‘Jessica Jones’: Diversity for Season 2
“Marvel’s Jessica Jones” executive producer and showrunner Melissa Rosenburg has been expressing a desire to promote gender diversity,
not only within the show, but behind the camera.
For the first season, they did their best to promote gender diversity by having women direct some episodes.
“Four out of 13 of our episodes are directed by women — it’s still not enough. Our goal is half and half; our goal is diversity behind the camera as well as in front of it.” – Rosenburg.
Rosenburg would also like to have women participate in the writing process. But industry stagnation is one factor behind the lack of off camera diversity.
“I think the challenge that we face in terms of diversifying the writing room or the directors’ chair is that there hasn’t been a lot of movement over the last 20 years, so there aren’t a lot of people far enough up the chain to have the credits that get you on a Netflix show… That’s so much of the work that we as a community are doing and have to do, and [are] certainly not doing a good enough job of yet —
trying to find more women. If you have a list of credits that gets you on a Netflix show, you’re working – you’re one of 10 women or 20 women — so the challenge is to give breaks to more people, to bring them up, to keep them in the world and in our business, and that is the work that we have to do. We’re incredibly committed to it, and Netflix is as well, I’m proud to say.” – Rosenburg.
The ladder of television writing is hard to climb, my friends. Believe me, as a hopeful television writer in this industry, I have done my research.
While the first season of “Marvel’s Jessica Jones” is still on Netflix, the second season has yet to set a release date.
When Beth “grows up” she wants to see her creations appear on the screen and stage. In her free time, Beth blogs about her love of craft beer and writes screenplays. She received her bachelors in journalism from Youngstown State and received her masters in communication from The University of Akron. She is honored to be a part of the FanFest family.
