Who Is Nell Scovell?
Over the holiday weekend, I finished Just the Funny Parts by Nell Scovell. The memoir was published in March 2018 and branded as a scathing but funny insider look at “the hard truths about sneaking into the Hollywood boys’ club.”
Honestly, before reading it, I had no clue who Nell Scovell was. Just the Funny Parts had been a digital book in my virtual to-read pile on my Kindle for the last 6-months. Something suggested to me, given my penchant for humor and feminism, and bought on a book-sale whim.
Once I got around to reading Just the Funny Parts, I was not disappointed. Well, I was. Not by the quality of the book but the unfortunate experiences noted therein.
Unbeknownst to me, Scovell had some creative influence (as a writer, director, and producer) in many iconic television shows from my childhood and young adulthood: NCIS, The Simpsons, The Muppets, Charmed, Murphy Brown, Warehouse 13, etc. However, the work environments were often challenging, especially since Scovell regularly found herself the only woman in the room, and rarely, if ever, were writers groups racially diverse or included anyone LGBTQ. Most writers' rooms were homogeneously made up of straight white males.
