The Gaslighting and Terrorism of Linda Bloodworth Thomason
Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.
Noam Chomsky
I’ve been on a Linda Bloodworth Thomason kick as of late. Amazon Prime has her sitcoms Hearts Afire and Women of the House in their streaming videos. The recent death of Burt Reynolds has people fondly remembering his performance on Evening Shade. And her most popular show of all, Designing Women, will be rebooted by LBT herself. Today she is trending on Twitter. Not because she’s a great writer. Not because of the DW reboot. Apparently, the recent ouster of Les Moonves prompted her to tell her truth. He didn’t sexually harass her. Rather, he destroyed her television career. He terrorized her. And today, she wrote about it in The Hollywood Reporter.
Let us backtrack.
In the early nineties, LBT was doing great. Evening Shade was an Emmy winner, Designing Women was a flagship show, and she was getting rave reviews for a new sitcom, Hearts Afire. CBS gave her a fifty million dollar deal for five new series, including penalties if the shows weren’t picked up. Oh yeah, she was a FOB. A friend of Bill. Clinton, that is. And Hillary.
There was trouble, however, in Linda Land, aka Hollywood.
Terrorism will spill over if you don’t speak up.
Malala Yousafzai
Les Moonves took over and a new president of entertainment was in town. In 1995, she wrote a new sitcom called Fully Clothed Non-Dancing Women. Just the title alone is hysterical. It starred Illeana Douglas. He attended a table reading, which included Douglas and LBT. He didn’t laugh. No chuckles, no chortles, nothing. Crickets. Stone. She later found out the show wasn’t picked up. Also in 1995, Hearts Afire and Women of the House were canceled. Although they were canceled a month before Moonves took over, one can look at the timing and might think “Hmmm.”
Wanting to win him over, LBT tried everything in the book, all her southern charm. He would tell her he loved the writing, loved everything, but just not a good fit at this time. Kiss kiss, babe. Have your people call my people. This happened several times over the years.
One time she was walking in the CBS building, then she was taken aback that many pictures of the CBS stars were gone, all women: Lucille Ball. Mary Tyler Moore. Valerie Harper. Bea Arthur. The Designing Women themselves: Delta Burke, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts, and Jean Smart. She then thought “I just know that the likes of them have rarely been seen on that network again. Thanks to Les Moonves, I can only guess they all became vaginal swabs in crime labs on CSI Amarillo.” Candice Bergen has survived Amarillo; a rebooted Murphy Brown will be premiering in two weeks.
Still, LBT makes the case that the network was taken over by male-dominated TV shows: Everyone Loves Raymond, Two and a Half Men, The King of Queens, The Big Bang Theory, and Survivor. Of course, these shows had wonderful women as well, plus let’s face it: If I’m having a bad day, I curl up on the couch to see the geeky love affair of Sheldon and Amy. And let’s not forget the success of Mom, The Good Wife, and Madam Secretary. Yet most of the shows have male showrunners, male writers, male everything. It seemed as if there was one point of view: men!
Fascism is fascism. Terrorism is terrorism. Oppression is oppression.
Harry Belafonte
I’m not knocking men here. God knows I love the opposite gender as much as the next woman. However, let’s be honest: Linda Bloodworth Thomason was terrorized by Les Moonves. She is a victim of domestic terrorism, a terrorism women have to go through sometimes at their jobs. Not all, of course. However, last year I wrote about a time when I was dealing with a difficult boss. Like LBT, it wasn’t obvious sexual harassment. However, it was gaslighting. It was mind games. It was constant lying. It was something my fellow writers (and dear friends) in a workshop picked up on, something I didn’t notice. It has taken me years to realize that the man I worked for terrorized me, not with guns, not with bombs, but with my head.
I have a lot in common with Linda Bloodworth Thomason. We’re both strong funny women. We’re both writers. We tell great stories. I would love to write for the Designing Women reboot. I would be the water girl for the Designing Women reboot. Yet we have something else in common: we were terrorized and gaslit. LBT wrote today she was dancing on Moonves’ grave of a career. Me? How about getting Linda Bloodworth Thomason to take over as President of Entertainment? Because it might just be me, but Noam, Malala and Harry are on to something.
Update: Linda Bloodworth Thomason has signed a deal to bring back a “sequel” version of Designing Women to the ABC network.
