December 9, 2019

"It was very sexist — very sexist. People were doing crazy drugs at the time. I was oblivious. I just thought, 'Oh, wow! He's got a lot of energy!'"

Said Julia Louis-Drefus, quoted in "Julia Louis-Dreyfus opens up about her 'miserable' time on Saturday Night Live and its 'sexist' work environment" (Daily Mail). She was on SNL in the early 80s (along with Larry David, who, she tells us, hated it too).

There's no detail about what exactly was very sexist. That leap to talking about crazy drugs might be a clue or an excuse or a diversion. I'm actually pretty irritated with her for not expanding on the topic and naming names. It's a kind of #MeToo lite... very lite. Too lite to matter.

As for the drugs (quite apart from any sexism), the "oblivious" observation — "Oh, wow! He's got a lot of energy!" — is something that applies today. I'm thinking of my October 9th post, "Are almost all journalists on Adderall?" (The question is based on an assertion by Joe Rogan that almost all the journalists are on Adderall. And I said:
I like to know when someone I'm listening to is on drugs. If I don't know, and they are, they are stealing from me... [S]omebody taking drugs to get a lot of writing done? I want a warning before I spend some of my life's precious time absorbing their addled — Adderalled — verbiage. 
I don't want to be the oblivious one, like Julia Louis-Dreyfus — admiring someone for his energy while having her own energy sapped by the effort of keeping and putting up with this guy.

65 comments:

rhhardin said...

Sexism is surely all the humor. Everybody's trapped by it. You just have to look at it objectively to see it as funny. Hence #that's not funny, as constant amusement.

#evolution

Danno said...

Sounds like a fake admission if you don't/can't name names.

rhhardin said...

Sexism is civilization's gyroscope. Push on it and it reacts at right angles.

Marcus Bressler said...

J L-D is not so funny anymore. Shut up and make us laugh.

THEOLDMAN

Just laughed my ass off at Fen's Althouse Downfall parody video in the comments at Instapundit's mention of Althouse. Go see for yourself.

rhhardin said...

Why is there no Veep season 7 single dvd? Just single blu-ray and complete series dvd. (preorder)

Wilbur said...

When I was in law school, maybe two or three times a semester I would get up at 5:00 in the morning, drop a half-tab of speed (amphetamine) and do a couple of weeks worth of reading and case prep in the next eight hours. It afforded me a tremendous ability to focus and think.

But I never took it to stay awake or any time other than early in the morning like this. I realized the tremendous power and addictive threat of it.

Shouting Thomas said...

Sexism is a bullshit, meaningless term.

Men and women speaking and behaving as men and women have always spoken and behaved is not a pathology for Marxist feminism to cure. I never consented, professor, to your monitoring of speech and behavior for proper conformance to Marxist feminism. You’re working on the assumption that I owe that to you. I reject everything about your project to create the New Man and New Woman.

This actress makes a living because she’s got nice tits and ass and a pretty face.

Which is OK by me. Her bitching is what I’ve learned to expect, that “let me have it both ways,” crap.

So, she sells T&A for a living (which is really the job ID of an actress) and she bitches about selling T&A for a living.

There is no such thing as sexism. Just hustlers looking for PR. And law professors engaged in clever arm twisting.

BUMBLE BEE said...

First one out of the pool shouting "Who Peed in The Pool"? As for the Adderall observation, it seems likely IMHO. All this competition to be the last news reader standing has to be grinding on these old farts. Politicians as well. Trump has shown the country a bit of what's going on, and they're all so desperate to outrun the Tsunami. No spring chickens.

Shouting Thomas said...

So, once Marxist feminism has eliminated goofing off, wild talk, sexy playfulness and such, what in the fuck is going to be left of acting, and movie and film making?

PowerPoint presentations? Solemn lectures?

I worked in video and film production. Fucking around, laughing your ass off, playing out wild scenarios and strutting your sex is what makes the set fun and engaging, and what produces good work. And artists have been stoking themselves with alcohol and drugs for... I don't know... at least 5,000 years.

I'm calling on you to drop the terms "sexism" and "homophobia" because the terms are meaningless bullshit that (a) assume a history of oppression that is utter nonsense and (b) assume somebody has the authority to monitor and cleanse our behavior and speech.

Shouting Thomas said...

For those of you who have never been on a video or film production set... here's what actually goes on...

95% of the time is spent waiting and setting up. Actors get bored as shit with all the time on their hands and start looking for anything to get themselves hyped up for when the lights and cameras are finally turned on.

Acting is the children's game of "let's pretend" extended into adult life.

So, the dead time gets filled up with various versions of "let's pretend."

