Page 18 - Real Style May 2018

BOOKs
Funny Girl
with heR new Book JuSt the funny paRtS, nell Scovell ShaReS a Behind- the-SceneS gliMpSe of life aS a feMale wRiteR in Show BuSineSS.
by CataLiNa MaRGULiS
When it comes to our favourite shows—David Letterman, Saturday Night Live—we watch
our favourite funny men, and women, kill it on screen and on stage. What we don’t see is into the writers’ rooms, where jokes are hashed out, taken apart and meshed back together by what is most often a group of young white males.
Although in recent years comedians like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have tipped the balance of power, writing and producing successful TV series and movies with female leads, for the most part, men have truly run the show, and only a small number of thick-skinned, intrepid women have managed to break through and into their ranks. One of them is Nell Scovell, who recently launched her fascinating memoir Just the Funny Parts.
Part Bossypants, part You’ll Never Eat Lunch
in This Town Again, Scovell’s Just the Funny
Parts takes us through her rise as a comedy and television writer, working with the likes of David Letterman and Conan O’Brien, and on shows like The Simpsons, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Murphy Brown. While it’s the comic moments and bright-lights names readers might initially
be interested in when they pick up the book, it’s Scovell’s work with Sheryl Sandberg—whom she collaborated with on the ground-breaking book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, which encourages women to sit at the table as Scovell herself did, rather than opt out—that really sets the tone for her book.
“After finishing Lean In with Sheryl, I really saw my life as this Lean In case study. My husband had stayed home so I was able to have this career, and part of me wanted to give him credit for that and to show people that it actually can work,” Scovell says about what inspired her to write her book. “But I also knew the reason anyone would pay attention was because I’ve worked with all these amazing comedians and performers,” she adds laughing.
As often the only woman on the writing team
or in the room, Scovell experienced her share of uncomfortable moments on the job, including her own Me Too experience, which she shares in her book. While she wrote the chapter before the Me Too movement, Scovell felt compelled to include
it in the book, despite fearing what others might think. “Those of us who can speak out, should, because so many can’t tell their story, and I really wanted to join the chorus,” Scovell says of why she decided to share the deeply personal experience.
Does she think it’s a better time now for female writers, producers and directors in Hollywood thanks to the #metoo and #timesup movements and stars like Reese Witherspoon shining a light on women in the industry and workforce?
“Can you ask me in a year?” laughs Scovell, a former journalist, whose work appeared in SPY and Vanity Fair before she began writing for TV. “It’s so hard to say. You can cherry pick your data. The year Kathryn Bigelow won an Oscar for directing, everyone got really excited; she had broken through that glass ceiling. Then the next year the percentage of women directing major motion pictures actually dropped. So when I
see sustained statistical data that tells me things are getting better, I will be on the front lines cheering,” says Scovell.
18 Real Style May 2018
photo, roBert trachetenBerG