rattling off ill-formed, half-pitches you run the risk of sounding like a desperate Alan Partridge. Monkey Tennis? Smell my cheese!

The number of projects that you have on your slate/in your back pockets depends on you. I juggle between five and seven at various stages of development. I keep a note of when and to whom I’ve pitched them to so that I know when to chase. If a project has had a knockback from all the usual suspects then I take it out of the rotation, pop it on the back burner and come back to it later. By that time, I can usually see what was wrong with it and then I can decide whether to bin it or rework it. Sometimes I realise the reason it got the knockback is because of that old chestnut – they had something similar in development.

Which brings me on to…

5. This is my make or break year. I’m setting myself a deadline and if I don’t have a commission in 12 months I’m packing it in and getting a proper job.

Did you not see the bit about going to Ikea? Why would you want to pack in something you love? And if you don’t love writing then you shouldn’t be bothering in the first place. Setting yourself an arbitrary timescale is unrealistic and naïve. It also suggests that you think that YOU are the only obstacle between yourself and your goals. First of all, that’s physically impossible unless you have like a time machine or some shit. Or a clone! Or maybe if you were in a parallel universe and there was some like string theory stuff going on….

Anyway, the unaltered reality is that there are many reasons why you haven’t had that commission yet and not all of them are fair. You can be a victim to the CONSTANT game of Producer Musical Chairs that seems to be going at both the BBC and ITV. Guess what? It’s not going to get any better this year. Premiership football managers have better job security than development producers and commissioners. And there is always the chance that they do ‘have something similar in development’. Or they could have run out of money. Or they could just not like the trainers you wore to the meeting. Shit happens and sometimes you just have to let it. I mean, you don’t have to be happy about it. We all love a good pissy moan, but don’t spend all your time feeling sorry for yourself. Take control of those things that you can – the words on the page. But if you give up writing, you’ve even lost that.

6. I’m going to go to every screenwriting workshop and read all the screenwriting books and blogs.

I actually do have a resolution this year; death to all screenwriting gurus. They are full of shit and the only thing they are interested in is taking your money. Why would you bother reading McKee’s tedious blabbing on when you could be writing? Why would you spend two hundred quid to watch him give a fucking powerpoint presentation that he could probably do in his sleep? As for the various self-appointed writing experts on the internet chatting shit about how you should write…

Okay, I appreciate that I’m being a tad hypocritical here. But the thing about my advice is that you can take it or leave it. Use the bits that help and jettison the stuff that doesn’t. However, if someone is telling you that they are going to clue you in on the only possible way to write, the only way to structure or write dialogue, then give them the elbow. And ask yourself this question; if they are so good at writing, why aren’t they doing it? Why aren’t they winning Oscars in LA instead of teaching 3-act structure in a drafty hall in Lambeth?

7. I’m going to enter all the writing competitions.

This way madness lies. There are some brilliant competitions run by magnificent and committed people. And if you have a script that meets their criteria then bang it in. However, if you’re reading the criteria for a competition and wondering whether two weeks is long enough to produce a 90 minute script, then stop. If you’re trying to write something in a genre or format that you actually have no real interest in, then stop. If the competition costs $200 to enter, then stop.

You can waste a lot of time, energy and money on competitions that you probably won’t and don’t really want to win.

However, if you love anything with a spaceship in it and there is a Sci-Fi writing competition, then have at it. If you had the perfect idea for the Red Planet award last year but you didn’t have the time and nerve to enter, go for it. If it’s free to enter and you can hit the deadline without the needing to be sectioned, this could be your year.

8. I’m going to be a networking ninja.

This is a personal plea. Can aspiring writers stop coming up to me and giving me their business card? We’re writers not Japanese businessmen. Seriously, unless I write “annoying git with ginger hair” on the back of that card I’m not going to remember who you are when I fish it out of the bottom of my handbag two weeks later. This year, I want your networking to be focussed. Just collecting acquaintances is not useful to your career. It’s not 2003 anymore; nobody is impressed by how many Facebook friends you’ve got.

