Jon Robin Baitz on writing and gender
by Terri
A Variety article entitled “Capturing the Feminine Mystique: Writing Is a Genderless Affair” interviews a number of show creators about men writing for women and women writing for men, and participating in the discussion along with Shonda Rhimes of Grey’s Anatomy and Marc Cherry of Desperate Housewives and Jenny Bicks of Men in Trees is Jon Robin Baitz of Brothers & Sisters. Although a photo of Nora and Kitty illustrates the article, Baitz doesn’t dish about specific characters. But he does make the following observations about the significance or insignificance of gender:
- “The partitioning of people’s talents by their gender is absurd. Writing is writing, acting is acting, and feeling is feeling. Great women have been able to write great men, great men have been able to write great women, throughout history.”
- “The politics of being a woman is much more acute (today), the act of being a woman in society is more acute. The roles are changing, and I think what we try to do is show that shifting landscape — I set out to write a show about the shift from a patriarchy to a matriarchy.”
Well, just in terms of first-season episode titles, he accomplished that.
Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Jon Robin Baitz, Variety
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