Four episodes of this season’s BBC1 panel show Would I Lie To You have been broadcast so far, and they all had one thing in common: a token woman.
Please forgive me. I don’t mean to underestimate the value these female guests bring to the show, or suggest that they don’t have what it takes to join forces with the regulars who take up a majority of the panel show air time available today (and there’s plenty). In fact, I’ve avoided writing about this simply not to do that, not to make them into a token, a gender and a box ticked. Until I read Elin Grelsson’s column on the topic, that is.
Grelsson writes about the artist Marie Capaldis, whose paintings were displayed at the Gothenburg museum of art alongside a sign explaining that the museum since 2005 has a gender awareness policy which is taken into account when art is purchased.
Gender perspective? Well done. But in describing a woman’s art while boasting about the institution’s gender awareness policy, all they do is highlight the fact that the male artist is still the norm, completely undermining Capaldis’s work.
“How can you promote marginalised groups without making them into exceptions, which in the long run only reinforces the norm?” asks Grelsson. I think the answer is that it’s incredibly difficult, and this explains very well my reaction to the Would I Lie To You trend.
Friends who work in the industry will say that it’s not due to lack of effort. The few successful female comedians around are approached indeed – but they don’t want to take part. You can’t get women on the panel shows, goes the explanation.
I think they’re telling the truth, but I don’t think it’s good enough. When you week in and week out invite a relatively unknown female comedian to take part in a show with a male presenter, two male team captains and three famous male guests, you’re merely ticking a box, while the culture that stopped other female celebrities from accepting the offer remains as strong as ever.
All the token woman does is clear the conscience of production companies that should be asking themselves where it all went wrong.
