Jane Curtin Was Stunned by the ‘Contempt For Women’ at ‘SNL’

In addition to monologues, musical guests and fake news segments, one of the most longstanding components of Saturday Night Live has been its rampant misogyny. 

Former cast members like Nora Dunn and Janeane Garofalo have gone on the record about the show’s behind the scenes sexism, and Jennifer Aniston recently revealed that she turned down SNL out of concerns around “if women are treated the way they should be treated on this show.”

In a recent episode of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Wiser Than Me podcast, OG Not Ready For Prime Time Player Jane Curtin made it very clear that the show was toxic as hell right from the jump.

Louis-Dreyfus asked her guest about SNL’s sexism, noting that it was “very much in place when I was there.” Curtin revealed that in her first sketch group, The Proposition, “the women in that show were more powerful than the men, as far as performers went. And so I was totally shocked at the attitude that I discovered when I entered the 8H studio.”

“I had never experienced anything like that in my life,” Curtin continued. “The contempt for women that I felt from some of the men there was stunning. Stunning.”

“I believed that we were an enlightened group,” the Coneheads star explained. “That my peer group was the peer group that is going to give equal rights to women. And they weren't. And that shocked me. So I was incredibly disillusioned by certain men's behavior. And on the other hand, there were men that were just lovely, couldn't have been nicer, (and) couldn't have been more appreciative of everything that you do. But, that overwhelming, aggressive misogyny was a little hard to deal with.”

“But it didn't get rid of my confidence,” she added, “because I had fought to be in this business.”

It’s been well-documented that John Belushi often claimed that “women aren’t funny” and, according to Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, even urged Lorne Michaels to “fire all the women writers.” Curtin was the “least willing to laugh off Belushi’s chauvinism,” and the two were viewed as “arch enemies” by some.

But it clearly wasn’t just Belushi. During a 2018 appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, the “first female anchor of Weekend Update” stated that “there were a few people that just out-and-out believe that women should not have been there and they believe that women were not innately funny.” 

During her chat with Louis-Dreyfus, Curtin also recalled how Michaels argued that “everyone should be competing with everybody else.” But she, Gilda Radner and Larraine Newman all believed in the power of cooperation, and “thwarted” Michaels’ machinations. 

“We proved that you don't need to compete and everybody is not on the same plane,” she recalled. “Everybody is not destined to do the same things.”