When we talk about world-building, we tend to think of Stephen King's doorstop novels, or of "Game of Thrones." But I'd like to call your attention back to two old SNL skits--"Do It on My Twin Bed" and "Back Home Ballers." These are six of my favorite minutes in SNL history, and they create a universe as quirky and persuasive as anything you'd find in "Under the Dome." The idea is simple. Some fairly self-deluded women, leading presumably unfulfilling lives in big cities, return to suburbia for the holidays. Having failed to negotiate a smooth transition from adolescence to adulthood, these women must now occupy an awkward liminal state, at least until Dec. 27th or 28th. We can all relate. The big joke is that--instead of sweeping all the awkwardness under the rug, as most of us do, in our twenties--these women seem to think that their shameful status is cause for celebration.
With silly intensity, the women detail all the recognizably weird things that might occur on a trip-back-home. Don't have sex too loudly, because bed-ridden Mom has a cough in the next room, inherited from Jean, and now "it's a whole thing with Jean." (The failure to explain who Jean is, and the melodrama of "whole thing with Jean"--priceless observations from "Lil' Baby Aidy.") The WiFi password in the living room is 00000000xl2xwjknniileedbghid--and these letters/digits are warped into part of a deadly-serious rap. Covert friskiness in the bedroom may require haste: "Hope your parents don't knock; keep one foot on the door cuz it doesn't lock." The family movie selection can't be R-rated, so we get the treat of imagining Cameron Diaz sandwiched between her parents, intently studying "Penguins of Madagascar." And: send your prayers to the heavens because--"did you hear?"--Aunt Ruth is dead.
You can see the germ of one idea sprouting roots in the next skit. "You're a certified hottie," sing the ladies, "like JTT"--and then one massages her poster of Jonathan Taylor Thomas, from "Home Improvement." Soon enough, we get "First Got Horny 2 U," which imagines how various figures--JTT, the lead singer from Hanson, a staid TV news anchor--might have played roles in secret inaugural self-induced orgasms all over America. Jean, source of the scandalous Mom-cough in "Twin Bed," resurfaces in "Back Home Ballers," insisting on a listless conversation about "how's life in New York?" "Ummm....same?" says Lil' Baby Aidy, and then there's a long silence, familiar to pretty much anyone who has made it past year twenty in life. The suburban house is its own character in both skits: a full load of wash for "just one sock," Uncle Fred asleep in the trundle bed, the dirtied plates in the sink, the framed second-grade bits of "art," the middle-school trophies, swept aside so that Kate McKinnon or a colleague (channeling Glenn Close, "Fatal Attraction") can plant herself and "get it poppin'"....All of these items are enchanted--made totemic in the ladies' trip to a Magical Other World.
Must the women return to New York? Unfortunately. But their goofy high spirits aren't impacted. Baby Aidy stares at the camera, exuding loony charisma. "Next holiday, we doin' this aaall again," she says, and she heads to the train station. "Peace out." It's a fitting end to the skit, but it also seems to be "extra-textual": It seems to promise, to the viewer, that there will be sequels, and sequels, and sequels upon sequels. We can always hope!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDuWLQQe8-0
P.S. I'm excited for Jennifer Lawrence in "Red Sparrow." That said, did you notice the gender dynamics in the marketing? This movie has Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling and Tony winner/American icon Mary-Louise Parker. But Rampling doesn't get named. Parker doesn't even get shown in the trailer--even for a split-second--as far as I can tell. It's as if the producers are saying: "Look, we're sorry we put a woman front and center in a thriller. True, she is the biggest star in Hollywood, and she has held the title for a few years, but we're still sorry about this, you guys. We promise to give you A GREAT DEAL of Jeremy Irons, Joel Edgerton, and Matthias Schoenaerts. Remember Matthias Schoenaerts? He had a supporting role in 'Far from the Madding Crowd'--? Yes, we did have to give speaking roles to Rampling and Parker, but we promise you we did not let them rub their boring lady vaginas all over this movie. WE PROMISE. Their names don't even get to be on the poster! OK?"
P.P.S. I'm cautiously interested in "The World Only Spins Forward," the new oral history of "Angels in America." I'm cautious because doesn't it seem as if someone submitted a book of hasty notes and tried to pretend it's a finished project? Why not assemble one persuasive argument about the play, or tell a concise, coherent tale? I smell a rat. I opened the book just now, and here's a "gem" I stumbled on, from Kushner himself: "It feels great to have written that play. When I die, they'll highlight that in my obituary." This is somehow less-than-edifying. But to pre-judge is to have prejudice. I will hold my tongue.
