This message is for the TV assistant who has been sending you asks the past couple days.
I am an aspiring TV writer moving to Los Angeles next summer. Finding out how deep sexual harassment goes, that it’s happening behind shows I love to people I love has been both disheartening and enlightening.
I don’t know how you do it. If I’m having such a strong reaction and I’m only on the periphery, I can’t imagine what it’s like for you.
I have a question: is it worth it?
I have my happy imaginings of what a writer’s room must be like. In my head it’s a positive place, a progressive place. Everyone knows what feminism is and what it isn’t. Everyone is a feminist. Though a tragic minority, the women in the room feel safe enough to become vulnerable, to open up, to reach the depths of themselves in the name of creativity, to build something beautiful and wonderful beyond themselves.
This whole thing has felt like a reality check. I’m going into this knowing it will be hard. I know I’ll be an assistant for years before becoming a staff writer. I know I may have to go back to living on ramen, just like I did in college. I know it will be long hours. I know it will be taxing on my mental health–as someone who does have mental illness, this will be especially hard.
The thing is, I don’t know what else I’d do if I didn’t have this dream of writing. That’s not true; I could go back to academia (where I’m from), give up on the dream, and forever wonder if I could have made it if I tried. I’d go back to analyzing television instead of hoping to make it myself. However, that life is sad to me. It’s pedestrian. It’s… ordinary.
I don’t know if I’m as strong as you. I don’t know if I could work under those conditions. I don’t know how I would come out on the other side of this.
I just want you to know I think you’re extraordinary. I want you to know that I admire you, that I hope to be like you, and not just because you’re on the path to my dream job. I don’t know exactly what happened. However, your posts make it clear this is much bigger than myself. That this is beyond “what did they do to my favorite characters.” That this is the work environment I’m willingly walking into.
That these are real people experiencing things that I can expect to experience myself.
To you, and your sisters, I say thank you for bringing everything home to me. I wish you the best, and that you come out of this whole thing on the other side, stronger for having survived it.