However, if there is someone who you think would really like your script/project idea, then cultivate them. Talk to them on Twitter. Introduce yourself at writing events. Be polite, brief and patient. DO NOT shove a script into their hands and demand they read it. Instead, ask politely if they would be kind enough to give your script a read. If they say yes, send it promptly by email and then be patient. Do not email two days later asking if they’ve read it yet. Don’t even do that two weeks later. They’re doing you a favour; don’t turn into a pain in the arse.

Oh, and buy ‘em a drink. Mine’s a Campari and soda.

9. I’m going to give up Facebook, Twitter and all other time-sapping social networking.

Shall we just hand out the razor blades now? Writing is a lonely, isolating occupation on occasion. There can be weeks when the only people you speak to are imaginary. The best thing that’s happened for writers in the last few years has been social networking. It gives us solidarity, a connection that sustains us through the really tough times. On both Twitter and Facebook I’ve made friends that I’ve never actually met. And yet, I know that on the days it is all going to shit they will be there to sympathise, cajole and give virtual hugs. And there is a not a day goes by that someone doesn’t make me laugh, warm my heart or raise my blood pressure. Writers need that.

Except for LinkedIn. That shit is just pointless and annoying.

10. I’m going to make sure my finger is on the pulse.

Do you mean you’re going to hop on every bandwagon. Hey, Zombies are pretty popular at the moment. What about vampires? If you could just find a new way to write those bloodsuckers… Oh yeah, and didn’t that BBC bloke say that they were looking for more crime shows? Or was it less crime? Or was it medical shows? Or perhaps a medical show with crime? And zombie-vampires!

STOP! By the time something is trendy, it’s already over. And that bloke from the BBC? If the commissioners knew what they actually wanted, they’d commission it. They’d ring up their favourite writers and ask for the medical crime drama with the zombie vampires possibly set in a nineteenth century department store. The reality is that they don’t know what they want until they actually see it. They’re like spoilt toddlers. They want whatever toy the other kid has got. Until they actually get it and then they want a completely different toy to play with. You just have to keep throwing toys in the pram until you find something that keeps the little fuckers quiet.

So, this year, why not just write what you’re passionate about? The genres you love. The characters you want to meet. The stories you want to tell. And if that story happens to be about Detective Inspector Dracula MD who has a penchant for eating brains, good luck to you.

So, there are ten New Year resolutions that you can break guilt-free. But here are five you should make and keep.

1.      Get/Stay Healthy – The better you feel, the better you will write.

2.      Get paid. – Join the Writer’s Guild and learn what you are actually worth.

3.      Write more diverse characters – Just let go of your middle-class, PC guilt and write characters rich in different experiences and culture.

4.      Take an interest in your industry – Watch more telly, see more films and plays. Know your shit.

5.      Just write.

 I wish you a happy, creative and surprising 2013. Can’t wait to see what we’re all going to get up to.

A Woman's Place Is In The Past.

Ah, the season of mists, mellow fruitfulness and TV programmes with lots of nice hats. The autumn TV schedules in the UK are awash with period dramas again. Hearts are fluttering upstairs and downstairs at Downton Abbey; innocent girls are in danger of ruination at The Paradise and war is picturesque hell at Parade’s End.

Now, I like a crinoline skirt and bit of RADA received pronunciation acting as much as the next person. However, it does seem that television is living in the past a little too often at the moment. It’s hardly surprising with the ratings success of Downton and Call The Midwife. It seems that the audience love a little bit of vintage. The problem I have with all this history is that it doesn’t leave much room for her-story.

The lack of strong female characters on TV and in the movies is well-trodden ground. Barely a week seems to go by without one of our great actresses complaining that there are very limited roles for women and especially older women. And I agree with them. Furthermore, I have to question whether television that harks back to a time when women were disenfranchised, silenced and given limited life options is actually going to help the cause.

Of course, there are parts for women in period dramas. After all, someone has to wear the nice frocks and heave their bosoms – but sometimes it feels like that’s all they do. Period dramas often rely heavily on their own set of female stereotypes. The wide-eyed innocent girl in danger of being ruined by the rapacious employer. The bitter spinster always ready with sharp rebuke seemingly just because her hymen is still intact. The dowager insisting that things are done properly and making sure that everyone knows their place as the sun sets on the British Empire. And of course, the plain and simple serving girl popping up to drop a blancmange whenever we need a little light relief. And those characters are great fun and probably wonderful to write.

