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Quite often, little germs of ideas have come from something that I've observed or someone's told me. The process of it becoming fiction is expanding and extending it: stretching the rubber band of reality.

Something happened during the 1980s - perhaps the political climate of that time - that caused me to ask how a people would become part of a system that oppresses their own people.

I was thinking things had changed: that the next generation of men weren't as institutionally misogynist as the previous were. And then, suddenly, the Internet came along and gave them a platform to voice their feelings anonymously. And boy, did the bile come out.

I've always been very curious about fringe cultures where people temporarily adopt a different social model or way of presenting themselves.

We're seeking out such grossness in human behavior and want such mindless entertainment. 'The Real Housewives of Atlanta' and some of these other shows are more racist. Or '16 and Pregnant.' Getting rewarded for being pregnant when you're a teenager? Are you serious?

Also, it was a cultural moment that wasn't being represented in terms of women who were successful and had choices they didn't have before. They needed a show that they can watch that they felt like represented them.

I think it is very sad that 'sitcom' has become a pejorative term.

When I talked to my medical friends about the strange silence on this subject in American medical magazines and textbooks, I gained the impression that here was a subject tainted with Socialism or with feminine sentimentality for the poor.

It evolved out of the idea to make a kids TV show. And it actually turned out to be a bit dull and a bit regulated and too many people looking over your shoulder and it wasn't really.

Even when I started in 1970, I knew that television was having a negative effect on our society.