***
Peter Morgan had one idea he liked so much, he used it twice. First, he used it in "The Queen." He would put "modernization pressures" on the Queen. She would need to act graciously and pretend to welcome the advice, while secretly loathing every second of the process. In "The Queen," the pressures have to do with publicly mourning the loss of Diana (a celebrity the Queen sort of despised, with good reason). The tension builds; the Queen will not mourn in public; the Queen thinks the needs of the English people are silly; after all, the English people did not know Diana; the Queen believes she has sad grandchildren to attend to, and these grandchildren have real, legitimate claims on her attention. Fair enough. But the British people want a big, gaudy fairy tale. They're even upset that there isn't a flag flying at half-mast above the palace, even though this would never be protocol, even though the absence of the flag has nothing to do with Diana. Anyway, to save herself, the Queen must listen, and listen, and then bend.
A less effective, less dramatic version of this story happens in "The Crown." Here, we're mid-century, and people want the Queen to give personal Christmas addresses and allow guests to see some formerly sealed-off royal rooms. Or something like that. Like Helen Mirren, Claire Foy expresses outrage. The concessions aren't in keeping with the dignity of the crown; what the British people really need is a stiff upper lip, a reminder of the imperatives of duty, and so on. But Claire is a Soul Divided; she knows the monarchy may not last if she doesn't change a bit. She arranges a clandestine meeting with her critic in the servants' quarters, and, testily, she listens. She accepts some of his advice. She starts doing the Christmas address. She throws The People a bone.
My patience with Peter Morgan is somewhat limited, and I think "The Queen" is better than "The Crown"; I think "The Queen" benefits a great deal from its score, from the governing intelligence of Frears, and from the charisma of Mirren and Michael Sheen. I do admire Morgan for the weirdness of his plots. Many writers would settle for Boy-Meets-Girl tension, or for, I don't know, a cliched account of sexual tension between two dueling spies. Peter Morgan gets inspired by a strange, non-romantic stand-off between fictionalized versions of Tony Blair and the Queen. You can write about anything if it turns you on. The memorable moments in the script aren't really the big public address, or the car crash; they're Blair's wife struggling with the curtsy, Blair disrupting his first formal interview with the Queen, the Queen putting Blair on speakerphone and covertly rolling her eyes as Blair blathers on, Blair awkwardly making sure he never has his back turned to The Presence. Another thought about this material: You can view it as a Western. Mirren is the John Wayne figure, managing assailants without ever sweating or showing distress. Whatever you think of the actual monarchy, you have to admit that these Morgan scripts are fun old-timey Hollywood depictions of heroism. For these reasons, when I watch, I'm amused.
With silly intensity, the women detail all the recognizably weird things that might occur on a trip-back-home. Don't have sex too loudly, because bed-ridden Mom has a cough in the next room, inherited from Jean, and now "it's a whole thing with Jean." (The failure to explain who Jean is, and the melodrama of "whole thing with Jean"--priceless observations from "Lil' Baby Aidy.") The WiFi password in the living room is 00000000xl2xwjknniileedbghid--and these letters/digits are warped into part of a deadly-serious rap. Covert friskiness in the bedroom may require haste: "Hope your parents don't knock; keep one foot on the door cuz it doesn't lock." The family movie selection can't be R-rated, so we get the treat of imagining Cameron Diaz sandwiched between her parents, intently studying "Penguins of Madagascar." And: send your prayers to the heavens because--"did you hear?"--Aunt Ruth is dead.
You can see the germ of one idea sprouting roots in the next skit. "You're a certified hottie," sing the ladies, "like JTT"--and then one massages her poster of Jonathan Taylor Thomas, from "Home Improvement." Soon enough, we get "First Got Horny 2 U," which imagines how various figures--JTT, the lead singer from Hanson, a staid TV news anchor--might have played roles in secret inaugural self-induced orgasms all over America. Jean, source of the scandalous Mom-cough in "Twin Bed," resurfaces in "Back Home Ballers," insisting on a listless conversation about "how's life in New York?" "Ummm....same?" says Lil' Baby Aidy, and then there's a long silence, familiar to pretty much anyone who has made it past year twenty in life. The suburban house is its own character in both skits: a full load of wash for "just one sock," Uncle Fred asleep in the trundle bed, the dirtied plates in the sink, the framed second-grade bits of "art," the middle-school trophies, swept aside so that Kate McKinnon or a colleague (channeling Glenn Close, "Fatal Attraction") can plant herself and "get it poppin'"....All of these items are enchanted--made totemic in the ladies' trip to a Magical Other World.
