Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 889

About 12 Percent of Tech Company Engineers Are Women

One of the most frustrating things about the tech industry’s woman problem is the paucity of reliable data on the number of women working in technical roles. Now, thanks to a public Google spreadsheet created by Tracy Chou, a software engineer at Pinterest, we have data on how many women engineers work at 84 different tech companies. To collect the data, company employees have been performing internal head counts, and most contributors have identified themselves openly, though Chou invites anonymous submissions via email. Contributions have also come from people who are manually counting the number of women on companies’ team profile pages. Chou has focused her efforts on women engineers, defined as “women who are writing or architecting software, and are in full-time roles.” Until now, there have been little data on how many women are among the prestigious and well-compensated ranks of engineers, as opposed to the many less technical roles within the industry.

The numbers, while preliminary, are revealing: tech companies employ an average of 12.33% women engineers. This is consistent with what I’ve observed over the course of 16 years working in the industry (12 of which I spent running a web design and development firm) and what I’ve heard from others. The numbers also map neatly to current figures on women computer science grads (pdf), which suggests the “pipeline problem” argument is legitimate.

Among the companies listed, gender diversity varies. A handful are at parity or better: Levo League, Hackbright Academy, and Yellowsmith—all companies, incidentally, with women at the helm—boast 67% women on their engineering teams. The Muse sits at 75% and Kabinet and Spitfire Athlete both hit 100%, though both have two-person engineering teams. On the other hand, 15 companies on the list are without a single female engineer: Treehouse, 37signals, and Causes.com among them.

While some of the smallest teams have 50% or more women, the numbers drop significantly once you look at engineering teams of 10 or more. When I broke down the data by size of engineering team, the averages looked like this:

[image error]

My segmentation is somewhat arbitrary, but on average it looks like bigger teams have a lower percentage of women. It’s easier to get your percentages up when you’ve got a four-person technical team than it is when you’re hiring by the dozen.

Companies that participate in the counting do so as a signal to prospective employees that they are committed to diversifying their teams. A spokesperson at Mozilla—the largest company on the list, with a 500-person engineering team but only 43 women—told me that the project is “a reminder to keep pushing for more diversity.”

Until now, those of us writing about tech and gender have been making do with broad, US-centric data from the National Center for Women and Computing and the Anita Borg Institute, along with other sources we collect piecemeal. These data are tricky because they don’t typically differentiate between departments and roles within organizations: A woman in the HR department at Cisco will typically be counted as a “woman in computing,” whereas a woman software engineer at an investment company won’t. NCWIT suggests that women hold more than 25% of “computing occupations,” whereas my personal experience in the sector, which I’ve heard echoed by many colleagues, is that the numbers are significantly lower among software coders.

Even federal regulations have not provided us with reliable information: In March, when CNN was looking for data on women in tech, it was stonewalled by Silicon Valley giants whose size requires that they report diversity stats to the Department of Labor. While the government has that data, it won’t release it publicly, and most of the big companies aren’t talking. It’s unfortunate since data from these companies could be particularly valuable for benchmarking purposes given that their engineering teams are big enough to be statistically significant. When I tweeted earlier this year about that CNN story, one commenter suggested that sharing the data would result in a PR nightmare for the companies in question.

@Avi_Gray Hear, hear. Hiding implies shame; if we can’t even face/admit the problem, how are we ever going to solve it?—
Lauren Bacon (@laurenbacon) March 19, 2013

Marc Hedlund, VP Engineering at Stripe, has a different perspective: “If the first step is admitting you have a problem, I think in this context you have to say that very publicly for it to matter. Every company has a problem; your willingness to face it and work on it is what matters.”

Chou describes what motivated her to collect her own data: “While companies talk about their initiatives to make the work environment more female-friendly, or to encourage more women to go into or stay in computing, there’s no way of judging whether they’re successful or worth mimicking, because there are no success metrics attached to any of them […] As an engineer and someone who’s had ‘data-driven design’ browbeaten into me by Silicon Valley, I can’t imagine trying to solve a problem where the real metrics, the ones we’re setting our goals against, are obfuscated.”

