Poll of the Day > MADtv Actress says she QUIT the show cause her WHITE MALE Co-Stars got more $$!

(+) Yeah! (+)

58 y/o Debra Wilson, played one of the most iconic characters on MADtv (once rival to SNL) for 8 seasons has come out to attack the show after she quit when she realized that the show creators did NOT negotiate with her on her salary after her WHITE MALE CO-STARS made more money than her and didn't even try to keep her after she threatened to quit..which she did!!

In an interview with Comedy News, the actress said she left in 2003 after discovering a pay disparity between her and her male white male cast members which she said the show was unwilling to address

She said "I was a tenured cast member from the beginning, from pilot and people were cming in after me making more than me. And when i realized there were white male cast members who were coming in after me making more than me i went, okay can we talk about this and the answer was no"

She was the first black female cast member when she made her debut in 1995 and the longest serving original member as she created the characters of Tovah McQueen and Bunifa Latifah Halifah Sharifa Jackson but her most recognized for playing Oprah Winfrey, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey

She said her contributions weren't being appreciated and she wasn't having it after new people started coming in and getting paid more, particularly white male cast members. Her decision to leave was principle and the fact she was still the original black woman on the show..

Debra continued to act in other movies and said despite the budget crisis the show had, they were able to still made funny sketches as she was one of the most beloved

Do you think she was one of the funniest on the show?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2FnunslP1E

https://i.imgur.com/iVUWyRO.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/QGel2od.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/6gInZj2.jpg
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Full Throttle posted...

r she quit when she realized that the show creators did NOT negotiate with her on her salary after her WHITE MALE CO-STARS made more money than her

Not sure if this is fact but I heard one reason men will tend to make more money when working the same job is BECAUSE they tend to negotiate their salary. You cant expect your boss to just offer you more money straight up, its YOUR job to initiate negotiations. I want to fact check this but im too lazy.

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Meh I liked her Oprah impression but that was it. Will Sasso was the best thing on that show.

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i don't remember her at all

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I mean even today white actors and actresses are often already higher paid than their black and brown counterparts on tv with few exceptions. Not hard to believe at all that they were underpaying a black actress back when this show aired. Fox should own up to it and write her a check.

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helIy posted...

i don't remember her at all

How could you not remember her Oprah, Bunifa, or Whitney Houston?? Those bits killed.

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She was ok. Far from the best on the cast.

Pat Kilbane, Phil Lamar, Will Sasso, Nicole Sullivan, Aries Spears, Alex Borstein, and Mo Collins were all much better than her, to name a few...

Such a better show than SNL, and yet it's the show that died out :(

I always thought Michael McDonald was the best overall. He was consistently hilarious in any sketch.

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deoxxys posted...

Not sure if this is fact but I heard one reason men will tend to make more money when working the same job is BECAUSE they tend to negotiate their salary. You cant expect your boss to just offer you more money straight up, its YOUR job to initiate negotiations. I want to fact check this but im too lazy.

Pretty much.

keyblader1985 posted...

How could you not remember her Oprah, Bunifa, or Whitney Houston?? Those bits killed.

Well, Bunifa certainly convinced me to change the channel so I guess it killed the audience in that way >_>

Full Throttle posted...

Do you think she was one of the funniest on the show?

No, because Key and Peele were on the show. Their stupid criminal skits were fucking hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxUseEZbxEg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y72LctHYec

Then after them there were at least 5 funnier actors than Debra Wilson on the show.

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A person should quit even if they only FEEL they are being underpaid... since there are thousands of other jobs they can do until they find the right feel.

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deoxxys posted...

Not sure if this is fact but I heard one reason men will tend to make more money when working the same job is BECAUSE they tend to negotiate their salary. You cant expect your boss to just offer you more money straight up, its YOUR job to initiate negotiations. I want to fact check this but im too lazy.

That does tend to be a major factor (although here, she did try to negotiate and they turned her down), but it's all too common to cite that explanation and then leave it at that instead of questioning why women are less likely to negotiate salaries, usually because the people advancing such a position are more interested in dismissing feminists than actually having a serious intellectual discussion and trying to improve the world. See: Zeus' contribution to the discussion.

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She should quit if she doesnt like it and she did. But it seems like she didnt move on. Many women get paid more than Arv at his work place but that doesnt hinder Arvs work relationships everyone wants to be number 1

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deoxxys posted...

Not sure if this is fact but I heard one reason men will tend to make more money when working the same job is BECAUSE they tend to negotiate their salary. You cant expect your boss to just offer you more money straight up, its YOUR job to initiate negotiations. I want to fact check this but im too lazy.

She went to negotiate and they turned it down and she went as far as threatening to quit and they let her. You can't really say the disparity is from not negotiating at that point


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Being tenured is probably a major factor. If your job is secured, what basis have you got to renegotiate salary? The locking down of the job is a burden on the employer, they can afford to pay the others more when they can hold the threat of firing over their heads.
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Clench281 posted...

She went to negotiate and they turned it down and she went as far as threatening to quit and they let her. You can't really say the disparity is from not negotiating at that point

I'd say it's from bad negotiating. If she had someone else offering a better wage then it would mean something, but if they're offering the best she can get, why would they renegotiate? They can wait her out, let her come back on worse terms.

