Baring Her Soul (& Everything Else)

The good news is that an associate of mine had finally written a rough draft of her first novel. The bad news is that she wanted me to read it and tell her if I thought it would make a hot movie. The good news is that, since I do this for a living, I felt perfectly comfortable telling her that, no, I couldn't read it for free but that she was more than welcome to write me a check. The bad news is that she pulled out her checkbook. "And I want you to be totally, totally honest," she insisted. Translated: "And as long as you totally, totally love it as much as I do, you can be my new best friend. If you hate it, I am never going to talk to you again as long as I live."

I had already heard the gist of her story two years previous over dinner – the unsettling tale of how a career woman’s foray into Internet dating resulted in the scenario of an aggressive predator who invited himself into her home and proceeded to not only avail himself of her credit cards but also deplete her bank account and liquor cabinet. On the one hand, it’s a topical warning to the lovelorn not to believe everything they read in an email. As one of my favorite New Yorker canine cartoons illustrates, “On the Internet, they can’t tell if you’re a dog.”

On the other hand, I didn’t realize how much of her own back-story would be incorporated in the text. To say that her previous sexual exploits were salacious and indiscreet would be an understatement. Even halfway through the read, I can’t help but wonder why using her own name and sharing it with the universe at large was so important to her. I whimsically pointed out that if she were applying for a job as a bank teller, these confessions would be akin to putting on a resume, “I used to commit bank robberies and served 20 years in prison for it but, honestly, that’s all behind me now.”

Should this book – and a subsequent movie – see the light of day under the terms she desires, it will be as much a political suicide for her career as it will close the door on future romance with anyone other than a kinky kindred spirit. This, ironically, from a woman who tells me she continues to troll the online dating sites and classifieds in search of lasting love.

It’s an interesting commentary on our culture that scandal has become the new standard for entertainment. In my work as a film consultant, I’ve seen no shortage of proposals in which writers either want to dish on celebrities they knew before they were famous or bare their own souls and vent against anyone from childhood, marriage or the workplace who allegedly did them wrong. “This will make a great movie,” they always tell me, “because it really happened.”

Suffice it to say, catharsis is good for the soul but doesn’t always translate to success at the box office. While the exercise of chronicling personal events has merit as a way of understanding them - and perhaps preventing repetition - writers often make the mistake of believing that such retrospective content will be as riveting to strangers as it was to those who lived it. They further imbue their scripts’ villains with enough traits (including similar names and occupations) as to make their real-life identities quite obvious to anyone who sees them up on the screen.

Yes, there’s admittedly a certain level of glee in turning one’s ex-boyfriend into a chalk outline on the floor or casting an obnoxious boss in the unsavory part of a horned troll. Where many writers cross the line, however, is when they court a potential lawsuit with slanderous remarks that a living individual (or his/her heirs) may not be too keen about seeing put in public circulation. In the case of the Internet dating premise, the author told me from the outset that she had kept everyone’s real name in the story for gritty authenticity. This not only included the names of her married lovers and Johns but also their sexual proclivities. Instinct tells me that no good can come of these casual disclosures.

There’s definitely no arguing that truth is stranger than fiction. The big difference, though, is that fiction is usually more marketable. Why? Because the dull parts can be edited out, the setbacks can be magnified to evoke sympathy, and the intentions manipulated to resonate with the demographics. Hollywood biopics – dramatized biographies of notable individuals – are a marriage of the facts (that provide the basic framework) and the interpretation of those facts (that provides the scintillating coating). Film depictions of famous people have long been a mainstay of cinema because we’re simultaneously seduced by the mystique that won legions of fans and touched by the enormity of sorrow endured in the process. The object lesson at their core is universal: love, success, victory and/or redemption are attainable but only if one is willing to make enough sacrifices.

To this end, inspirational stories of individuals who have publicly risen above hard times make for a more commercial product than true-life accounts by unknowns who are banking on the sale of their memoirs to validate a plethora of miseries they have thus far been unable to transcend. That we (hopefully) grow from our life experiences corresponds to the notion of “character arcs” in screenplays; specifically, whoever the protagonist was at FADE IN will either have evolved or devolved by FADE TO BLACK as a result of everything that transpired in-beween.

For the sake of simplicity, a character’s journey throughout a film can be compared to an individual’s journey throughout life. At the toddler/adolescent stage, it’s all about me, me, me. The wants and needs of anyone outside that insular mindset are insignificant. When the individual meets a soul mate, the dynamic shifts into the next two stages: making decisions in consideration of the partnership’s emotional health, followed by the responsibility of providing security for a family unit. The fourth stage of development is that of neighborhood/community, bringing with it the “united we stand/divided we fall” perspective that group talents can be pooled for a common good. The final level is global awareness, the sensitivity that stems from seeing the bigger picture and striving to leave a spiritual or material legacy to those who follow.

An excellent example of this progression is Braveheart, the story of William Wallace. A pacifist by nature, Wallace wants only to be left alone on a small piece of Highland sod where he can raise a family with his beloved secret bride. When this dream is brutally destroyed by the English, Wallace strives to unite his fellow Scots in rebellion and, by the film’s end, allows his death as a martyr to encourage his countrymen in the continued fight for freedom.

On the flip side, character arcs can also be played out in reverse; i.e., the person who – through power or popularity – starts out with the world on a string but systematically cuts off all ties and ends up dying a pathetic recluse. Shakespeare’s King Lear does a solid job in this respect, wherein we first meet him at the top of his game in trying to decide how to divide up the inheritance of his realm amongst his offspring. As jealousies and temperaments flare, his attachments get whittled down to only one remaining daughter. With Cordelia’s death, the crazed king no longer has anything to live for.

As long as a lead character continues to move up or down in the aforementioned levels of perspective, viewers will enthusiastically fasten their seatbelts and stay there for the ride. It’s only when that character stay rooted in one place for the entire plot that we come away with the question, “What was the point?” Truth be told – and often in more graphic detail than we care to know – diary content generally doesn’t advance beyond the “me, me, me” stage which, thus, makes it a hard sell to producers. Nor have the authors of these tomes necessarily advanced to a coveted state of A-List recognition that will guarantee an eager audience.

There is also the oft-overlooked reality that deceased luminaries represent a complete package as opposed to a thirtysomething (or younger!) who decides to write his/her life story. (Some of them even go so far as to tell me which actors they think should portray them.) Unless they have experienced or survived something truly incredible/unique/bizarre at a young age that we need to learn about right now, the majority of us deem any memoirs penned earlier than one’s golden years as a tad pretentious and self-absorbed.

Last but not least is the question of one’s motivation in dragging skeletons out of the closet and putting them on display for a price. In the case of writers whose objective is to dish on celebs, the underlying reason usually turns out to be that they weren’t invited to ride along on the latter’s coattails and therefore, are going to make them feel really, really bad. Word of advice: celebs are generally well protected by agents and managers who really, really don’t like seeing their employers trashed and may initiate legal proceedings to make the nuisance go away.

For those who opt to wickedly dish on themselves, the bottom line is whether (1) those 15 minutes of fame are really worth the loss of privacy and (2) the message has a redeeming value beyond just the desire to confess. As I advise my clients, oftentimes the better course is to pitch the project as a work of fiction. Should the curious later inquire what inspired it, one can graciously smile…and leave them guessing.