While Chou’s project is a good start, there’s still room for more granularity. She told me she’d love to gather data on the backgrounds and roles of both men and women engineers at each company in order to learn whether there are patterns around junior/senior positions or traditional versus non-traditional training. I’d like to look at the gender ratios for each company’s executive team and board, and see if there is any correlation with the company’s track record on hiring women engineers. It appears from the current data that many—though certainly not all—women-led and -focused startups have higher numbers of women in technical roles.

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Another helpful way to expand this project would be to add temporal data, to chart how companies fare over time. This would be especially helpful in combination with data about companies’ policies and programs (if any) for recruiting and retaining women.

Etsy CTO Kellan Elliott-McCrea said: “The best, and arguably only, approach to changing something is first to be able to measure it. You change, you measure, you change, you measure… It’s as important for organizational practice as software.”

He adds, “I’ve heard projects like Tracy’s described as consciousness raising exercises, but I think that undersells the value of data.”

Two of the tech industry’s great strengths are its relentless focus on data, and its orientation toward the future; it’s time for companies to use these strengths to tackle their lack of gender diversity. This project gives me hope that tech companies, who are strong proponents of company dashboards and other forms of tracking and sharing metrics, will rise to the challenge of analyzing what works—and what doesn’t—when it comes to changing the ratio on their technical teams.

       

Marvel Is Taking its TV Business to Netflix with Live-Action Superhero Shows

Complaining about the dearth of superheroes on Marvel's Agents of  SHIELD? Soon you can head to Netflix. The streaming video service will run four live-action series from Marvel based on Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage, starting in 2015. 

Netflix's Marvel madness will culminate in a miniseries about The Defenders, whose members have historically included Doctor Strange and the Hulk. Each series will be the standard cable-length 13 episodes and, according to a press release from Marvel, will "unfold over multiple years of original programming." 

This gives Marvel the chance to trot out more members from their superhero dugout, including the blind Daredevil, whose rights recently reverted back to Marvel from Fox.  The series also give major screen time to both female (Jones) and African American (Cage) characters, addressing the widely acknowledged diversity problem with their big-screen features. 

With the Netflix shows, Marvel will also be able to fix one of the commonly cited problems with their network TV venture Agents of SHIELD—which got a full season order, despite falling ratings. Namely, the lack of any real superheroes. And while it's hard to imagine Disney allowing these shows to be genuinely dark, Netflix distribution also means there will be no network TV restrictions on content.

Deadline's Nellie Andreeva reported back in October that Marvel was working on this package, but it was unclear who would pick up the various series. As big news as this is for Marvel, it's also a rather impressive flexing of muscle from Netflix, after making big moves in the original documentary market earlier this week. 

 

       

Some Weirdo Got a Creepshot of Justin Bieber Sleeping

We've already heard all about Justin Bieber's troubled visit to Brazil. First he was caught leaving a brothel of some ill-repute, and then he walked off stage and didn't return after someone threw a bottle at him during a concert. But that was not the last indignity he would suffer in this lawless nightmare country. He invited some girls over to the crib he was staying in, just to chill and eat some chicken nuggets, and even though his security detail took their phones and made them sign confidentiality agreements, one of these young ladies still managed to take a video of him sleeping. There he is, the boy king, snuggled up in his bed, sleepin' like an angel. And this Brazilian she-devil, she videotaped it. With her telephone. And then put it on these Internets for all to see! Can you believe that? What sort of creature does that? Of course the entire weird world is grateful that she did, because how else would we know what this curious Canadian oddity looks like when he's lost in dreamland, but it is still a strange thing to do. And mean. It's probably a mean thing to do too. But, she did it. And there it is. A young god at rest, not even sure what country he's in, probably. And now we've all seen it. What a strange time we live in. [Page Six]