Now she's aired their dirty laundry, there's even less reason to work with her.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

I'd say it's from bad negotiating. If she had someone else offering a better wage then it would mean something, but if they're offering the best she can get, why would they renegotiate? They can wait her out, let her come back on worse terms.

Now she's aired their dirty laundry, there's even less reason to work with her.

If she's truly willing to leave the job, then it doesn't matter whether she's quitting to accept another job, or just to walk away. The question is identical for the current employer: is it worth losing this employee instead of increasing the salary by X?

A competing offer only increases the likelihood that you're being honest about your threat to walk away. She proved that threat was honest. And at that point, SNL could have offered to take her back at an increased salary if they valued her enough.

Obviously they didn't.

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Remember her, I thought she was more funny than the SNL 'Black Females outside of maybe Lesile Jones (but not the In Living Color ones)...also didn't realize she was that old

adjl posted...

That does tend to be a major factor (although here, she did try to negotiate and they turned her down), but it's all too common to cite that explanation and then leave it at that instead of questioning why women are less likely to negotiate salaries, usually because the people advancing such a position are more interested in dismissing feminists than actually having a serious intellectual discussion and trying to improve the world.

Which is an inherently disingenuous approach to what's already a bad-faith argument, even before going into the fact that the largest bone of contention in the wage-gap is predicated on an outright lie where even the creators of the information cited have repeatedly gone on record to explain why their information was neither intended nor can be used as such. More importantly, at the higher levels it exclusively comes down to negotiations and to who's seen as a draw.

adjl posted...

See: Zeus' contribution to the discussion.

See: Fuck you

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Will sasso was the best. Loved his rock interview. What's that smell?

Zeus posted...

Which is an inherently disingenuous approach

It's disingenuous to consider and discuss why a trend exists instead of to merely cite the trend and move on as though it's set in stone and can never change?

I suppose this shouldn't surprise me, coming from a guy who literally said it's intellectually lazy to ask why rules exist instead of blindly obeying them. You have an unhealthy attachment to the status quo, and you need to realize that merely citing it as "the way things are" is too tautological to ever convince anyone that isn't so afflicted.

Zeus posted...

See: f*** you

Is that not an accurate description of your "contribution"? Are you not more interested in shutting down and dismissing feminists and their complaints than in having intellectual discussions with them about how the world can be improved?

You don't actually have to answer these questions. They're very much rhetorical: everyone knows the answers already. We also know that you won't actually answer them, instead deflecting onto some sort of non sequitur strawman or awkwardly trying to reword my post into an insult against me because you still haven't realized how ridiculous you look when you do that. If you want to take a shot, though, you're perfectly free to. Could be entertaining, after all.

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Give it another week

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adjl posted...

It's disingenuous to consider and discuss why a trend exists instead of to merely cite the trend and move on as though it's set in stone and can never change?

The reason the trend exists was already explained. You just happen to not agree with it.

adjl posted...

I suppose this shouldn't surprise me, coming from a guy who literally said it's intellectually lazy to ask why rules exist instead of blindly obeying them. You have an unhealthy attachment to the status quo, and you need to realize that merely citing it as "the way things are" is too tautological to ever convince anyone that isn't so afflicted.

I'm not sure what the context of that discussion was, but given your tendency to conflate and distort, it was likely a matter where somebody AGREED to follow a set of rules and then tried to pretend that the rules shouldn't apply to them. It would fit your pattern of special pleading.

adjl posted...

Is that not an accurate description of your "contribution"?

I agreed with the assessment. You've agreed with assessments before as well. It's silly that you fault me for agreeing with something, when you've never faulted yourself.

adjl posted...

Are you not more interested in shutting down and dismissing feminists and their complaints than in having intellectual discussions with them about how the world can be improved?

Considering that you're advocating emotional rather than intellectual discussions, your entire premise is flawed.

adjl posted...

You don't actually have to answer these questions. They're very much rhetorical:

In so much as that you don't heed any opinion that disagrees with your own.

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I always liked Aries Spears and Alex B. Debra Wilson was funny too, and she should have got paid.

Zeus posted...

The reason the trend exists was already explained.

Mind pointing out where? Bear in mind that the trend in question is not "women make less than men," it's "women are generally less likely to negotiate salaries than men," which does not appear to have been explained anywhere in this topic (or anywhere else, that I've seen).

Zeus posted...

I'm not sure what the context of that discussion was, but given your tendency to conflate and distort, it was likely a matter where somebody AGREED to follow a set of rules and then tried to pretend that the rules shouldn't apply to them. It would fit your pattern of special pleading.

Remember kids: Agreeing to follow rules means it's never reasonable to challenge them ever, and nobody else should weigh in on how reasonable the rules are because they're just the rules and people just have to follow them because they're the rules.

I believe the specific context was regarding a school dress code, or possibly that one mom whose kids were kicked out of Catholic school because she did porn, but the specific context really doesn't matter. You have a habit of defending the status quo for no other reason and with no other justification than that it's the status quo, which is really terribly lazy. Attempting to call people lazy for doing the opposite of that (that is, looking for actual justification for the status quo) was (and is) utterly absurd.

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