Since what really sells on screen is T&A and sexual tension, sensible actors do whatever they can to try to hype up the sexual tension. So, the dead time inevitably gets filled up with sex jokes, sex preening, etc. How you gonna fix that, professor?

Darrell said...

Hollywood--for all its lecturing--is the last industry in the world to clean up its act.

J. Farmer said...

Young neophyte shows up on set and discovers there's a lot of eight-balls in the bathroom and bawdy behavior backstage. Shocking!

exhelodrvr1 said...

Claiming sexual harassment is the "in" thing to do now, especially when the time in question is long enough ago that it will be very difficult to refute the allegations.

J. Farmer said...

Claiming sexual harassment is the "in" thing to do now, especially when the time in question is long enough ago that it will be very difficult to refute the allegations.

To be fair, Julia Louis-Dreyfus made these claims about SNL long before the whole Me Too movement took off.

rhhardin said...

Say Kids! What Time Is It? by Stephen Davis is an account of the adult content behavior on the Howdy Doody set. Princess Summerfall Winterspring was an item. Mr. Bluster felt her up. So far no #metoo complaints. The book was written when it was funny.

Rory said...

"Hollywood--for all its lecturing--is the last industry in the world to clean up its act."

Along with news, government, and law, they're the ones holding the flashlight. Not going to shine it on themselves.

rhhardin said...

Hollywood--for all its lecturing--is the last industry in the world to clean up its act.

There's no act to clean up. That's a rachet-leftward move. Talking past the sale. The right takes up the mistake and claims hypocrisy. Don't take up the mistake.

rhhardin said...

I have eight GP DVDs but don't remember any of them. Generic actress.

J. Farmer said...

"There were things I did in school that, had there been boys in the classroom, I would have been less motivated to do. For instance, I was president of the honor society."

-JDL

Apparently, Julia has a long history of conflict between her desire to succeed and her desire for the opposite sex to find her sponge-worthy. Showing up on the set of SNL at age 21, while growing up wealthy and having attended an all-girls prep school, was probably a bit of a culture shock. And good for her that it was a bit of a growing up experience.

Darrell said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Darrell said...

Claiming sexual harassment is the "in" thing to do now, especially when the time in question is long enough ago that it will be very difficult to refute the allegations.

To be fair, all the allegations are true. And that's not the half of it. There truly was no business like show business. Beautiful women and over-sexed wealthy production people that look like they lived under a bridge in a fairy tale are not a good mix. Guys like Louis CK were tolerated because most of the time the women didn't have to get their hands--and mouths--dirty. Except when he told them to blow him or take a walk.

rhhardin said...

Except when he told them to blow him or take a walk. It's a deal. Take it or not. Work someplace else if it's not worth it to you.

It's like life.

rhhardin said...

A gf stays with you as long as she gets more than it costs her, then leaves. No job involved.

Darrell said...

There's no act to clean up. That's a rachet-leftward move. Talking past the sale. The right takes up the mistake and claims hypocrisy. Don't take up the mistake.

Fuck off, Hardin. There is an acceptable standard of human behavior. The shit done in Hollywood would never be tolerated at any large business. The guys--or women--would be rightly fired. perhaps they would learn a lesson, perhaps not. If you'd like to do the same things, perhaps it's best you've worked freelance. No power, no temptation. I'd defend you, too, if your bosses asked you for a blow job before you started to code for them.

rhhardin said...

I'd defend you, too, if your bosses asked you for a blow job before you started to code for them.

Bosses ask all kinds of things; if you have a play for pay job you ignore him or leave when you get an unacceptable one.

It has to do with jobs, not sex.

You can play politics too and limit what your boss has say over. The chief lever is the gap between what the organization offers and what it claims to offer.

rhhardin said...

Fuck off, Hardin. There is an acceptable standard of human behavior.

I like that line, incidentally. It would be a fine motto for my blog, if I had one.

rhhardin said...

It's an interesting force of English that one writes

There is an acceptable standard of human behavior

instead of

There is a standard of acceptable human behavior

having to do with rules for fronting.

Darrell said...

Bosses ask all kinds of things

Work-related things. Otherwise they should be fired. Period.
Otherwise, "Cash me outside."

rhhardin said...

Maybe acceptable means what we want to pretend, in this context. After all, we are not animals.

rhhardin said...

Work-related things. Otherwise they should be fired. Period.

Fucking is work-related.

Period means stamping foot.

rhhardin said...

Wm. Kerrigan:

"We are men and women. It almost always matters which we are. Men and women are aggressive. Their regard for each other is clouded by grudges, suspicions, fears, needs, desires, and narcississtic postures. There's no scrubbing them out. The best you can hope for is domestication, as in football, rock, humor, happy marriage, and a good prose style. Jokes trade on offensiveness; PC is not a funny dialect. The unconscious is a joker, a sexist and aggressive creature. Our sexuality has always been scandalous."