Meanwhile, back in the United States, Bieber has decided to simplify his life. You remember his friend Lil Twist, right? That's the young fellow who was living in Bieber's Calabasas mansion for a time, and was always getting pulled over for speeding in Justin's fancy cars and whatnot. He was also known to have loud parties while Biebs was away. So he wasn't a great roommate, is the point. The two have fallen out, Twist was asked to leave the house, and then they started fighting over the term "Wild Kidz." See, ugh, that's what they called their crew, the Wild Kidz. At the height of the Wild Kidz era, so like September I guess, Bieber's people filed the papers to trademark the phrase with the intent to start a clothing line. (All young men are starting clothing lines these days. Ask your teen son why he isn't starting a clothing line.) But when Biebs and Twist started beefing, so like in October, Twist went and tried to trademark W.I.L.D. Kidz, for his own line of clothing, I guess. Anyway, there was a little bit of a fight over that but Bieber has decided to drop the issue and let Twist have the Wild Kidz. Take the Kidz, Twist. You can have them. Justin doesn't want them anymore. Go create your clothing line and live your own life. Justin Bieber and Lil Twist are no longer intertwined, they are living separate lives now. Twist must go drive someone else's Lamborghinis. Maybe he should try to join up with Jaden Smith's MSFTS crew. They have a clothing line. And probably some nice cars. And it would be perfect, because Jaden Smith is legally too young to drive them! There's your next move, Twist. Go for it. [TMZ]

Oh dear. Sharon Osbourne and the rest of the cast of CBS's hideous The View ripoff The Talk went on The Arsenio Hall Show, Arsenio Hall's hideous ripoff of The Arsenio Hall Show, and Sharon said some naughty things about the ladies of The View. Hall asked Osbourne and company to explain how they are different from that show and Osbourne said, "This is the situation. The situation is Barbara -- idolize her. Divine. She's superhuman. I love Barbara Walters. The rest can go f--k themselves." You hear that, Sherri Shepherd? Go f--k yourself, courtesy of Sharon Osbourne. What's going on, Jenny McCarthy? Nothing? Oh well then maybe go f--k yourself. Love, Sharon Osbourne. Barbara, you're cool, but Whoopi? Old Whooprah Goldberg there in your high and mighty EGOT chair? Please take a moment to kindly go and firmly f--k yourself, sincerely Sharon Osbourne. Whoa. She put those ladies on blast. There is going to be a straight-up rumble if she's not careful. Wouldn't that be great? It really would. Go f--k yourselves, ladies. Each and every one of you. [Us Weekly]

There was apparently some shady business at the big ol' Country Music Awards last night. The wonderful Kacey Musgraves, a talented young singer/songwriter who was nominated for a bunch of stuff last night, made some less than pleasant faces when her rival for Best Female Vocalist, Miranda Lambert, won the trophy instead of her. There was some frowning or something. She made faces that read "not happy" to whomever wrote this piece of nonsense up. Look, I'm an awards clips person, I will spend hours skipping down the rabbit hole that is Oscar speeches on YouTube. So I know a good unhappy loser's reaction when I see one. And sheesh, it isn't always the ladies who react badly. And yet that's all we hear about! I'm sure Jason Aldean made some weird face when Blake Shelton won last night instead of him. Or maybe Keith Urban threw his sippy cup on the ground and Nicole Kidman had to go pick it up and escort him out. But we never hear about that! It's always "Oh that woman frowned so they must be having a cat fight." So silly. Not a novel or new complaint, I realize, but still. There it is, plain as the dumb day. But yes, Kacey Musgraves should have won, so she was right to be upset and should never speak to Miranda Lambert again. That's just reasonable. [Us Weekly]