However, it seems that the drama for those women revolves around the same old issues and crises. In their fictional world, the worst thing that can happen to them is that they have sex outside wedlock, marry a poor man or drop a blancmange. Those things are simply not high stakes in the modern world (or at least one would hope not). So, the constant harking back to those simpler times is surely having one of two effects.

Either, we are condemning female characters to a life of inconsequential stories that we don’t really care about. We never see them in the trenches or in a cabinet meeting with Lloyd George or doing the important stuff. They are too damn busy dropping blancmanges on their heaving bosoms.

Or, if we do accept that to lose one’s virginity when one doesn’t have a ring on one’s finger is simply the very end; are we reinforcing ideas about women that should have gone out with the Charleston? If we see female characters in constant servitude and represented as powerless, that can’t be a good thing. Can it?

Also, side note, there seems to be a great love amongst the writers of period drama for killing women in a romantic fashion. There’s the old trope of blood in the handkerchief meaning imminent death by consumption or Spanish Flu. Or the troublesome birth that leads to our hero clutching his sweaty wife’s hand as she uses her last breath to ask whether the baby is okay. Those women are always so very, very brave and have the stiffest of upper lips. Not one of them begs for their life or rages against the dying of the light. It’s almost as if their deaths don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, isn’t it?

Even in shows where historical accuracy is not exactly paramount women are being sidelined. There is a new series of Merlin about to start in BBC1 and I can only pray that the women in that show get to do something other than be evil super bitches or anxious serving girls. But as Gwen/Guinevere barely features in the trailer, I’m not going to put money on it. Come on lads, you’ve taken enough liberties with the Arthurian legend, why not a bit of equal opportunities around the Round Table? I’ll even write it for you. I’m just saying, it would be nice to see a kick-ass female role model (other than Amy Pond and River Song) on a Saturday tea time. Whither Buffy?

Sure, it's all about context and it’s interesting to see how far sexual politics have come but I worry that we are consigning our great actresses to the kitchen and the corset. For example, it is the great Maggie Smith that makes the faintly ludicrous Downton Abbey unmissable. She turns a high-handed, catty remark into utter poetry. But that’s all she bloody does! Imagine if a writer had the imagination to write a part where she has real power? Maggie Smith as a Cabinet Minister, a retired spy, a diplomat, a serial killer? I’d watch that!

However, and I’m going to be tad harsh here for a moment, I think in that ideal world of women doing actually dramatic things there wouldn’t be many parts for some of the other actresses. The wide-eyed virgins who are called on to do nothing but simper and blush? They’d be on the dole (or in Hollyoaks). Because those performances and roles are archaic and dull. It’s time to consign them to the past.

But, in the interests of fairness, I must give an honourable mention to two period dramas for letting the sisters do it for themselves. Firstly. The Hour had some truly brilliant female characters working in a man’s world. And Parade’s End did something utterly brilliant by exploring the constraints on women in the early 20^th century. Those characters were not happy with their lots in life, they didn’t accept the orthodoxy of their gender and it drove the drama beautifully. And they still wore nice frocks. Food for thought, but not blancmange.

Not Quite The Best of Men

It's usually me losing my temper on this blog, but this week I am handing over the ranting rights to Martin Jameson. Martin is an experienced writer, producer and director who has worked in TV, Theatre and Radio for many years. Recently he has written for Holby City, Casualty and Emmerdale. He too was at the BBC TV Writers' Festival session about the representation of people with disabilities which I blogged about last month. Last night he watched Lucy Gannon's BBC 2 drama 'The Best of Men' and he wondered whether the BBC should be putting their money where their mouth is. I agree.

Lx

A Rant

by

Martin Jameson

Don't get me wrong, I found lots to enjoy in Lucy Gannon's script of The Best of Men - the little known story of Dr Ludwig Guttman - pioneering spinal injury doctor who instigated the Stoke Mandeville games, the forerunner of the Paralympics. Funny, insightful, heart warming... Eddie Marsan was fantastic - and will surely win, or at least be nominated for a BAFTA and well deserved it will be too.

