Since it’s debut last summer, Aaron Sorkin‘s HBO drama The Newsroom has left critics with a common complaint: the so-called “women problem,” a term many use to describe what they think is Sorkin’s disparaging writing of the women.
But cast member Olivia Munn, who stars as the brilliant-but-beautiful financial whiz Sloan Sabbith, does not see such undertones of sexism on The Newsroom.
“I think Sorkin writes all the characters the same,” she told Celebuzz at the L’Or al USA Women in Digital “NEXT” Generation Awards in New York City. “I think it’s all a preference of what you bring to the role as an actor.”
And Munn applauds her female costars, Emily Mortimer (MacKenzie McHale) and Alison Pill (Maggie Jordan), for how they make Sorkin’s scripted characters their own.
“I love [them] so much. I think they are such strong, independent women,” she said. “I think they are bringing something to the role, as actors, that they want to bring to it.”
It’s in MacKenzie and Maggie, though, that critics find the most fault, calling them everything from crazy, neurotic, and ditzy, to complete ninnies and naifs. But Munn thinks the actresses don’t deserve that bad rap.
“If anybody criticizes my friends, that makes me very upset,” she said. “I’m very thankful for the nice things they say about me. But [I’m] very defensive of the other women on my show because they’re really great people and great actors. They’re just telling a version of the truth that they know.”
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