The Doctor is In: Notes from a Script Doctor

INTRODUCTION

How Sexism Hurts Scripts AND is Bad for Business

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

It’s high time there was a blog written from the vantage point of a script doctor. With all the blogs about Hollywood, you’d think there would be several about movies and screenplays penned by the writers who work to improve these projects. Surprisingly, there aren’t.

Moreover, if you’re looking for a blog that goes beyond the standard repertoire of story, character and pacing (which you’ll see in every book on how to write a screenplay), I can guarantee that you won’t find it. Especially if you’re seeking a script doctor’s take on how sexism hurts scripts AND is bad for business. 

For years, corporate executives have realized that retaining a diverse workforce is not counter to good business, but in its best interest.  It’s no different with movies. Time and again, when my clients excise the unnecessary, gratuitous, (often) unintentional sexism from their screenplays, we inevitably make the scripts better -- more consistent, compelling and even more marketable.  

As a script doctor, who crafts her own screenplays and helps clients rewrite theirs, and who is unusually attuned to the insidious sexism lurking in our midst, I’ve applied for the job and been hired. In this blog, I will furnish concrete examples from scripts I have worked on and from movies that are playing in your local Cineplex. I can’t change the latter, if I wasn’t asked to doctor the script, but I can weigh in on what might have made some of these films better.  

AbsoBLOOMinlutely

“The Brothers Bloom,” a movie that recently opened in LA and NY, is a good place to start. Written and directed by Rian Johnson and starring Rachel Weisz, Adrian Brody and Mark Ruffalo, I’d been looking forward to seeing it since I first got wind of it in the trade papers.  

Whimsical, entertaining and fast-paced, it’s about two orphaned brothers who grow up to be conmen. The older brother, Stephen (Ruffalo) designs the cons as if scripting a play, intricately devising character arcs, plots and twists for major dramatic impact. He is particularly suited for this line of business.

The younger brother, Bloom (Brody) doesn’t like the life of the con-artist. He yearns for true love, not subterfuge. Most of all, he yearns to create the script of his own life, if only he were brave enough to do so. Instead, Bloom alternates between reluctant acquiescence to his brother’s cons and escaping them in a haze of drunken torpor.

Stephen’s enigmatic partner in love and work is a Japanese woman he calls Bang-Bang, because of her expertise with explosives. She shows up one day out of the blue, participates in all the cons, and never utters a word (though she conveys great range of emotion, nonetheless).  

The movie really takes off with the introduction of Rachel Weisz’s character. Her Penelope is a rich, eccentric who lives alone in a mansion and amasses skills by reading books. She races Lamborghinis, is an expert martial artist, makes cameras out of watermelons and juggles chain saws while riding a unicycle. She plays every instrument imaginable, from harps to banjos. She is also incredibly smart and well-read.  

Stephen chooses Penelope as the final mark in an intricate series of cons. (Spoiler Alert.)  She opts to go along, because she needs an adventure and to get out of the mansion. She performs admirably well, but never figures out she’s being duped. Then, she falls in love with Bloom. Bloom fights it, but falls in love also, just as Stephen had hoped. Stephen pulls off his greatest con – sacrificing his own life, for the sake of his brother, without his brother’s figuring it out. 

If Mr. Johnson had brought the script to me, I would have said the following. 

Why set us up with this magnificent character of Penelope, who is smart, uber-skilled, funny, brave – and not utilize her skills? It is not enough to introduce quirkiness, simply for the sake of a laugh. I understand that this is a hybrid film – a cross between a caper and a romance. But, when the “girl” becomes a potential romantic partner, her role is reduced to wide-eyed, innocent, relatively ineffectual mark, instead of full-fledged, complex person, equal to the people who are trying to dupe her. Big mistake.

Bloom is bored and unhappy playing the conman. His brother is rarely challenged.  When Bloom first insinuates himself into her life, Penelope is not quick to make chitchat. And it puts Bloom off his guard. Why not use this? Penelope could have been eager for an adventure, but also suspicious of Bloom’s intentions. And because of this, she could have had an agenda and a plan of her own. For the audience, the fun would have been in seeing the two sides pit their wits against each other, never knowing who would win.  

I wanted to see Penelope using her myriad skills during the cons. As soon as she joins up with the brothers, she is intimidated by a dark character that approaches her (all part of the con, of course). Where is her spinning back kick?  Later, she is swindled out of huge sums of money. Where are her detective abilities?  She immediately grasps the literary connection between the name of the boat and the name of one of the characters in the con – making the audience think she is on the verge of putting two and two together. No such luck.  As soon as this angle is dropped, my interest waned.

Penelope bravely enters a heavily guarded building to steal a valuable antique book, after the con goes awry. With no help from her cohorts, she exits the building unharmed, with the loot, and is arrested by a dozen police. A few seconds later, she is set free with the book. How did she convince the chief of police to let her go? We never find out. I am still miffed at being kept in the dark. Such negotiating skills would come in handy. I want to use them in my next pitch meeting. 

The brothers professed an awful lot of love for each other – some of this should have been cut and Penelope’s role expanded. She needed to be a greater part of the action and, quick-study that she was, equal to or even better than the conmen. Bloom would have found her more interesting, not less, and, more importantly, so would the audience.  Hell, Bloom might have been inspired by Penelope’s courage and finally found his own.

In this post-Buffy, post Xena, post Laura Croft age, male AND female movie-goers are looking for a little umph in our heroines. (Film-makers want both demographics to show up and both have proven that they will, when given the right characters and stories.) Instead, Penelope is forced to cut off the parts of herself that are most engaging, in the name of love. That relationship is so doomed. 

Two final notes. 

A priceless opportunity is wasted by not developing in greater depth, the incipient friendship between Penelope and Bang-Bang. Not only is it a captivating connection, but it is rich with potential for plot twists, drama, action and comedy. What an interesting character is Bang-bang. Yet she remains, throughout, an enigma.  

Which brings me to my final point.

In this day and age, a silent Asian female character is highly suspect. Bang-Bang may have been unusually good with explosives, but she is literally voiceless. No wonder she wants to blow things up! This type of stereotype is bound to alienate Asians, Asian women and thinking women and men of all races and ethnicities.  When combined with the diminution of the other female lead, it isn’t the wisest way to go. Time to rewrite. That’s what the doctor would have ordered, had she seen the script.