Olivia Munn and the Pundit Fans

Aaron Sorkin of The West Wing fame (and some movie about Facebook, like that’ll ever go anywhere) is developing a show about the cable news industry called More as the Story Develops, which is stirring up some fun conversations on the Twitters these days.

The show’s concept has been a fond dream of liberal pundit fans for years, especially since Sorkin likes to use a certain Mr Olbermann as inspiration for his characters. So we were all delighted when we learned the project was going ahead.

Then this happened:

Olivia Munn has found life after the cancellation of her series "Perfect Couples." The actress has joined the cast of Aaron Sorkin's cable news drama at U.S. cable network HBO. ... Munn will play Sloan, one of the "new breed" of sexy financial analysts with a show on [the] network.

Here’s the problem. In pundit fandom, liberal women tend to hate Olivia Munn. No, I mean they hate her. We’re talking the fire of a thousand suns here.

Munn is famous for co-hosting Attack of the Show!, where she based her comedy on the “hot chick” stereotype of video game culture. In June 2010 she signed on as a correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. 

Not long after that, the feminist blog Jezebel ran an article on “The Daily Show’s Woman Problem”, essentially accusing Stewart of fostering a sexist working environment where women are silenced and marginalised.  The women of the Daily Show posted a snarky response that I thought had a lot of good arguments but didn’t really address the broader issue. In the meantime, Munn fired back by saying, among other things, that any woman who had a problem with her should “take the sandwich out of her mouth and go for a goddamn f***ing walk”.

This did not go over well.

Personally I don’t have a strong opinion about Munn one way or the other. I thought Jezebel’s article raised an important question but was also written in a sly way that was designed to start an Internet fight with Stewart’s fan base. Similarly I find Munn’s sexy shtick problematic and her “sandwich” remark completely inappropriate, but I didn’t like the immediate assumption by some feminist critics that Munn is all looks and no talent.  But I rarely watch The Daily Show anymore, so most of the time I don't think about her.

When I found out about her role on Sorkin's pundit series, however, I started to wonder.

Sorkin may have picked Munn purely because he likes her acting style, but it wouldn't surprise me if her reputation factored into it as well. First off, there's a good chance that Sorkin's audience for the pundit series also watches The Daily Show and associates Munn with (fake) cable news, so she's got the recognition factor on her side.

And if you think about it, Olivia Munn on The Daily Show is a funhouse mirror image of women in the news business.  The controversy around her stems from our frustration that the media is still dominated by wealthy white men, and the women who do manage to rise to the top are often chosen for their sex appeal and assigned to things like celebrity gossip instead of politics and foreign affairs.

Maybe Sorkin is being clever and tapping into a ready-made debate about sexism in the media to strengthen the plot of his show.  Maybe Munn's character will be someone who infuriates the other female characters by using her looks to get ahead - or maybe she'll be someone who is actually brilliant at finances (hey, Asian stereotypes about math! Fun!) but is constantly brushed off as a sex symbol by her boss.

At this point I'm pretty much making all this up until we find out more. But if I'm right, it sounds like a show I would watch.