But hang on a bloody minute....! What on earth is the BBC playing at? Both 'disabled' leads were played by non disabled actors. Ok... so Rob Brydon's there because he's a 'name' and will draw in an audience (not enough of an excuse in my book... work harder BBC - sell the show on having honest disability casting please). But then the other lead is played by George Mackay, also able bodied.

So the justification there would be that there are flashbacks and dream sequences where the character, William, can walk. Well, in my not so humble opinion, not only were those sequences dispensable but even if one felt they were absolutely essential, both would have been achievable with non disabled body doubles.

Again, don’t get me wrong, both Brydon and MacKay gave excellent performances, but… but… frankly I think it's a disgrace. The paraplegic actor David Proud was sitting around in MacKay's shadow with barely a line to say. In my professional opinion David would have been more than capable of playing William. Not as well known, but there was nothing integral to that that part he couldn't have done as far as I could see. And he would have been great. Obviously I can’t speak on David’s behalf, and on his blog he says he was honoured to be involved.  I’m sure he was, but this viewer, this writer would have wished for him to have had a much higher profile.  Surely he should have been much more than ‘involved’…

And then...AND THEN.... some of us were at the BBC's TV Writers Festival in Leeds last month. One of the key sessions was about 'Changing the Face of TV Drama', about challenging the invisibility of disability and disabled actors on our dramatic TV screens, and guess who was on stage, leading the panel?

Lucy Gannon that's who... saying that it was up to us as writers to make sure we wrote good parts for disabled actors, that they were included naturally within the drama. No mention of the fact that she'd just written a major BBC drama and actually she had written it in such a way that it gave the production team a get out to cast non disabled actors in those key roles.

As someone who has worked hard to include disability in the mainstream drama (i.e. soap) that I've written over the years, and don't tend to have the kinds of opportunities to mold change that Lucy has as a writer, I now find this to be hypocritical and jaw dropping. Ok... it might have been completely beyond her control, but I would like to know that she at least TRIED to fashion the script to at least give some disabled actors an all too rare opportunity to take the main stage here.

By failing to think this through, the BBC has cast itself in the role of the out-dated Dr Cowan, the disablist villain of Lucy Gannon’s script, unable to trust disabled actors with the lead roles in their own story. 

Given the content of the piece, and in the year of the London 2012 Paralympics… it’s a bit bloody ironic.

Update: Manners

This is just a mini-blog following up on my earlier entry bemoaning the lack of manners amongst development producers. After spending the first 7 months of the year doing actual paid work, I am spending the rest of my year on development. It's a great luxury and I'm very lucky.

This week I started making a plan of action/works (I am ever the optimist). I went through all the pitches and submissions that I'd managed to make amongst writing on New Tricks and Midsomer Murders. And I got angry all over again.

I couldn't quite believe how many pitches had been initially been enthusiastically received and then utterly forgotten about. Producers who had urged me to write pitches and treatments and to come to meetings (all for free and without any offer of expenses) had simply not bothered to follow-up on my work. Some of them have flat out lied to me; promising that they won't be like all the others and that they value me and my work. So, why do they still treat me like dirt?

And yes, I am still talking about my writing life, not my love life. That's a whole different blog.

Now, it might be that the ideas weren't any good or were too similar to others on the slate. And that's absolutely fine. It happens. But to not even bother to drop me an email or make a call to say we're not interested is just damn rude and unprofessional.

But it's not only that, it is potentially detrimental to mine and other writer's careers. Those ideas are my currency, my product. And if you don't want to buy them, that's okay. However, by sitting on them you are limiting my window of opportunity to take those ideas elsewhere. And the more I thought about this the angrier I got.

So, here is my plan of action.

I'm going to follow-up on every single one of those pitches with a polite but to the point email or phone call. I'm going to make it clear that I want a yes/no answer and that I want it within a few days.

If the answer is no, then I'll take the idea elsewhere.

If the answer is maybe (because let's a face it, it's never a straight yes), I'm going to ask for a time frame. I want to know where they are taking the idea next and when I can expect to hear something.

