An illustration of two women with the hashtag #TakeMyWife

Culture

One of the Few All-Female Writers Rooms in Hollywood Is About to Be Shut Down


Take My Wife is the most diverse show in the country, can a hashtag campaign save it?



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2017 can’t stop churning out a record-breaking number of fresh hells per second, and at a time when representation matters more than ever, we can add the eventual end of NBC-owned streaming video website Seeso, and the subsequent production halt of Rhea Butcher and Cameron Esposito’s show Take My Wife to the list. If this is the first time you’re hearing about Seeso or Take My Wife, keep reading because you’re about to hashtag to save an internet TV show.

 

 

The comedy, based on and created by the two married comedians, was entering its second season before Seeso posted two days ago on Facebook, “We’re writing to let you know that later this year, Seeso will be shutting its comedy doors.”

 

 

While other original programming on the streaming service has found new homes, Take My Wife’s future is still undecided. It’s easy to see the closing of Seeso and the subsequent fallout as downright run-of-the-mill in the grand scheme of startup stories, but the stats surrounding Take My Wife are worth noting, and are a significant reason the internet is rallying around it this week, with #TakeMyWife trending above the fold.

Esposito took to Twitter on Wednesday to share some behind-the-scenes stats on the show. Take a deep breath so you don’t pass out at the following: Take My Wife had two seasons of an all-female writers’ room, with 43% of those writers being women of color. If you’re still in the middle of a long spit take over that stat, too bad, because there’s more: LGBTQ+ representation was spectacular with 54% of the actors on the show identifying as such, and heavy LGBTQ+ representation in production roles; even the clothing companies they used for costumes and art in set dressing were from the LGBTQ+ community & allies. In a world where we hold panels about women that we forget to actually put women on, these kinds of stats are goddamn salvation itself.

Unfortunately, if the past is any indication, the shelf-life of caring about this is going to be about as long as the effort we put into tweeting about that llama that got loose that one time. (Oh, you don’t remember what I’m talking about? Me either.) That is, unless we decide this isn’t just some show we wanna save, but rather a show we need to save so we can stop feeling so helpless in the face of 2017 and try to score one for The Future Liberals Want.

So, even if you’ve never seen Take My Wife, hashtag it anyhow because Hollywood is watching. Let’s get #TakeMyWife a new home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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