NBC Sports and Refinery29 are continuing its partnership in the digital space with On Her Turf programming, and the company presented speakers in the Comcast NBCUniversal House at SXSW yesterday. During the panel, actor Retta and gold-medal Olympic hockey player Monique Lamoureux-Morando discussed being women in two very different public industries.
On Her Turf was launched in 2018 as a way to focus on and celebrate female athletes. The initiative includes a podcast hosted by Kathryn Tappen and popular social media accounts.
The partnership between NBC Sports and Refinery29 has included social content and marketing since February 2018. NBCUniversal's overall goal is to work with a platform or digital publisher to create new digital content. For instance, On Her Turf video segments are posted on NBC Sports.
The initiative is an example of an idea expanding into different media as a method of outreach, and a reminder that nontraditional media sources provide new ways for storytelling that aspiring creatives should consider.
Retta, who is known for her roles on Parks and Recreation and Good Girls, added brevity to the discussion and spoke vaguely about secrets from the Parks and Rec set, joking that lawyers would get involved if she were too specific.
But when she talked about her position in entertainment, she was more serious.
“In my industry, there was always this stigma of women not supporting women,” Retta said. “But I never saw it. I always feel like it was something that was created just to keep us down. So we don’t fight for equal pay or fight for top billing. And just be grateful that you’re in there, because otherwise someone’s going to try to snatch you out.”
However, she said things are starting to change within the industry.
“We’re finally realizing, that was some bullshit, that was fabricated,” Retta said. “And now we’re in a place of, ‘OK, bitch, let's do this!’”
Lamoureux-Morando was asked about her feelings on International Women’s Day, which was Friday.
“I did a panel yesterday, and we were talking about this, and I thought it was such great perspective—that hopefully there doesn’t need to be a day where we celebrate women,” she said. “Because there are 365 other days in the year. Hopefully we don’t need just one day to celebrate each other, and that it’s just commonplace and we don’t need to think about it or take time to make it a big thing.”
Comcast NBCUniversal continues its SXSW programming March 9-11th.
For more, see our ongoing list of coverage of the 2019 SXSW Film Festival.
No Film School's podcast and editorial coverage of the 2019 SXSW Film Festival is sponsored by Blackmagic Design.