I'm also seriously considering no longer abiding by the unwritten rule that you only pitch an idea to one person at a time. It considered bad form to tout your ideas around to multiple companies. Well, I say fuck that. They're my ideas and I'll show them to whoever I damn well please. If you like the idea then get your finger out and make me an offer. Maybe I won't take my idea 'off the market' until someone is talking to my agent.

It's time for a change of attitude amongst writers. They are not doing us a favour by listening to our new ideas for characters and stories and worlds. If writers stop bringing those ideas in, then it all grinds to a halt. And if they can't show us a basic level of courtesy then maybe we should stop pitching to them?

Again, I say all this on the understanding that not every development producer is rude and thoughtless. I have worked with some crackers this year. Producers who talk to you like a human being, keep you in the loop and push for quick decisions. For those wonderful people, I go the extra mile. But I'm no longer even going to put on my shoes for the other rude bastards.

So, if you're a producer and you're reading this; ask yourself which category you fall into.

PC Gone Mad (or Cognitively Impaired Causing Behavioural Challenges)

One of the most interesting sessions at the recent Television Writers’ Festival run by the BBC Writersroom was called something like ‘Changing the Face of Drama’. It was run at the end of the first day and no-one was entirely sure what it was going to be about. I’ll admit that I assumed it was going to be the usual yadda-yadda about big stories and interesting characters. Because, you know, we’re all trying to write those inconsequential stories and boring characters. Maybe next year there should be a session on bears defecating in wooded areas and the Pope’s religious preferences…

Anyway, bitchy whining aside…

The session was actually about how under-represented disabled people are in British drama. There were some pretty cracking statistics. The one that sticks in my mind is the fact that 24% of the British population has some form of disability. That’s a pretty much a quarter of the population and I don’t think that anyone would deny that quarter of the population is under-represented on our screens. And so, I left that session vowing to pop a wheelchair user into my next script. As I’m sure everyone else who was there did.

However, I’ve given it some thought since then. And I wonder what the realities of doing that will actually be. And I genuinely think that before we see disabled characters that are anything other than a token we need to have a serious conversation with ourselves as writers. Because whilst we’re not getting it right with disabled characters, we’re also often making a bugger of representing black, Asian, gay, Transgender and… for fuck’s sake… female characters.

So, am I saying writers all a big old bunch of racist, sexist, cripple-hating homophobes? No! And that’s kind of the problem.

I can only speak for myself but I’m the wishy-washiest of liberals. So, when I come to write a character that is different race or sexuality or physical ability to myself (I’m white, straight and able-bodied, by the way), I start to panic.

I analyse every line of script for potential offence and worry about stereotyping. And so the character becomes blank and bland. Their experience of being black/lesbian/blind isn’t being incorporated into their attitude and dialogue. So, what’s the point of them being Asian/transgender/deaf? Am I just creating a character that will piss off the casting director and make me look like a PC tosspot? But if I do allow my Chinese/Polyandrous/Crippled character to explore who they really are, I run the risk of looking ignorant because I really don’t know what it’s like to be an Inuit/Bisexual/Wheelchair User. I really don’t want to offend any Native American/Hermaphrodite/Cerebral Palsy sufferers that might be watching the show. And so, I end up playing it safe and writing from my comfort zone.

I’m not proud of that.

A big part of it is language; a fear of it. And I had a theatre experience a couple of years ago that I think set me off on a journey that hopefully will improve my scripts. I wrote a short play called ‘Going to Extremes’ about two old friends who find themselves on opposite sides at an English Defence League demo in Bradford. Lee is a white lad from Essex whilst Amir is a Pakistani Muslim from Bradford. They bump into each other running from the violence and discuss their individual reasons for coming to the demo/counter-demo. Whilst writing this play, I let myself off the leash in a way that I never would whilst writing an episode of the TV show. I didn’t worry about offending the viewing public, compliance issues or watersheds. I wrote Amir and Lee talking to each other as two lads in their twenties would.

But the eye-opener was in rehearsal. The play was directed by the sickeningly talented Trevor MacFarlane and starred the equally brilliant Joe Ransom and Sushil Chudasama. Trevor only had a short rehearsal period and had to get Sush and Joe to a very comfortable place with each other. Any political correctness went out the window, because there simply wasn’t time to tiptoe around language and sensitivities. All three boys started to speak to each other as real people do. They took the piss and there were no sacred cows. It was all up for grabs – race, religion, gender and sexuality. It was real.

