If Stephen Colbert Is So Pro-Diversity, Then Why Is His Writing Staff Still So White And Male?

Beloved funny guy Stephen Colbert has returned to TV after a nine-month hiatus: The Late Show With Stephen Colbert finally premiered on CBS this week.

As was expected, the debut was received mostly positively. Many cherished -isms from his previous hosting gig on The Colbert Report made it in, and he covered everything from Ashley Madison, Willie Nelson and Trump, to The Mentalist (aka ‘crime-fighting dimples’) stealing his spot.

But it’s not his material some people have been focusing on in its aftermath; it’s who wrote it.

The self-proclaimed feminist only recently pledged to directly use his platform and influence to celebrate women’s voices, and to create a show that “truly respects women”. This was great to hear, considering his last show included just one female writer out of a team of 19. Colbert had talked the talk, and it was time to see if he’d walk the walk. Unfortunately, he stood perfectly still instead.

According to a recent report by Splitsider, of the 19 staff writers Colbert has hired for the show, only two of them are women. And all of them are white. The gender split between his guests hasn’t been impressive either: two women, Amy Schumer and Scarlett Johansson, compared to ten men.

So where is the diversity Colbert’s been so fervently championing?

The "Late Show with Stephen Colbert" writing staff is 17 white men and 2 white women, all who met in a 2006 improv class.

— Benjamin Siemon (@BenjaminJS) September 11, 2015

I can think of — besides me — like at least 100 funny diverse women Colbert could hire. But instead I'll hit my hand with a hammer

— nadia osman (@msnadiaosman) September 11, 2015

It’s immensely frustrating that in 2015 the White Dude’s monopoly still dominates the late show — and wider comedy writing — genre. But we were led to believe Colbert would try and make a change: in this interview with Glamour Magazine, for instance, where he literally says the sentence, “I’m going to do my best to create a Late Show that not only appeals to women but also celebrates their voices”.

“These days TV would have you believe that being a woman means sensually eating yogurt, looking for ways to feel confident on heavy days, and hunting for houses,” he continues. “But I’m going to make a show that truly respects women, because I know that there’s more than one way to be one.”

A prominent public figure saying they support feminism is great, but they then have to follow it up by actually supporting feminism.

Colbert is obviously not some evil woman-hating tyrant, and some of the commentary that followed this week’s Late Show gender gap revelation do give him the benefit of the doubt — suggesting that maybe he did offer more women the job, only to have them decline. But for someone who wants to “lean in” on feminism, whatever the scenario that unfolded in the hiring process, it’s clear that he could have tried harder.

As Teresa Jusino points out in The Mary Sue, it wouldn’t have been much of a stretch for Colbert to follow up on his lip service and actively prioritise hiring more women and people of colour. “Showrunners need to be more active about taking chances on new female talent in order to cultivate it,” she writes. “However, there’s also the fact that there are already talented female writers out there at varying levels of experience who’ve been given work before, but for some reason have trouble keeping work, even as male writers of varying experience levels successfully bounce from show to show.”

As well as the highly useful entire network of television comedy and word of mouth, there’s also websites like the Writers Guild of America, which has a writers database for people wanting to diversify their white-bro workplace, and Ms. In the Biz, where you can find female writers and crew. Welcome to the future, where closing the gap can be the easiest thing you do today.

It’s possible that, despite his inspirational spiel and direct — but so far, empty — promise in Glamour, Colbert doesn’t really know how bad the problem is — or maybe even why it’s a problem in the first place. As Splitsider notes, he’s laughed off and straight up avoided the matter of gender inequality in the industry in the recent past.

Last year, for instance, when he accepted his Emmy for The Colbert Report, he said, “I’m so proud of those guys — and one woman! And I’m sorry for that, for some reason”. And, just days before that Glamour piece went live, he responded to a question at the Television Critics Association convention about the makeup of his writing staff with: “Lot of Leos. A couple Tauruses. But we make it work.”

The good news is, it’s still early days; only four episodes of the program have aired so far. If he listens to the criticism and realises he needs to do more than just pep-talk a glossy magazine’s readership to disperse comedy’s inherent maleness and whiteness, we could see more female, less-white writers — as well as hopefully guests — further along in the show’s season. He might even apologise, for some reason.