Comedian Brett Gelman Severs Ties With Adult Swim Over Lack of Female Representation
Comedian Brett Gelman has taken to Twitter to announce that he has “severed ties” with comedy network Adult Swim in the wake of the recent controversy surrounding their lack of female creators.
Splitsider reports that the “Dinner in America” star and creator will no longer work in tandem with the network, specifically pointing to EVP/creative director Mike Lazzo’s recent Reddit post that attempted to explain away the channel’s lack of female creators — as was reported earlier this year, they currently have zero projects from women currently in the works — by announcing that “women don’t tend to like conflict” when it comes time to write and produce comedy.
Adult Swim’s Mike Lazzo Takes to Reddit to Defend Lack of Female Creators https://t.co/fjxE8FYx7z THIS IS THE REASON I HAVE SEVERED TIES
— Brett Gelman (@brettgelman) November 14, 2016
Gelman also noted that his decision stemmed from the network’s recent series “Million Dollar Extreme,” which Splitsider reminds us “made less headlines for its content and more headlines for its hateful, largely alt-right fanbase who attacked a BuzzFeed writer with vicious anti-Semitic insults and photos after he covered the show’s white supremacist supporters and underlying politics more closely.”
Although little actionable change has been seen in Adult Swim’s programming since the the network’s lack of gender diversity — and Lazzo’s comments — first made waves earlier this year, Paste has reported that the network has started taking more meetings with female creators.
Gelman last appeared on Adult Swim with his July special “Dinner in America.”
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