Maybe you want to limit yourself to domestication, if you want it to work. That might allow remarks, of course. You'd have to live with that. And language is pretty powerful.

Darrell said...

Period means stamping foot.

Which you'd be doing at the unemployment office. . .

The Crack Emcee said...

I am on nothing.

rhhardin said...

Which you'd be doing at the unemployment office.

Celebrating stupidity is what has to be written against.

rhhardin said...

That's the leftward rachet. Stupidity.

Darrell said...

Celebrating stupidity is what has to be written against.

We celebrate you every day, Hardin.

Bosses making non-work related demands need to be disciplined or terminated. That's the acceptable or mutually agreed upon part of the social contract. Like your autism, we all have to live with it.

rhhardin said...

Bosses making non-work related demands need to be disciplined or terminated. That's the acceptable or mutually agreed upon part of the social contract.

I'll check my Rousseau but I doubt it.

As I remember, women could negotiate saying no. It can even be done without offending anybody. That was under social graces.

Fernandinande said...

Fen's Althouse Downfall parody video in the comments at Instapundit's mention of Althouse.

That jerk reminded me of "Fun Toy Banned Because Of Three Stupid Dead Kids" except he was one stupid overgrown kid.

Bob Boyd said...

Fen's Althouse Downfall parody video in the comments at Instapundit's mention of Althouse.

Link?

Lurker21 said...

Larry David was a writer on SNL when JL-D was there, and didn't get many sketches on the air. He was better known for his work on Fridays, the ABC knock-off, which put him on the air as a performer.

A few years before that, Lorne Michael's staff resigned because the show was handed over to Jean Doumanian. Some blame sexism, claiming that the staff thought a woman couldn't handle a satirical comedy show. The show was indeed awful when Doumanian was there, but that could be because so many people quit.

The show is awful now. I blame Kristen Wiig. She was the needy, hyperactive, not unattractive girl who nobody could ever tell to her face that she was unfunny. I think it was because of her (and the unwillingness to do Obama comedy) that the show got so bad. But before we go full Christopher Hitchens and say that women can't do comedy, I have to admit that Kate MacKinnon is one good thing about the show now.

virgil xenophon said...

I've had nothing but total contempt for our dear trustafarian lefty Julia Louis-Dreyfus ever since I caught her in an interview saying smugly that "I could never date a Republican--I'm too morally centered."

How bravely principled of her..

William said...

When your father is a billionaire, you can be picky about your work environment. I'm sure she was subjected to misogynistic humor, but, if your father is a billionaire, you really don't need to humor Harvey Weinstein for career advancement.....Her most notable fellow cast members were Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Christopher Guest, and Jim Belushi. Decorum was probably not a priority, but Belushi is the only one who looked like he would take if past the verbal.

William said...

Ellie Kemper of The Office and Kimmy Schmidt also comes from a fabulously wealthy family. Dreyfus, Kemper: good looking women from wealthy families with a history of happy childhoods. I think the dynamics that drive female comediennes are different than those that drive male comics.....Dreyfus topped Seinfeld with Veep and is the only cast member to do so.

wild chicken said...

Speaking of chemical enhancement, anyway, I read that Trollope's mother used laudanum to stay up late cranking out her novels. Tincture of opium in alcohol. I think it was going around at the time.

Sounds lovely, actually.

Lurker21 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lurker21 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lurker21 said...

William said...
Ellie Kemper of The Office and Kimmy Schmidt also comes from a fabulously wealthy family.


That is very much of a surprise. She does "mousy" (is that sexist?) very well. But yes, the Kemper family of Kansas City (and St. Louis).

Dreyfus, Kemper: good looking women from wealthy families with a history of happy childhoods. I think the dynamics that drive female comediennes are different than those that drive male comics.....

They are comic actresses, not comediennes in the way that Lenny Bruce or Robin Williams was. Comic actors and actresses may start out doing improv, but they aren't as unbalanced as the men and women who do stand-up. Men and women who do stand-up can be very tormented souls. The more time an actor or actress has put into stand-up and the club scene, the more likely they are to be messed up.

Dreyfus topped Seinfeld with Veep and is the only cast member to do so.

We haven't heard much from Michael Richards lately, but sometimes stars just want to walk away with the money. JL-D didn't need the money to begin with, so maybe she is more motivated by other things.

Michael said...

Was stage hand for Shakespeare In The Park series where we bounced around from town to town all summer performing As You Like It. About twenty five of us roughly split 15/10 guys to gals. Thespians and crew on the road and in close quarters for 12 weeks. Thrown in an assortment of drugs and a river of booze. A travelling orgy.