Irradiated barn swallow Taylor Swift says she is super excited to perform in front of Prince William and all his fancy friends at the Winter Whites charity gala later this month. She told the BBC that she's been freakin' out, and that she doesn't want to be too presumptuous and assume that she's going to meet William. Maybe she won't! Maybe she'll just play her set, get off the stage, get in her car, and be whisked away somewhere. But it's possible that she will meet some royals, and that has her, y'know, s--tting bricks. But she'll be fine! She's got nothing to worry about. All she needs to say is "A pleasure to meet you, your highness," and do a simple curtsey in which she bends at the waist and lowers herself completely to the ground so that her torso is parallel to the floor, her nose almost touching the carpet. She only has to hold that pose for five minutes or until the Prince leaves the room, after which she may slowly return to a standing position and await judgment of the curtsey from Sir Barnaby, the royal etiquette adviser. If she passes she can consider herself to have met Prince William, if she fails, if the curtsey was crooked or undignified in some other manner, then she will be beheaded in Trafalgar Square for all of merry old London to watch. No presh, Tay! [People]

       

Time Turns Chris Christie into a Fat Joke

[image error]Did you notice that Chris Christie is fat? Time did! The magazine's cover story on the New Jersey governor, who was just reelected by a huge margin and who has obvious presidential ambitions, is titled, "The Elephant in the Room." Get it? In case you didn't, the cover features an Alfred Hitchcock-style silhouette of Christie, with his thick neck and jowl and body sloping outward toward his round stomach. The Atlantic Wire speculated in February that if Christie were a woman, the mainstream media would feel less free to make such obvious fat jokes. (Christie had eaten a donut on Letterman, and it was a big deal.) Female politicians are judged more harshly by what they look like. But it's taboo to be this explicit about it. Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, Michele Bachmann — they've all been mocked for their appearance. But then the people who make those jokes are shamed by everyone else.

When Christie was floated as a potential running mate for Mitt Romney, some columnists argued his weight disqualified him for the office — his big belly, they argued, symbolized a lack of self control in his own life that would be translated into a lack of control of the world's greatest country. An ugly undercurrent to those columns was class snobbery — poor people are fat, and rich people think that's gross. Michael Kinsley wrote that Christie's fat was "a too-perfect symbol of our country at the moment, with appetites out of control and discipline near zilch." Eugene Robinson said simply, "I’d just like to offer him a bit of unsolicited, nonpartisan, sincere advice: Eat a salad and take a walk." And the class thing is the subtext to Time's Christie coverage. "He doesn't claim to be an ideas man or a visionary. He's a workhorse with a temper and a tongue, the guy who loves his mother and gets it done," Michael Scherer writes. "The question now is whether his brassy act will play as well in Nashua and Sioux City as it does in Nutley and Asbury Park," Joe Scarborough says.

Mitt Romney, man of the people, was also fixated on Christie's weight, as reported in the new 2012 campaign book Double Down, an excerpt of which is in this issue of Time.

Mitt also cared about fitness and was prone to poke fun at those who didn’t. (“Oh, there’s your date for tonight,” he would say to male members of his traveling crew when they spied a chunky lady on the street.) Romney marveled at Christie’s girth, his difficulties in making his way down the narrow aisle of the campaign bus. Watching a video of Christie without his suit jacket on, Romney cackled to his aides, “Guys! Look at that!”

And, surprise, surprise, the class thing comes up again. "The vetters were stunned by the garish controversies lurking in the shadows of his record," Mark Halperin and John Heilemann write. Garish! Christie spent lots of money at fancy hotels.

There's plenty to mock about Chris Christie. He made his name yelling at teachers. He made an oral sex joke at a heckler on stage with robot Mitt Romney! He deserves better mockery than a tired "eat a salad" joke.

       

Jimmy Carter's Grandson Is Running for Governor of Georgia

Jason Carter, a Georgia state senator and one of Jimmy Carter's 11 grandchildren, is officially going after his grandfather's pre-presidential job: the Georgia governorship. There's been speculation about the younger Carter's gubernatorial aspirations for some weeks now, but the 38-year-old Democrat has only just confirmed his plans in an interview with The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, saying his state "can’t afford four more years of an economy that’s not working for the middle class and an education system that’s underfunded." 

