Deeply Disturbed By Off-Color Jokes?
Well, then don't take a job that involves hearing a lot of off-color jokes! Seems simple, huh? Except to Amaani Lyle, a former writer's assistant on Friends, who's looking to score some cash via her harrassment case now before the California Supreme Court. She did try to play the racism card, too, with zero proof that there actually was any, but that didn't fly:
After being told that she was fired for typing too slowly, Lyle filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Warner Bros. Television Productions Inc. and the producers and writers she had worked under for four months in 1999. She alleges that they created a hostile work environment.The writers counter that they have the right ó or even a need ó to discuss personal sexual experiences as they search for compelling and often titillating plots.
The case, which is before the California Supreme Court, represents a collision of sexual harassment law and the 1st Amendment's protection of free speech.
The state's highest court must decide whether the suit can go to trial, and, in the process, answer a question that few appeals courts have tackled: Does an employee have a right not to be to subject to offensive sexual conversations and profanities at work even when the work involves writing for a show that deals with sexual material?
The court's ruling may determine whether laws designed to protect workers from sexual, racial and other kinds of discrimination in the workplace should be limited when the offensive conduct occurs during a creative process.
The entertainment industry and the media have lined up behind the writers, arguing that their controversial remarks were protected by the 1st Amendment.
The comments were not aimed directly at Lyle and were made while writing a show about sexually active young adults, they point out. And Lyle has acknowledged that she was warned before she was hired that she would be subjected to racy discussions.
"The show deals with sex and sexual references and anatomical references," said Adam Levin, a lawyer for Warner Bros. and the writers and producers they employed. "It is axiomatic that writers need to talk about sex, joke about sex and laugh about sex."
Women's legal groups, legal aid lawyers and employment attorneys are siding with Lyle. They fear the case could decimate anti-discrimination laws by limiting them in so-called communicative industries such as television, movies and newspapers.
"We are dealing with [the entertainment] industry, where I am sure there has been longtime sex discrimination," said Elizabeth Kristen, project director for the Legal Aid Society's Employment Law Center. "Do they think they should get a pass from age discrimination as well by saying they are making TV shows for a youthful audience?"
Some of the show's writers, in sworn depositions, admitted that they told stories of oral sex, simulated masturbation as a way of saying they were wasting time, talked about anal sex and altered an inspirational calendar to change the word "happiness" to "penis."
Lyle complained that one of the writers, Gregory Malins, often spoke of his fetish for blond cheerleaders, how he liked "young cheerleaders with pigtails and short skirts."
Ooh, the horror...the horror! I guess, as a woman, I'm supposed to be deeply disturbed -- wounded, even -- at hearing about Malins' alleged cheerleader fetish...but I'm not too sure why. What this suit should put a chill on, if Lyle wins, is not just free speech, but hiring women (who are more likely to be prissy -- or see the opportunity to get prissy for dollars).
"What this suit should put a chill on, if Lyle wins, is not just free speech, but hiring women."
Really good point, Flamazoid.
Lena at November 13, 2004 8:35 PM