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Let me tell you something — Scott Rudin is not the only high powered person who pulled shit like this. He& #39;s just a high profile one. I& #39;m going to tell you a story about my time as a showrunner& #39;s assistant a few years ago... https://twitter.com/vulture/status/1385398728018780163">https://twitter.com/vulture/s...
All of the assistants were women, except for the script coordinator. I worked for a man and woman team — neither of whom had been showrunners before. So when we started getting notes on episodes, they didn& #39;t handle them well.
Our hours went from 9 am to 7 pm (pretty standard in Hollywood), to being more like 9 am to 12 pm (sometimes later, depending on if it was a bad night).
The bad things that happened on that show were:
-Rape "jokes" made against an assistant — our showrunner told a male assistant (who was brought on after one assistant was hospitalized, I think due to exhaustion) to rape the PA for being late with the food
-Rape "jokes" made against an assistant — our showrunner told a male assistant (who was brought on after one assistant was hospitalized, I think due to exhaustion) to rape the PA for being late with the food
-I had to make my bosses nearly nightly cocktails, and if he was in a bad mood I& #39;d get the lime thrown at me
-I had a stapler thrown at my head
-I was called Toots as a nickname
-I had a stapler thrown at my head
-I was called Toots as a nickname
-I came into work with my natural wavy hair one day, and my boss kept telling me how sexy it was (my female boss told me that was just his way of bonding with me, not to be offended)
-A family friend, who was more like a grandmother to me, passed away. I came into work, got the call, and began to cry. I told my boss I& #39;d need to go back for the funeral. My female boss told me I shouldn& #39;t burden my male boss with my personal issues.
We went to HR with our issues. They made it worse by informing our showrunners about everything we& #39;d said. All three of the female assistants quit (including myself) before the show ended. Do you know how rare that is? To be an assistant on a TV show is a step toward THE DREAM.
But we all willingly quit, because instead of the showrunners learning from their mistakes, they made our lives increasingly miserable. Two of us have never gone back to TV, one is still in it.
Oh, and one more fun fact: They took the bonus money that all assistants get from the writing staff and, instead of giving us the money meant for us (as the writers were told), they then gave the bulk to the male assistant. (We were giving dollar bills, maybe totaling $100)
This experience CHANGED THE COURSE OF MY LIFE. I was fully invested in a career as a TV writer. But after working on this one show, I couldn& #39;t stomach the idea of returning to another room. And being forced out in the middle of a season? Who would hire me? I had no references.
Which is all to say: Scott Rudin is one of many. I am glad these stories continue to be told. And I sincerely hope the people I worked for have actually changed. Because what they did to us was NOT OKAY (obviously).
Since posting this, I& #39;ve been chatting with the other two female assistants who worked with me. One is so deeply broken she hasn& #39;t been able to write since. The other is still writing, but unable to take assistant roles because of this trauma.
We all have been in therapy over this. None of us has ever really recovered from the experience.