But I question whether that is achievable on telly. The reality is that we work so damn hard to keep everything inoffensive for a mass audience that we run the risk of making everything bland and dishonest. I’m not suggesting that people should be calling each other pakis, queers and mongs in the Rover’s Return or on the wards of Holby General. I actually really don’t want to see that. But let’s have some honesty about how we react to each other in the real world. We are not colour-blind and we are morbidly curious about people who are different to us – that is humanity.

And so, is that the key? Whilst I’ve been tying myself up in knots about writing characters with a different cultural experience to me, I should actually be reflecting my discomfort and fears. It’s not about writing those characters, it’s about writing the reactions of the characters around them. That is where the honesty is often missing. And, let’s not miss a trick here, where some genuinely interesting drama could be.

I’m not pretending this is the answer. This is just my personal revelation. But at least I am giving it some thought now instead of brushing it under the carpet. The best thing about my job is I’m always on the steepest learning curve.

I asked a friend of mine, to write a guest blog about race and her unique experience of it. But then they are all unique experiences and maybe it’s our job to get over ourselves and write the stories. Anyway, she’s asked to remain anonymous. And if anyone else would like to add to the debate feel free to leave comments or get in touch with me and I’ll be more than happy to host other guest blogs. Here it is…

Race Is a Myth by Anon

My first memory of race awareness is this - when I was little I ran into a public toilet in desperation and got chased out by a large woman with a broom. That was ok, they stank, yet when I reached the one next door there were flowers and shiny tiles and I was allowed in. They were both the Ladies’, this was 1970s South Africa and the lady with the broom was black. And I’m not, so I was in the wrong place. I never got my six year old head around this.

My partner isn’t black in South Africa, but he isn’t white either. He wasn’t black until he came to the UK at the age of 21. In Mauritius, where he was born, he is Creole. They are black people, but have mixed over time and are descended from the plantation owners who still cling to the edges of that beautiful island as much as from the slaves from Africa that were freed or died there. Here he is Black. Or Paki. Sometimes French, if they hear the Creole accent (the last one with a confused face) but never Mauritian, which he proudly is.

In Mauritius last year having a big fat family Christmas, I found myself racially confused a couple of times. There is a kind of caste system where the lighter your skin, the better it seems within the Creole community. I had to bite my tongue listening to darker members of the clan being referred to as “Zulu” and girls fretting about the sun turning them too black. Maybe it’s my post-colonial guilt, but knowing Kwa-Zulu Natal as I do, I certainly wouldn’t put the Zulus at the bottom of the status pile. The only other white was an Australian fiancé who starting bitching about Aborigines half way through dinner. The tea drinking Creole ladies tutted sympathetically while I made a tactical dash to the balcony. At least no-one is hunting me down with a rifle as they threatened to do in South Africa.

While not invisible as the only white in the family, I sometimes forget that I am. This is a national school of thought in the UK I find. Whites have a given invisibility. How often do they refer to each other as “that white guy” when there are no black people present? Really? Non-whites are raced by language – “that black woman”, the “that Asian bloke” but whites are just “that woman”, “that bloke”. Have you ever noticed how the category ‘White’ on monitoring forms is always at the top and no-one has ever thought of putting them in alphabetical order?

Raced language does exclude a lot of teenagers I must admit. Something in me is thrilled when I hear two white London girls addressing each other as “Bruv”, but then I don’t like the N-word so this is for over 25s only I guess.

I think Race is a myth. As in, we made it up. This is not to say that we don’t perceive differences in pigmentation and in hairstyle, we certainly do. But the order of it? The way we endlessly fuss over the details, surely that is all about satisfying our need to classify and categorise, to put things into hierarchies and make the complexities of the world just a little bit easier to understand. Differences in race do exist but the meanings we imbue them with and the names we give them are all carefully constructed piece by piece, cemented by individual experience.

