Hollywood can be a bad place for women.
Whether it’s the blatant disrespect for women’s intelligence, or being denied a role for looking too old, Hollywood has some seriously sexist baggage to deal with.
One such victim of this systematic patriarchy is 39-year-old actress Busy Philipps.
Opening up in her memoir This Will Only Hurt a Little, Busy recounts the moment she realised she wasn’t going to be given credit for her creation of the idea for Hollywood hit Blades of Glory.
Years before the 2007 film was released, Busy sat watching a men’s ice skating competition with her childhood friend Craig Cox. She contemplated that a silly screenplay about the competitive nature of men’s ice skating would be a great film.
Cox and his brother reportedly pursued the idea, minimising Busy’s significant contributions to the creative direction and screenplay.
The White Chicks actress said a recent piece by Nerdist peaked her sadness about how it all unfolded.
“As soon as I saw it, my heart sank, because I knew what was going to f*cking happen,” Philipps shared at the 2018 Vulture Festival in Los Angeles.
She added that she felt panicky as she realised Cox had attributed the idea of Blades of Glory to his brother, Jeff Cox, and compared the feeling to PTSD.
She later opened up about the experience on her E! television show Busy Tonight.
“Women’s ideas and creativity get taken by men who are near them, and used for their own personal gain. I was gaslit and made to feel crazy. I was really traumatised by it. I didn’t trust myself or my instincts or my own abilities,” she powerfully shared.
Men taking credit for women’s ideas is just another way systemic misogyny is reinforced in Hollywood.
Power to you, Busy.
Top Comments
I really hope she had some more input than this if she is complaining. I could have suggested they should write a movie about breaking out of prison but I don't deserve credit for The Shawshank Redemption...
There was more to it than just coming up with the idea. It annoys the crap out of me when the media pick one line from an entire book to focus on, without any further information or context. Usually they go for the most salacious thing they could find, and make that their headline.
Ironically, in the Nerdist article they link to (from March btw) literally has one of the Cox brothers explaining Busy's role in creating it;
"Craig Cox: We shared story credit with Busy Philipps who is a friend of ours. We grew up together in Arizona. She and I were watching a figure skating competition on TV and she was the one that initially said, “Oh, that would be funny, like a story about rival figure skaters.”
Did make me wonder and have a look, nothing about how Chris Hardwick (you know, one of the main guys behind Nerdist) has been erased from the site, lost a couple of tv hosting jobs and is now persona non-grata after his ex wrote a story about her abusive ex (who just happened to run a pop culture website and be a popular podcast host). Wouldn't that be more relevant than covering something that's not really an issue?
I read Busy’s book, there’s a whole lot more to the story. If you’re going to write about something like this, at least provide a few more quotes, or a proper summary of what went on. It’s clickbait again, stirring up controversy, but never giving the full story. It’s making me question the standards of every article here, to be honest. I know the rest of the story on this one, what are they leaving out of all the other stories we’re reading here? As to the Hardwick thing, well, that’s a whole seperate story to get into.
Ah, fair enough. Will have to keep an eye out for a copy.
Shallow or selective reporting is super problematic.
Best case, people see something they find interesting, look into it further and realise "oh, its actually a bigger, smaller or different thing to what I'd read."
Worst case, it gives the MRA guys that pop up here every once in a while examples to use when they're having their "SEE!!! PROWOMEN SITES LIE!!!" shitfits.
Why give them anything to use against you hey?