Action is one of those genres that has a bit of everything; fast-paced drama, weapons, sometimes explosions, and usually a nice, dark urban setting. What a winner! It’s also traditionally seen to be a bit of a man’s world. There is a kind of assumption that goes about that men write action or thriller shows and women write rom-coms (not everyone thinks that, this is just coffee table talk). So I wanted to have a look at the top performing TV action series of the moment and see just how many were written by women.

A couple of small disclaimers before we get into the numbers:

1. This is an exercise only, and was taken from IMDB (aka The Bible)
2. I’ve taken into account for this exercise only the number of writers listed, and not how many episodes each writer was credited with (I’ll get into that another day!)
3. This information is based on the top 10 performing action series as listed on IMDB, and I won’t pass judgement on the shows because, well, I’ve spent the last month’s allocated Netflix time catching up with Pretty Little Liars so I haven’t seen half of these.

And now, let’s get into it.

The Top Ten as Listed:

No.	Title	Year	Total Writers	Total Female Writers	% Female writers
1	Legends of Tomorrow	2016	9	2	22.22
2	Shadowhunters	2016	8	4	50.00
3	Arrow	2012	31	12	38.71
4	The Flash	2014	31	10	32.26
5	Jessica Jones	2015	11	4	36.36
6	Agent Carter	2015	14	5	35.71
7	Colony	2016	6	1	16.67
8	Daredevil	2015	10	1	10.00
9	Vikings	2013	1	0	0.00
10	Supergirl	2015	14	5	35.71

So, let’s rearrange those in order of action series with the highest percentage of female writers…

No.	Title	Year	Total Writers	Total Female Writers	% Female writers
2	Shadowhunters	2016	8	4	50.00
3	Arrow	2012	31	12	38.71
5	Jessica Jones	2015	11	4	36.36
10	Supergirl	2015	14	5	35.71
6	Agent Carter	2015	14	5	35.71
4	The Flash	2014	31	10	32.26
1	Legends of Tomorrow	2016	9	2	22.22
7	Colony	2016	6	1	16.67
8	Daredevil	2015	10	1	10.00
9	Vikings	2013	1	0	0.00

 

Now, it’s worth noting that Jessica Jones actually has a female creator, Melissa Rosenberg, who is also (fun fact), ranked #24 on the highest-grossing screenwriters list (according to www.boxofficemojo.com). She’s grossed an epic USD $1.452B over her career (largely due to her screenplays for the Twilight series). At #24, she is the third woman on the list, coming in behind Philippa Boyens (#7) and Fran Walsh (#9), both up there for box office slam dunks with the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit series.

So here’s a shoutout to all the women listed as writers on the top 10 action series according to IMDB (alphabetically, no favourites here):

Ali Adler (Supergirl)
Lindsey Allen (Arrow, Agent Carter)
Dana Baratta (Jessica Jones)
Rebecca Bellotto (Arrow)
Andi Bushell (Agent Carter)
Tara Butters (Agent Carter)
Lauren Certo (The Flash)
Yahlin Chang (Supergirl)
Lana Cho (Arrow)
Sue Chung (Agent Carter)
Cassandra Clare (wrote the novel for Shadowhunters and is listed as a writer on all episodes)
Marjorie David (Shadowhunter)
Michele Fazekas (Agent Carter)
Anna Fishko (Colony)
Ruth Fletcher (Daredevil)

Liz Friedman (Jessica Jones)
Grainne Godfree (Arrow, The Flash)
Holly Harold (Arrow)
Sarah Nicole Jones (Legends of Tomorrow)
Moira Kirland (Arrow)
Wendy Mericle (Arrow)
Anna Musky-Goldwyn (Supergirl)
Cortney Norris (Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash)
Hollie Overton (Shadowhunters)
Caitlin Parrish (Supergirl)
Y. Shireen Razack (Shadowhunters)
Jenna Reback (Jessica Jones)
Brooke Roberts (The Flash)
Melissa Rosenberg (Jessica Jones – Creator)
Alison Schapker (The Flash)
Beth Schwartz (Arrow)
Keto Shimizu (Arrow, The Flash)
Rachel Shukert (Supergirl)
Gabrielle G. Stanton (Arrow, The Flash)

Sarah Tarkoff (Arrow)
Lilah Vandenburgh (The Flash)
Katherine Walczak (The Flash)
Kai Wu (The Flash)

It’s great to see a few names popping up across different series. See? Women can and do specialise in writing action/superhero/fast-cars-big-guns television.

 

That’s all for now.

I’d love to hear about which television series featuring great female leads are your favourites for another post – comment below!