Carter's run is troubling news for incumbent Governor Nathan Deal, who already has to fend off two primary opponents and a recent state ethics scandal in his bid for reelection in 2014. As the Associated Press notes, a Jason Carter campaign will almost certainly "grab national attention, be well-financed, and criticize the governor's ethics and leadership." 

But there's even more Georgia political history at play here: Carter will appear on the same ballot as Senate candidate Michelle Nunn, who has raised $1.7 million for her campaign and is also the daughter of longtime former U.S. senator Sam Nunn. As The Atlanta-Journal Constitution pointed out last month, the Carter and Nunn family names have thus been intertwined for four decades, and Sam Nunn and Jimmy Carter famously didn't always get along.

Carter's position mirrors his grandfather's by other measures, too: Jimmy Carter was also finishing up his second term as state senator when he first ran for governor in 1966. He lost that race, but landed in the governor's seat just four years later—and the White House not long after that.

       

Five Best Thursday Columns

Alex Pareene at Salon hails the end of the politics of "scaring white people." "Republican mayoral nominee Joe Lhota’s general election campaign theme was, basically, that a vote for [Mayor-elect Bill] de Blasio is a vote for race riots," Pareene writes. Lhota insisted that "de Blasio will return New York to 'the bad old days' of high crime. De Blasio will do this, apparently, by firing commissioner Ray Kelly and limiting stop-and-frisk, an NYPD policy that is little more than institutionalized minority-harassment." Lhota was not the first to campaign this way: "Rudy Giuliani, naturally, was the master of scaring white people. Bloomberg never quite campaigned like a Giuliani — or even a Koch — but he was still the beneficiary of Giuliani tactics," Pareene argues. What if police commissioner Ray Kelly had run? "It’s easy to imagine that Kelly would’ve run a very Giuliani-esque campaign, with a heavy dose of terrorism, but New York may finally have revealed the limitations, and the expiration date, of that strategy." Political strategist Donna Brazile, who appears on CNN and ABC News, isn't sure the politics of scaring white people is finished: "Well, I guess? But what do you think?"

Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post on the White House's effort to blame insurance companies for dropping plans. "In defending President Obama’s now-discredited pledge that 'if you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep it,' the White House has repeatedly tried to blame insurance companies," Kessler explains. The HHS placed tight regulations on "grandfathered plans" — those obtained before the law was signed on March 23, 2010. Because insurance plans typically only last one year, less than 5 percent of people have held on to their individual plans since the law was enacted. "That means about 95 percent of people now getting cancellation notices likely purchased their plan after the effective date of the law," Kessler explains. "During the drafting of the health-care law, insurance companies had wanted to extend the effective date for grandfathered plans until Dec. 31, 2013, which would have meant that few at this moment would be complaining that they had lost a plan they liked. Of course, that would have also meant fewer potential customers for the Obamacare exchanges in the first year." Kessler concludes, "the administration’s effort to pin the blame on insurance companies is a classic case of misdirection. Between 75 and 95 percent of the problem stems from the effective date, but the White House chooses to keep the focus elsewhere." Roll Call reporter Steven Dennis tweets, "Still raining Pinocchios."

Kevin Roose at Daily Intelligencer on Twitter's need to go "mass." It's Twitter IPO day, but "you [probably] did not get this news from Twitter," Roose writes. "That's because, although Twitter is generally put in the pantheon of the world's great social networks, it's still a fairly niche service." Only 100 million people use Twitter (compared to 728 million Facebook users). "When Twitter was private, that didn't matter much," Roose argues. "Having Justin Bieber on Twitter was much better for the company's prospects than having a hundred thousand middle-aged Wisconsinites. But now, in order to grow as a public company, it needs to become essential for those ordinary people, too. Twitter still needs Miley Cyrus, but now, it needs moms, too." Twitter is still an in-crowd thing: "People sign up for Twitter, thinking it will help them sort through current events or keep track of celebrities, then see a stream of acronyms, hard-to-parse hashtags, and in-jokes floating past them, and go right back to Facebook, which is easier to understand and use." Immigration activist Jose Antonia Vargas tweets, "@Twitter needs your mom." 

