Letterman Writers
Paraded Their Own Daughters.
Let’s Respect the Girls Anyway
June 14, 2009
by Judy Silver
|Since David Letterman first uttered his disgusting jokes about Governor Palin’s daughter, a couple of things have been nagging at me. First, we’ve been aiming all of our heat at Letterman and his sponsors, but what about his writers? And second, the pundits’ line that the Palin daughters are “fair game” because the governor has “paraded” them around doesn’t hold water. In doing some investigating, I’ve found out that those two loose ends tie together.
Steve Young
The Late Show website doesn’t list writers, but in a January 2009 Sound of Young America interview, former Letterman head monologue writer Bill Scheft said that the current head monologue writer is Steve Young. (IMDB indicates that he’s not the same Steve Young as has written for Leno.) According to Writopia Lab, Young is the father of a girl whom I will not name because she’s underage. In fact, according to this Lehigh Valley Morning Call reprint of a Matea Gold’s November 6, 2007 Los Angeles Times story, Young took the girl with him to picket during that year’s writers’ strike.
[Daughter, Name redacted] looked a little young to be on the picket line. “I’m 14,” she said, holding her “On Strike” sign firmly as she paced in front of Silvercup Studios with two dozen writers last week. “My Dad works at the Dave Letterman show.”
Her father, Steve Young, acknowledged it was “an unusual father-daughter experience.”
“My wife said, ‘[name redacted] doesn’t have school tomorrow, maybe you should take her picketing.’” he said. “And I thought, yeah, that’d be pretty cool.”
“But they didn’t make me,” the ninth-grader hastened to add. “He offered and I said sure. I think they’re fighting absolutely for a good cause. I think it’s worth it, whatever it takes.”
Could there be anything that qualifies more as “parading your child around” in order to benefit your career than putting her on the picket line and allowing her to give interviews?
I don’t think so. But here’s a close second.
Sound of Young America also interviewed Letterman co-head writers, brothers Justin and Eric Stangel. During the strike, Justin used his very young daughter in a video for his cause, which he posted on YouTube and on the striking writers’ blog:
And, no, he didn’t do it just once. Here’s the second one:
Hey Steve and Justin, does your conduct in exploiting your daughters for career gain make them fair game for nationally telecast jokes about them getting “knocked up” by a 32-year-old man? No! Such a thing would be cheap and disgusting, just like Letterman’s jokes.
Bill Scheft
So why did the revolting jokes make it onto the air? Bill Scheft, who still writes for Letterman and who used to open for shock-comedian Andrew Dice Clay, explained on his blog this week:
In the middle of Dice-mania, I work with Bill Hicks, a friend and truly innovative comic. And he said this about Dice: “Forget Hitler, forget whether it’s racist, forget everything else. Here’s my problem with Dice: Not funny.” That is the only ultimate verdict on jokes. Funny/Not funny. So, what I say is forget the noise, forget the convenient misinterpretation of who the joke was about, forget the subtext that was never there. You either think the jokes were funny or you don’t. Both views are valid. Neither view is superior or more righteous. You’re right. I’ve cleared up nothing. Let’s move on to a gentler time, like The Crusades….
In other words, the writers don’t care about right or wrong. They don’t care about who they hurt short term, or about the hostile environment they create for their own daughteres long term. They only care about funny. Well guess what, boys, jokes that hurt our daughters are not funny.
And I do mean boys (on several levels). The writers’ strike blog was authored by ten Late Show writers, all male. And the Internet Movie Database lists 56 writers who have worked on the show. Of those, Meredith is probably a female; Chris and Alex could possilbly be females. That’s it. The other 53-55 are male. The Late Show (produced by Worldwide Pants) does have a couple of women producers, but the creative staff seems overwhelmingly male. Does this gender- lopsided environment contribute to the tastelessness of the jokes, or is society just in dire need of a compass? I don’t know.
But I do want to implore Steve Young, Justin Stangel, and the rest of the Late Show writers: Please, the next time you’re considerng a vile joke about a girl, rember your own daughters. You have taken them to work. You have exposed them to the media. That does not make them fair game for nation-wide humiliation. Be better men; be better fathers, for the sake of all of our little girls.
Update: Here’s the original LA Times story about the 14-year-old on the picket line. It’s dated November 6, 2007. And here’s where Newsday picked up the same story. And the video of Donny Deutsch using the “paraded” line is the second video here.
Well done. This is an excellent rebuttal demonstrating the hypocrisy that is in play. Can we get this submitted to other venues so that it gets more exposure?
I am so tired of the “Palin asked for it… the girls are fair games because Palin exploited them throughout the campaign.” Give me a break. How is she the only candidate who has “exploited” her children by bringing them on the campaign trail. If she had left them at home, I’m sure they’d be saying it was proof of what a terrible mother she was to abandom them for 3 months.
Amy, is The New Agenda going to have representation at the rally/protest tomorrow in NYC outside Letterman’s studio?
Speaking of using children or women who think like children:
I don’t look forward to Megan Fox promoting Transformers by sitting with David Letterman on his show and both of them laughing boisterously over the people in America they wish would… have no voice. *pathetic*
http://bighollywood.breitbart......h-balls-2/
When will the young women in America send letters to the editors of magazines, MTV, and all those who market to you, asking your generation not be marketed to with representatives of young women who have an entitlement mentality? When will you demand tolerance? Stop joining the us versus them marketing of group think. Because until you do, you are all falling into their notion of “asking for it.”
So to follow this misogynistic logic, Sarah Palin was asking for her church to be firebombed? How much more hate for a woman can you stand?
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You Judy, for this expose. The topic of highlighting Letterman’s own writers was precisely my point on a comment I made on the “It’s the Victim’s Fault” thread. I had the same problem trying to do a cursory search for info on his writers and staff, and saw these same names pop up in other places.
I thoroughly commend the excellent job you did in digging much deeper than I had time for in my search. Now I’m even more horrified to realize they have young daughters of their own. Shame on these so called *men*. And where are the wives, or mothers of their daughters? I can only wish the writers are feeling the heat at home, just for starters.
These guys are at least 50% responsible for what Letterman said. They deserve to be hounded as much as Letterman and the head honchos. I’ll be pointing people to this thread.
This is such a great piece Judy. thank you!!
[...] thought that your article needed broader distribution into that community. We need to enlighten the writers, producers, directors, “suits,” and television news community that many of the attacks [...]
[...] Many of you joined us as we spoke out about David Letterman’s inappropriate jokes aimed at Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter. Of course, as we researched the matter, we found that the jokes that Letterman delivered were written by staff composed almost exclusively of men. [...]
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