THE CW IS LITERALLY OUT THERE PUTTING THEIR FOOT IN THEIR MOUTH N THEN SHOOTHING THEMSELVES IN THE LEG FOR GOOD MEASURE
Yikes! What a mess
Mark Pedowitz is the same man who supported Jason Rothenberg after he queerbait the Clexa fandom for ratings – is it such a surprise that he supports this?
They have no interest in their audiences or the effect they have on them. He can be haughty about it because he knows the kids will still watch.
What is that called when you’re a privileged white male in a privileged position and you harm a lot of women and your privileged white male boss protects you?
Without knowing them personally, Pedowitz and Rothenberg’s actions scream entitled, male, coward.
And no, ‘artistic integrity’ doesn’t cover them. When you sit in a seat of authority that allows you to potentially influence millions of people, you need to be held accountable when you create a harmful, offensive product.
You know, i constantly see the excuse that it was due to Alycia’s schedule that she was killed off The 100. That she had to go to shoot FTWD bc she was a regular and that was the scheduling conflict. Now, what if the ‘schedule conflict’ was only for episodes 3.08-15? That Alycia could not be in these episodes due to her leaving to film FTWD 2a? But, maybe she said she could be in 4a since she would be on break?? And we know that she is on vacation for 5 months, and one of the writers said she wanted to comeback…
So, next time you see the ‘scheduling’ excuse….what if the only scheduling conflict was these episodes in 3b? Like Jason didn’t even think about Clarke leaving for Arkadia or Lexa going off somewhere, to then reunite in the finale and Lexa helps draw Clarke back to the ‘real reality’ due to their love; something that ALIE could not stop. You know love is strength….love is the greatest weapon.
Her schedule or ‘scheduling conflicts’ cannot be taken seriously as an excuse. There are only two that work: 1. the actor didn’t want to come back (and not found any interview to substantiate this) 2. the writers wrote themselves up a chimney.
The writing team/Jroth created this storyline. It fit the story they/he wanted to tell. Judging by all the pain this show likes to bring, he probably wanted a Big Pain Moment in s3 and killing Lexa was perfect. That is why Lexa is dead. No other reason. If her schedule was a concern (like the production team not wanting to worry about whether she might be available at such-and-such a time), they could have written any number of scenarios that made Lexa ‘disappear’ for a bit without killing her off. It was a failure of imagination. The entire season was an exercise in ‘how to write yourself into one corner after another.’
It’s hard to imagine a young actor landing such a prize role, a rare sort of part for a woman, no less, and just walking away from it. She had no choice but to go along with their choices. It was stupid, it was wasteful and it broke a lot of hearts. To blame all that on someone’s clearly flexible schedule, is just ridiculous and, in this case, considering all the hurt, the act of cowards refusing to accept responsibility for their actions.
“We’re believers in letting showrunners tell their stories,” he told reporters after his panel at the Television Critics’ Association’s summer press tour Thursday. “If you start limiting certain things, you’re limiting their ability to be creative.”
Showrunner Jason Rothenberg caught flack for consummating the relationship between Clarke (Eliza Taylor) and Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and then immediately killing off Debnam-Carey’s character, citing the actress’s scheduling.
Pedowitz thinks the biggest lesson from the fallout is how showrunners and fans interact on social media.
“I think he got a great learning curve for what social media can do,” he said. “Be adored or hated at ny given time… My take on this is, that was much more of a social media reaction and how Jason handled the social media reaction.”
Pedowitz also addressed series regular Ricky Whittle‘s exit from the show, which was punctuated by an interview in which Whittle described being bullied by Rothenberg.
“We had conversations for a long time about Ricky’s character, Lincoln. It was a great character, Jason felt for a very long time that he had written that character into a box,” Pedowitz explained. “We felt differently. There was a long discussion about this. At some point, Jason found he had a great way for Ricky’s character to be written out so that Marie’s character could go forward in some way shape or form. Ricky’s comments about number of lines and all that – Ricky was a great performer for us, but it’s the showrunner’s right to decide how many lines an actor gets per episode.”
This is rape culture politics: TPTB (who happen to be white males), protecting a show runner (a white male) by downplaying/not acknowledging the harm he did (to women) and being otherwise dismissive of any other issues (racism) by re-framing it to avoid the discussion altogether.
And they get away with it.
We had conversations for a long time about Ricky’s character, Lincoln. It was a great character. Jason felt for a very long time that he had written that character into a box,” Pedowitz explained. “We felt differently. There was a long discussion about this. At some point, Jason found he had a great way for Ricky’s character to be written out so that Marie’s [Avgeropoulos] character could go forward in some way shape or form. Ricky’s comments about number of lines and all that – Ricky was a great performer for us, but it’s the showrunner’s right to decide how many lines an actor gets per episode.
I want to laugh. ‘Jason found a great way’ – let’s tell it like it is… to kill off another minority character in order to further the story of a white character (read: totally offensive, but we don’t acknowledge that).
I like that they actually count lines for an actor, too.
Oh, wait…Jason ‘felt’ he had written that character ‘into a box?’ And he didn’t notice all the other corners he had written his show into?
I love that show. I really do. I just love that show. I was one of the people who encouraged Jason to go to a very dark show. For me, he knows how to tell stories. We had long discussions about the first part of the season last year in terms of it being a little bit confusing with the Ice Nation and everything else and then it picked up in the second half of the season.“ Regarding Season 4, Pedowitz noted, “It will be much more intimate stories this year.
Deliberately ignorant white bros backing up their bros.
If nothing else, that he thought the ‘first half’ of s3 was confusing but it ‘picked up’ during the second half is convincing enough this man knows NOTHING about good storytelling – though I’m sure he was mostly watching ET’s returning cleavage.
Pedowitz thinks the biggest lesson from the fallout is how showrunners and fans interact on social media. “I think he got a great learning curve for what social media can do,” he said. “Be adored or hated at ny given time… My take on this is, that was much more of a social media reaction and how Jason handled the social media reaction.” The exec said there was no outreach to him directly from GLAAD or other organizations regarding workshops or sessions to prevent such mistakes from being made in the future.
“biggest lesson from the fallout is how showrunners and fans interact on social media.”
Okay…so THAT is the biggest lesson? Not anything about Bury Your Gays and how poorly they treated minorities and minority fans in season 3? What kinda of mother fucking bullshit is this?!?! God, get these white, rich, entitled men out of power positions and hire woman and minorities for these positions. I’m tried of all these white rich straight men constantly thinking that they are the holy fucking grail and that they are geniuses.
“My take on this is, that was much more of a social media reaction and how Jason handled the social media reaction.”
Well, asshat, obviously your privilege and your head being so far up your own ass and Jason’s ass made you CLEARLY overlook the biggest issue. I hope Moheda writes and article that sheds even more light on how fucked up everything is. God, this entire statement and more quotes at the TCA from Pedowitz piss me off so much and just shows how we can’t stay silent, and we need to continue with this fight. They aren’t fucking getting it.
Status quo in this business is what keep them rich and in power. Anything that disturbs that is not to be acknowledged – therefore seemingly invalidating those who were hurt and keeping those responsible out of any real trouble, allowing them to live in a protective bubble that keeps reality at bay.
Know what else that describes? Rape culture.
Keep at them. Bubbles were meant to burst.
The Privileged Straight White Male needs to be a thing of the past and fast.
The Doctor Is Out 