Ruy Teixeira at The New Republic thinks Virginia's turning blue. "With Terry McAuliffe’s gubernatorial victory over Ken Cuccinelli, Democrats have now won six of Virginia’s seven high-profile, statewide races since 2005," Teixeira, a longtime political scientist, explains. Why did McAuliffe win? "It was the increase in the minority vote that put him over the top," Teixera argues. "Geographical patterns also suggest how new, potentially durable voting patterns benefit Democratic candidates, even fairly weak ones like McAuliffe and even in non-presidential years." For example, McAuliffe won the same Virginia suburbs that President Obama did in 2012. Teixeira concludes, "A few years down the road, this election is likely to be remembered not for any of these [Obamacare] debates, but rather for marking another step along Virginia’s transition from red to purple to blue." Matt Yglesias, the economics writer at Slate, tweets this line from the piece: "This 'blue state' agenda, if you will, did not scare VA voters away but rather carried [McAuliffe] to victory."

Jeffrey Goldberg at Bloomberg View on who poisoned Yasser Arafat. "Word comes now that an examination of the remains of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader who died in 2004, has found 'unexpected high activity' of polonium," Goldberg explains. "Speculation about a culprit has naturally centered on Israel." And while Israelis are worried about these accusations, "the Israeli government should remember that it was the official policy of several past Israeli leaders to try to kill Arafat, who was the head of a terrorist organization that had murdered many Israeli civilians." Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, specifically, told Goldberg that he tried to have Arafat killed many times. "I’m still trying to figure out exactly why Sharon — who was, of course, prime minister when Arafat died — would have wanted the Palestinian leader dead at the particular moment he died," Goldberg explains. "But it should not be treated as news that Sharon wanted Arafat dead, or that he tried, at different points, to kill him."  Ali Gharib, who covers Middle East issues for The Daily Beast, tweets, "How crazy're these anti-Semites who blame Israel for something Israel tried to do for decades?"

       

Major AIDS Charity Spends More on Rent Than Actual Charity

This year, the organization known as the Gay Men's Health Crisis is expected to rake in $11.4 million in donations thanks in large part to the New York AIDS Walk. Unfortunately, only $374,000 —around 3 percent — goes to HIV-positive and at-risk people. Most of the money, some $4.6 million will go toward rent, according to a report from DNAinfo.

"Nearly 97 percent of the small, private donations GMHC receives will go toward administrative costs, including paying the nonprofit's $389,000-per-month rent for its largely empty office on the West Side, " DNAinfo's Mathew Katz reports, citing internal documents and multiple sources within the organization. In short, the organization spends more money on rent for an empty office in one month than it spends all year on its AIDS programs. 

Katz's report also shows that the GMHC's CEO makes $435,000 — that's around $50,000 more than what goes to AIDS programs and policies.

The annual AIDS Walk is (was?) one of New York City's most respected, celebrity-studded, and publicized charity events, raising around $5 million each year. The reason people participate and donors chip in is that they think that their money will help people with AIDS and HIV. That doesn't really seem like the case if 97 percent of that money is going toward rents, administrative issues, and a CEO who makes more than what's spent on the organization's AIDS programs. Here's how that $374,000 breaks down, according to Katz: 

By comparison, GMHC will spend just $174,000 of its donations this year on its Volunteer, Work and Wellness Center and its popular meal program; $168,000 on influencing public policy; and $32,000 on compiling reports and statistics about people living with HIV and AIDS, documents show.