50 Shades of Hey! That's not nice.

*WARNING: ADULT CONTENT/BAD  LANGUAGE*

I’m not usually one for bandwagon jumping, but everyone else seems to be blogging/tweeting/yapping on about EL James’ Fifty Shades books. For God’s sake it was the topic of a Radio Leeds mid-morning phone-in last week. And women in their fifties were talking about it at my diet class. And, what the hell, it might push a bit of site traffic my way.

 So, let’s get the obligatory questions out of the way.

Have I read them?

Yep. All three. In quick succession.

But, are they as badly written as everyone says they are?

Fuck, yeah.

Would you go to the Red Room with Christian Grey and the riding crop?

Fuck, yeah. Times about a billion.

So, what is left to say about the badly written mummy porn? Well, nothing. My problem is with the tone in which it is all being said. The snarky, high-handed, sneering way in which the three best-selling books have been discussed. But not just the books; the women that have read and enjoyed them.

Apparently, anybody reading them for anything other than research for a Guardian column is being suckered. They have ‘suboptimal reading skills’. They are buying into terrible sexual politics and want to be dominated by emotionally crippled billionaires – the sappy fools. The very phrase ‘mummy porn’ smacks of value judgement. I understand that mummys like sex too – I believe that’s how most of ‘em get up the stick in the first place.

And here’s what I recently realised. When those snarky twats are describing this simpering, nappy-changing bint who has to sound out the big words, they’re describing me. I read the first one out of curiosity. I was on holiday and wanted something unchallenging and fun. And I got what I asked for. I enjoyed the first one so much that I went straight out and bought the second. I got the third one in the airport and read it on the flight home.

And yet at no time did I switch off my critical facilities.

I think Anastasia is a silly bitch and almost completely unreflective of any other women I know. Perhaps EL James edited out the chapter where she gets the lobotomy. Just because I read the book, I don’t want to BE Anastasia. I wasn’t fantasising about being a doormat. Actually, she was being one so that I don’t have to be. Isn’t that the point of fiction? To take you places you wouldn’t normally go to walk in other people’s shoes?

As for Mr Fifty Shades. Well, had I been Anastasia there would not have been three books. The minute he pulled out that ‘I don’t make love, I fuck’ line, I’d have handed him his grey tie and shown him the door. Don’t get me wrong, I’d have been tempted to set aside my principles for a whizz-bang with the well-endowed, sexually dextrous, billionaire but I’m pretty sure I’d have said no. Well, I’m reasonably confident that I would. You know, depends whether I’d made an effort and put on an uncomfortable bra for the date. You don’t want that going to waste…

Oi! Holdsworth! Isn’t this blog supposed to be about writing not bonking?

Oh yeah. Point is that I think the Fifty Shades phenomenon kind of proves the point of my earlier blogs. If something is seemingly inexplicably popular, as writers we should be trying to explain the inexplicable. All that energy spent sneering is just sour grapes. Because after I’d finished inhaling those three books I was left with the overwhelming feeling that I could have done it better, No! That I should have done it better. I should have had the instinct to write a best-selling bonkbuster. But a well-written one.

I should have been aware of that possible audience. Not the dumbasses that the columnists would have us believe are reading that book but women like me. I deserved better on my holidays. I deserved a book with good fucking and good sentence structure. There’s a huge hole (Ooh, missus) in the market! I should have seen it.

And here we come to the part that may make some people squirm in their seats, so look away if you are of a nervous disposition. Maybe the reason that there isn’t a better class of clit-lit out there (or at least it isn’t being marketed to us) is because it would mean admitting that women masturbate.

Quick, the smelling salts!

Because that’s what all the sneering and tittering has really been about. The success of these books has been because women like to get off. Although, looking at the coverage, you’d think that female masturbation was only invented last week. Hence the huge amount of press coverage; because male newspaper editors think that jilling-off is the phenomenon; not the EL James’ big old cash-in on it.

So, what have we learnt? Firstly, my mother can’t read this blog – ever. Secondly, stop sneering at bad writing being a success. Acknowledge the potential audience and give them something better! Give them something that blows their minds, challenges their intellect and feeds their souls. Know this: you are as sure as shit a better writer than EL James.

And that’s cruel. But then I’m sure Ms James is crying herself to sleep on her big fucking pile of money.