How can you describe the woman so well? Melvin (Jack Nicholson) asks an admirer of his novels in Better…impossible. “I think of a man and eliminate his sanity and responsibilities.” The joke is 25 years old, but it comes to mind every time the challenge some men face when writing to women is mentioned, an eternal conversation that is now being revived thanks to The Last Row and The Gypsy Bride.
Some of the best characters in 19th-century literature, golden Hollywood, and Elizabethan theater are women written by men; Complex ladies, portrayed from their time, yes, but without limitations. So why, for some time now, every time a man takes on the task of writing a series starring women, does he seem to be faced with an indecipherable mystery? In other words, does anyone ask a female writer about the overly challenging task of writing male characters? i would laugh If I just know how to text my bathroom mates, they should send me back to study. But this disability is widespread. In 2013 I interviewed David Simon and he told me that after completing The Wire he would need to learn to write female characters for Treme. “I think that for many writers, and I’ve seen it, especially the more shy ones, the opposite sex is an enigma and it’s almost impossible for them to write to women.”
For some time now, the focus has rightly been on the lack of women on screenwriting teams. Some claim, to gain traction, that series starring women are written by women. It seems to me to be a mistake. It reminds me of when they put female writers on the teams “because they’re more sensitive,” Puag. It’s the other way around, give me a chance to write what I want, across the spectrum between Kathryn Bigelow and The Bridges of Madison County. Like my colleagues. I don’t want to be the vinaigrette that flavors a salad, I want to make the damn salad.
Likewise, it seems to me a mistake to attribute the bad rendering of a female character to the sex of the author. This relieves him of the responsibility of being a bad writer first and foremost. George RR Martin was once asked why he is so good at writing women. “I’ve always thought that women are people.”
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