And it gets more depressing:

A large donate button on the organization's website also claims that 88 cents of every dollar donated goes directly to services and programs. The actual number is closer to 3 cents of every dollar, according to records.

In addition to this mess, the GMHC actually ran a deficit in 2012, reporting six-figure losses. Back in September, the organization's Chief Financial Officer told Crain's that they have some $6 million in cash reserve and that it had no intention of cutting back its AIDS programs. Little did we know, that when you're spending that little, keeping up those services isn't very hard to do. 

       

The 'Daily Show' Wonders When Hova Became Jay Z Penney

Barneys New York has been accused of racially profiling black shoppers, which puts their new business partner Jay Z in kind of an awkward position, as reporters have noted. "Well, yeah, not as awkward a position as sitting handcuffed in the back of a police car wearing the $300 belt you just bought," Jon Stewart said. "But in his defense, Jay Z's down. He's the guy who protested the Zimmerman verdict for being racist, he boycotted the Grammys for being racist, he even boycotted wine for being racist."

But this time around Jay Z hasn't come down against Barneys, and Senior Black Correspondent Larry Wilmore explained why: "Jay Z doesn't care about black people," he said, playing the Kanye to Stewart's Mike Myers. "He doesn't care about black people who want him to boycott Barneys, and I don't blame him Jon." Jay Z has a multimillion dollar brand to protect, Wilmore noted, and it's not like he's Al Sharpton. "And, by the way America," he added, "you can't tell brothers to pull up their pants and then arrest us when we try to buy a belt."

[image error]Times have changed, after all. "I know Jay Z use to be a ground breaking rapper," Wilmore said. "But now he's a rapper who shows up at ground breakings." In the picture to the right you can see Jay Z with Mayor Bloomberg, "burying his remains of his street cred," as Wilmore put it. And, in a way, this is a moment to celebrate. "White people have been watching their music icons sell out to corporations for decades," Wilmore said. "It's the American Dream and we're finally achieving it. You go Jay Z Penney!" So, he added, the next time we see Jay Z brush his shoulders off, it might just be for his new dandruff shampoo endorsement: He's got 99 Problems, but Scalp Itch Ain't One.

 

       

Natalie Portman Western 'Jane Got a Gun' Got a Lawsuit Involving a Gun

According to a lawsuit, Lynne Ramsay, one-time director of the Natalie Portman-starring western Jane Got a Gun, got a little gun-happy herself on set. Ramsay, the indie director behind We Need to Talk About Kevin and Movern Callar, created a stir in March for abruptly quitting the project and is now being sued by producers. One of the allegations in the suit, provided by The Hollywood Reporter: Ramsay's "generally disruptive" behavior involved pointing "a prop gun directly at a camera and, in turn, at the camera crew before first taking proper precautions."  

In early 2013, it seemed that Jane Got a Gun was a cursed production. After Ramsay left, Jude Law—who had already replaced Michael Fassbender on the project—dropped out as well. Bradley Cooper took over that role but then also abandoned it, leaving it to Ewan McGregor. But it was Ramsay's exit that was the most shocking, despite hers being less of a household name. When Portman and the rest of the cast showed up to shoot in March, they were unaware that Ramsay had gone. 

The current lawsuit now alleges that Ramsay did not complete rewrites to finish the script (which delayed the final budget for the movie) and was "repeatedly under the influence of alcohol" and was "abusive" to the cast and crew. Also, she did not "adhere to proper safety protocol" by wielding a prop gun. The suit also says she made "disparaging statements" to people who were considering funding the film and that her abandonment led to the departure of "a principal actor," costume designer, and more. The producers are seeking, among other things, punitive damages. 

Though the movie is still in the works with Gavin O'Connor on board as director and the Weinstein Company and Relativity distributing it domestically, it's hard to imagine that the final product could live up to the fascinating off-camera drama. 