Must the women return to New York? Unfortunately. But their goofy high spirits aren't impacted. Baby Aidy stares at the camera, exuding loony charisma. "Next holiday, we doin' this aaall again," she says, and she heads to the train station. "Peace out." It's a fitting end to the skit, but it also seems to be "extra-textual": It seems to promise, to the viewer, that there will be sequels, and sequels, and sequels upon sequels. We can always hope!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDuWLQQe8-0
P.S. I'm excited for Jennifer Lawrence in "Red Sparrow." That said, did you notice the gender dynamics in the marketing? This movie has Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling and Tony winner/American icon Mary-Louise Parker. But Rampling doesn't get named. Parker doesn't even get shown in the trailer--even for a split-second--as far as I can tell. It's as if the producers are saying: "Look, we're sorry we put a woman front and center in a thriller. True, she is the biggest star in Hollywood, and she has held the title for a few years, but we're still sorry about this, you guys. We promise to give you A GREAT DEAL of Jeremy Irons, Joel Edgerton, and Matthias Schoenaerts. Remember Matthias Schoenaerts? He had a supporting role in 'Far from the Madding Crowd'--? Yes, we did have to give speaking roles to Rampling and Parker, but we promise you we did not let them rub their boring lady vaginas all over this movie. WE PROMISE. Their names don't even get to be on the poster! OK?"
P.P.S. I'm cautiously interested in "The World Only Spins Forward," the new oral history of "Angels in America." I'm cautious because doesn't it seem as if someone submitted a book of hasty notes and tried to pretend it's a finished project? Why not assemble one persuasive argument about the play, or tell a concise, coherent tale? I smell a rat. I opened the book just now, and here's a "gem" I stumbled on, from Kushner himself: "It feels great to have written that play. When I die, they'll highlight that in my obituary." This is somehow less-than-edifying. But to pre-judge is to have prejudice. I will hold my tongue.
***
Peter Morgan had one idea he liked so much, he used it twice. First, he used it in "The Queen." He would put "modernization pressures" on the Queen. She would need to act graciously and pretend to welcome the advice, while secretly loathing every second of the process. In "The Queen," the pressures have to do with publicly mourning the loss of Diana (a celebrity the Queen sort of despised, with good reason). The tension builds; the Queen will not mourn in public; the Queen thinks the needs of the English people are silly; after all, the English people did not know Diana; the Queen believes she has sad grandchildren to attend to, and these grandchildren have real, legitimate claims on her attention. Fair enough. But the British people want a big, gaudy fairy tale. They're even upset that there isn't a flag flying at half-mast above the palace, even though this would never be protocol, even though the absence of the flag has nothing to do with Diana. Anyway, to save herself, the Queen must listen, and listen, and then bend.
A less effective, less dramatic version of this story happens in "The Crown." Here, we're mid-century, and people want the Queen to give personal Christmas addresses and allow guests to see some formerly sealed-off royal rooms. Or something like that. Like Helen Mirren, Claire Foy expresses outrage. The concessions aren't in keeping with the dignity of the crown; what the British people really need is a stiff upper lip, a reminder of the imperatives of duty, and so on. But Claire is a Soul Divided; she knows the monarchy may not last if she doesn't change a bit. She arranges a clandestine meeting with her critic in the servants' quarters, and, testily, she listens. She accepts some of his advice. She starts doing the Christmas address. She throws The People a bone.
My patience with Peter Morgan is somewhat limited, and I think "The Queen" is better than "The Crown"; I think "The Queen" benefits a great deal from its score, from the governing intelligence of Frears, and from the charisma of Mirren and Michael Sheen. I do admire Morgan for the weirdness of his plots. Many writers would settle for Boy-Meets-Girl tension, or for, I don't know, a cliched account of sexual tension between two dueling spies. Peter Morgan gets inspired by a strange, non-romantic stand-off between fictionalized versions of Tony Blair and the Queen. You can write about anything if it turns you on. The memorable moments in the script aren't really the big public address, or the car crash; they're Blair's wife struggling with the curtsy, Blair disrupting his first formal interview with the Queen, the Queen putting Blair on speakerphone and covertly rolling her eyes as Blair blathers on, Blair awkwardly making sure he never has his back turned to The Presence. Another thought about this material: You can view it as a Western. Mirren is the John Wayne figure, managing assailants without ever sweating or showing distress. Whatever you think of the actual monarchy, you have to admit that these Morgan scripts are fun old-timey Hollywood depictions of heroism. For these reasons, when I watch, I'm amused.
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