Fernandinande said...

Link?

It's one of those "Hitler parody" things made by "Evi L. Bloggerlady" in 2013.

rcocean said...

Women have been complaining FOREVER that SNL was "sexist". Jane Curtain and Newman were complaining about it in the 1970's. Jane Hooks and Nora Dunn were complaining in the 90s.

Julie L-D was terrible on SNL - as was most of the cast - in the 1980s. The whole show was kept afloat by eddie Murhpy and Joe Pescipo. Julie L-D needs a GOOD script to be funny. She's no gilda radner.

rcocean said...

Women always get angry when they're thrown into an ultra-competitive environment where only results matter. Nobody is interested in being "nice" or giving them special Affirmative Action points for wearing a skirt. So they don't do well and fall back on what *really* do well - complain and nag.

That's why all the women at SNL thought it was "sexist". Their special "women's humor" wasn't getting enough air time. Because it wasn't funny enough.

rcocean said...

As usual RH, misses the whole picture. The "play or pay" boss isn't just hurting the employee affected, he's hurting all the employees who are being denied opportunities. Actress X gets job because she gives Weinstein a blow job, that hurts Actress Y and Z who were more talented but didn't give him a blow job.

And the film and the Companies bottom line is being hurt, because WEinstein is casting his movies based on who gives him the most blowjobs.

rcocean said...

Of course, casting your movie based on the actors politics, religion, or personal connections with the producer also hurts the film and the box office. Oscar Levant got put in a lot of MGM Musicals because the Producer was his friend. And he dragged down almost every picture. He even wanted Levant in the Donald O'Connor role in Singing in the Rain. Fortunately, Gene Kelly said no.

Michael McNeil said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rhhardin said...

The "play or pay" boss isn't just hurting the employee affected, he's hurting all the employees who are being denied opportunities. Actress X gets job because she gives Weinstein a blow job, that hurts Actress Y and Z who were more talented but didn't give him a blow job.

Sucking up to your boss helps your career. Is this news.

As to hurting the company, Weinstein made pretty good films. Apparently he can pick the right actresses.

If you want to complain, though, going to the boss's boss or the boss's wife might get results. Suggest they might want a better boss in his place and they may take you up on it. Apparently that wasn't the inclination with Weinstein's case, though.

It seems to fall in the none-of-your-business category. Let them work it out themselves.

Nichevo said...

rhhardin said...
Bosses making non-work related demands need to be disciplined or terminated. That's the acceptable or mutually agreed upon part of the social contract.

I'll check my Rousseau but I doubt it.

As I remember, women could negotiate saying no. It can even be done without offending anybody. That was under social graces.

12/9/19, 7:44 AM


Rousseau? Jean-Jacques Rousseau? The guy who condemned his three children to the worst foundling home in Paris? That Rousseau? He's your standard of ethics?

Nobody wants to live in your fucking cannibal world except cannibals.

Nichevo said...

And nobody knows what the f*** you mean by pay-to-play job.

Howard said...

Everyone knows what Hardin means, Nichevo. It means exactly what it says.

Bill Peschel said...

Ask Mira Sorvino what happens when you cross Harvey. Her career went into the toilet.

I've read a couple oral histories of SNL, and I'm amazed at how they could do so much crap work with such terrible managers.

The system is: Writers create a ton of material. The actors try to work with the writers who will write stuff for them. In a couple of days, it goes to a general meeting where 90 percent of the stuff gets tossed. More stuff gets written and rewritten.

Meanwhile, the head of the writing staff plays favorites and makes arbitrary decisions about what goes in and what gets dumped.

Given the few hits and a lotta misses, they might as well try picking the sketches at random and everyone can go home and get some sleep.

Contrast that with Monty Python and SCTV, that turned out consistently good shows. Shows so good they can resell whole episodes, while SNL has to create compilations, because they know most of their stuff's shit.

rcocean said...

"As to hurting the company, Weinstein made pretty good films. Apparently he can pick the right actresses."

Logic error.

X produced the film
The film was good
Therefore X made the film good.

Wrong.

daskol said...

I think it just means you enjoy doing your job.

daskol said...

It's amusing how cross some people get at rhhardin without apparently understanding what he's saying.

Nichevo said...

Howard said...
Everyone knows what Hardin means, Nichevo. It means exactly what it says.

12/9/19, 3:48 PM


So RH has to give BJs in order to be allowed to ham radio? And he's good with that?

Nichevo said...

rhhardin said...
A gf stays with you as long as she gets more than it costs her, then leaves. No job involved.


Did you ever see the Dudley Moore film, Arthur?

"You're a...HOOKER?"

Largo said...

Early eighties? Drugs? Energy?

Cocaine.