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Author:
Georgia Jeffries
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GEORGIA JEFFRIES is an award-winning writer-producer whose scripts have contributed to the cutting edge of television drama. As a showrunner on the critically acclaimed series, “China Beach”, “Sisters”, and “Cagney & Lacey”, she earned multiple Emmy nominations, two Writers Guild Awards, the Humanitas Prize, the Inter-Guild Merit Award and the National Commission for Working Women Award. She has also written numerous pilots for ABC, CBS, NBC and Showtime...
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...Her work in cable films includes the original HBO dramas “The Good Soldier” and “Iron Jawed Angels” as well as adaptations of the Bebe Moore Campbell novel, Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine for Showtime and Dr. Frances Conley’s best selling memoir, Walking Out on the Boys for Lifetime. She was the executive producer/writer of “My Husband’s Secret Life” for USA and “For Love and Glory” for CBS.
Her first feature screenplay, “Nobody’s Fool”, won the Gold Award at the Houston Film Festival and she later wrote “Confessions” for Universal and Jessica Lange’s Prairie Films before focusing on a career in television.
Most recently, Ms. Jeffries completed a screenplay based on her novel, HARD GRACE, which was inspired by the 1983 mystery behind Los Angeles’ “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” murder case.
She holds the tenured position of Associate Professor of Screenwriting at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and is also a Contributing Editor for Written By magazine. She has served as Vice-President of the Board of Trustees of the Writers Guild Foundation and Executive Vice-President of PEN USA West.
A native of Peoria, Illinois, Ms. Jeffries graduated cum laude from UCLA and began her career as a journalist for American Film magazine. Her essay, “The First Time They Told Me I Write Like a Man”, was published in The First Time: Tales from the Hollywood Trenches (Harper-Collins). Her commentary is also featured in Women Who Run the Show (St. Martin’s Press) and Writing the TV Drama Series (Michael Wiese Productions).
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SCREENWRITERS:"THE WOMEN OF THE INDUSTRY?"
Shortly before the Writers Guild of America went on strike, I moderated a seminar at the American Film Institute for an audience of aspiring screenwriters. One guest speaker happened to be an Oscar winning writer who went to great pains to elaborate on the finer points of his craft. Describing one particularly difficult “negotiation” in which a director prevailed in forcing the revision of an important scene, this gifted and self-effacing artist struggled to explain how he could be overruled on the content of his own original script.
Finally, he managed a small smile: “screenwriters are the women of the industry.” End of discussion, next question. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard a disheartened male writer make that statement, and it won’t be the last.
The typical way to surmount the prejudice of being “just a screenwriter” in our business is to cross over into the hyphenate land of milk and money. When a writer adds “director” (in features) or “executive producer” (in television) to a writer’s position, she -- or he, as the case may be -- is immediately legitimized. Newly worthy of more status, respect and a better parking place.
(Progress being what it is – agonizingly slow and always resented – that crossover happens far more often for the male of the species than the female. Unfortunately, like our national government, our industry has produced few Nancy Pelosis – formidable figures of influence who have risen to the position of bankable director or executive producer independent of male partners. But that’s another commentary with another spate of depressing statistics for another time.)
The real issue that blocks progress for screenwriters (and women) in our industry is one of sensibility. A sensibility -- sometimes conscious, sometimes not -- that labels these exotic souls as suspect or even dangerous. In the case of writers that is often because they are perceived as unreasonably attached to their own words and therefore not to be trusted. Unfortunately, as we all know in this business of smoke and mirrors, the perception is the reality.
On the other hand a filmmaker – or executive or producer – is the personification of reason. Decisive. Dominant. In control, for God’s sake. Writers are too what’s the word? “Emotional”? “Moody”? “Difficult”? They simply cannot grasp the concept that this is a business above all and the trains must run on time. Somebody Has To Be In Charge. And that person cannot be “the writer”.
Yes, we’re talking about the question of authority now. Authority. Just the solid sound of the word is reassuring. Not like the frighteningly fluid mercurial landscape of the artist’s mind. Otherwise known as Chaos. Until that Somebody In Charge restores order. Silly me. I always thought authority and artistry work best together. Like in the word “author”.
One of my former screenwriting students at USC, a young man with both considerable talent and testosterone, gave me this accolade: “you teach like a man, professor”. A look passed between us. Then, he added, “just kidding”. But he wasn’t. We both knew what he meant. By virtue of my professional position and experience, I brought authority to our dialogue. And because of that authority, I was no longer perceived as “just a woman” or “just a writer” for that matter.
I had established myself as Somebody In Charge and therefore worthy of his attention. Only then could we move forward together with success. Only then could he trust my guidance. Only then could he fashion a script both compelling and complex, one that encompassed rage and redemption, humility and hubris, heart and mind. Any story worth its salt must embrace the human spectrum of opposites. But that requires what’s the word? Respect. Respect for the creative process and its originator, which brings me back to the terrible, beautiful secret of our profession:
Real writers – the ones who care more about creative content than the latest tent-pole concept that might win favor -- ARE indeed the women of the industry. I say this, not as apologia, but as tribute to those much maligned originators who conceive character and story, labor over the printed page and nurture the whole bloody mess until it has legs enough to venture into the world to rise or fall on its own merits. From Loos to Kaufman and Marion to Milch, film and TV scribes embody the female principle in action whether they credit it or not.
So why are screenwriters still denigrated and denied their rightful remuneration by corporate bosses blinded by the color of greed? Maybe because we creators hold the keys to the kingdom. Too much innate power. All those suits and staunch upholders of the possessory “a film by the director of the moment” credit are not content sharing the reins or the limelight. That is why, when their insecurities hit the high mark, we are so conveniently inconvenient. And so easily replaced.
For too long, too many writers bought the lie that our worth is less than theirs, whoever “they” are. The shame was not only on them, it was on us. Bullies cross all lines, professional and personal. But they can only take what we have already surrendered. Our business requires collaboration, not capitulation. The frontline of any negotiation is not at the bargaining table but in our own minds. And that is why the solidarity of the 2007 WGA Strike is already making history.
In the end this fight for our fair share is about more than the new media profits that are filling the coffers of conglomerates who monopolize the entertainment business. It is, on its most essential level, a quest of self-respect, not only for this generation of screenwriters, but for all those who come after us.
Writers, are you proud to be women? All right then. It’s about time.
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