       

If It's November 7, the GOP Must Be Fighting Over Its Past and Future

November 7, 2013, dawns the exact same way November 7, 2012, did, with Republicans at each others' throats over an unexpected electoral loss — this year, Ken Cuccinelli's defeat in Virginia's gubernatorial race. But, with 2016 only ("only"!) three years away and the likely contenders sniping and whispering, there's no reason to think that the divided party will get less fragmented any time soon.

The surprise in Virginia was due in large part to polling indicating that Democrat Terry McAuliffe's lead was larger than it turned out to be. (There's some good analysis at Politico of why that happened; in short, whites voted more Republican than expected.) Those polls sparked apathy among an establishment already luke-warm on an unabashedly conservative candidate. Or so conservatives claim. We went over a number of the complaints on Wednesday — Rush Limbaugh railing against the idea that moderation was the key; Erick Erickson mourning his friend's defeat. These were largely laments reflecting the tension within the party: The far-right saying that moving farther right was the best way to win. (Limbaugh: "[T]he Republican Party is the real party of the center. At least the conservative wing of the Republican Party is the real center...")

Over the past 24 hours, the anger has only rippled outward. At Politico, the headline is "Virginia triggers GOP circular firing squad." At The Washington Post, it's "Close result in Va. governor’s race hardens GOP divisions." At MSNBC, "Finger pointing, not unity, follows Cuccinelli loss." The idea that the loss would prompt unity seems optimistic, but the point stands. And this, a year to the day after Republicans woke up stinging from the defeat of Mitt Romney.

The critiques come in three flavors. The conservative version, listed above. The establishment version, blaming Cuccinelli. And the can't-we-all-get-along version, banging the same drum for the past 365 days. From the Post obituary:

“The lesson is that a party divided is going to lose,” said Pete Snyder, a Northern Virginia technology entrepreneur who served as Cuccinelli’s finance chairman. “The Democrats weren’t happy with their candidate, but they were united. Ken Cuccinelli had to deal with Melrose Place.”

"The fact that there is at least a kernel of truth to all the explanations," Politico writes, "only guarantees that the debate will continue for a good long while."

[image error]That's not the only reason the recriminations and infighting will continue. Soon, it won't be the primary one, pun intended. Chris Christie's romp in New Jersey couldn't have been better timed to position him for the 2016 presidential race, and perhaps couldn't have been timed worse for any hopes Republican National Committee head Reince Priebus may have had of unifying the various pieces of his party. Christie's likely primary opponents moved quickly to do what New Jersey Democrats couldn't: throw up roadblocks between Christie and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — or at least his staff — is busy rebutting claims that his shutdown ruined Cuccinelli's chances. But his colleagues are not. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio explained that Christie's win in New Jersey was a unique beast. "[W]e need to understand that some of these races don't apply to future races," he told CNN. "Every race is different — it has a different set of factors — but I congratulate [Christie] on his win." You get lucky, Christie, but congrats. Then there's Sen. Rand Paul, who took issue with the earworm "Stronger Than the Storm" ads, which ran in heavy rotation in the region on the state's dime, ostensibly to boost tourism. But they also, Paul claims, served as de facto Christie 2013 / 2016 spots.

"Ya think there might be a conflict of interest there? You know that’s a real problem. That’s why when people who are trying to do good and trying to use taxpayer dollars wisely they are offended to see our money spent on political ads. You know that’s just offensive."

Rubio, Paul, and Cruz have been jockeying to be the conservative right's candidate in the 2016 primaries. Which makes Christie, who, for now, owns the middle, a threat: the three of them could split Tea Party support allowing Christie to sweep up the moderate vote. That means that all three — and any other 2016 contender — needs to come at Christie hard and frequently.

Which means that the split within the GOP is not going to heal any time soon — particularly not if key 2014 races go the way of Cuccinelli. If Pete Snyder, quoted above, is right, and a party divided is doomed to failure, don't expect much GOP success before 2016. That election is three years from tomorrow. Priebus and Christie and everyone else in the party better hope they're not having the same conversation then.