Billie Piper slams TV writers for ruining strong female roles with ‘annoying’ sex scenes

Life


Billie Piper slams TV writers for ruining strong female roles with ‘annoying’ sex scenes

By Kayleigh Dray

9 years ago

From Emily Blunt and Zoe Saldana, to Jennifer Lawrence and Thandie Newton, it’s no secret that the incredible women of the silver screen are calling for a feminist revolution in Hollywood. They want strong female film roles to stop being an anomaly, and scriptwriters to start creating more brilliant characters for talented actors to play.

And now Billie Piper – aka the woman who brought Belle de Jour to life in ITV’s The Secret Diary of a Call Girl – has joined them.



However Piper has focused on a specific irk she has, admitting that she’s tired of being forced to get naked on screen.

In a new interview with ES Magazine, the 34 year old explained that it is highly unusual for her to be offered a television role without at least one nude appearance.

“What’s annoying is that they are fun roles, if you remove the sex,” she said. “It’s the sex that makes it annoying. Otherwise they are interesting stories, interesting women with chequered pasts.”

So, in a bid to bring about the change she is desperate to see, Piper has teamed up with writer Lucy Prebble to write her own empowering television show.



Weaving a story about two women in their thirties, the former Doctor Who star described the show – for which a title has yet to be released - as “beautifully bleak”.

“I would say tonally it’s a black comedy,” explained Piper, “but it might just be black.”

It’s an excellent way to tackle the issue – and it seems as if more and more women are working together to ensure that they have access to the empowering roles they deserve. Whether that’s Amy Sherman-Palladino teaming up with Netflix to write more episodes of mother-daughter comedy The Gilmore Girls, the amazing team of female writers and actors at Orange is the New Black, Emma Watson demanding Disney give Beauty and the Beast a feminist makeover, or Lena Dunham and Jennifer Konner’s work on Girls, women are refusing to allow men to control the narrative any longer.

And, earlier this year, Jessica Chastain, Juliette Binoche, Queen Latifah, Freida Pinto, Zhang Ziyi, Catherine Hardwicke, and more joined the advisory board of a newly launched non-profit production company We Do It Together, which aims to close the gender gap by focusing on film and television projects that empower women.



“We hope in the future we won’t have a need for dedicated niche financing for films by and about women,” founder and board member of We Do It Together, Chiara Tilesi, told the Hollywood Reporter.

“All of us involved in We Do It Together recognise the vital role of the media and entertainment in both shaping and challenging societal norms. Film has always possessed the power to defy convention and change hearts and minds, and this power and potential must be harnessed to challenge the current archaic norms related to women within the entertainment industry.

“We feel that the way to make this a reality is to give women from around the world a concrete way to express themselves and an ongoing structure that will ensure that these stories will be financed and distributed.”

Or, more succinctly, I am woman, hear me roar.

All hail the badass women striving to give Hollywood a #girlpower makeover.

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