Fear of a Josh Planet

So a few years ago I was sitting around my house wondering where my next free meal was coming from and the Dumb Fucking Lesbian calls me:

DFL: Hey. What are you doing for dinner tonight?
ME: Combining Lean Cuisine Chicken a la King with Lean Cuisine Beef Stroganoff into one fantastic meal of Lean King a la Stroganoff, why?
DFL: There's a director who wants to take you out for sushi and offer you a job writing a greenlit movie for a star.
ME: Sushi?

I throw on my best pair of mostly clean Adidas sweatpants and make a beeline to the restaurant, despite the fact that this is the same sushi restaurant where I first asked ex-girlfriend Actress "Is something wrong?"

But this is free sushi and the only downside might involve writing a script and getting paid for it (something I do try to avoid). The director is 22 years old, Asian, and by most accounts, the hottest boy wonder director of hip-hop videos this side of that one guy who directed that one video everybody loves where that one girl shakes her booty. I'm early and the Boy Wonder shows up driving the biggest SUV I've ever seen blaring the loudest rap music I've ever heard wearing the smallest glasses that could possibly fit on his face.

I'm immediately impressed.

And in case you don't think Hollywood's the smartest place on earth, here's the movie Asian/Hip-Hop Boy Wonder is directing: An action movie teaming up MARTIN LAWRENCE with A BEAUTIFUL ASIAN STARLET WHO HAPPENS TO BE A HONG KONG ACTION STAR...

If you're curious, here's how the studio "director meeting" went a month earlier:

EXEC: So we got Martin Lawrence. He's black...
OTHER EXEC: And we got Asian Action Starlet. She's...Asian?
EXEC: That's what her agent says. I've never seen her movies. Hong Kong, is like, far away.
OTHER EXEC: Totally far...So for a director we need...An Asian guy?
EXEC: Sure. Good idea. But...how 'bout a black guy?
OTHER EXEC: Hmm. Yeahhh. A Black guy. Now you're thinking...
EXEC: Wait! I got it! How about...an Asian guy...who thinks he's black!
OTHER EXEC: Awesome. Do we have a list for that?
EXEC: Of course we do...It's here somewhere...I think it's on the same page with "Female Directors We'd Actually Hire for Movies Budgeted over 30 million...Here it is.
OTHER EXEC: There's one name there.
EXEC: Let's call him.

So Boy Wonder plies me with toro, shows me a very detailed outline he's already written, and explains that the script needs to be written in three weeks.

ME: Three weeks?
BOY WONDER: Three.
ME: For all 120 pages?
BOY WONDER: Martin Lawrence has a window.
ME: Isn't he completely crazy?
BOY WONDER: Dehydrated.
ME: I'm in!

Here was the negotiation the next day:

STUDIO: How much do you guys want?
DFL: A buttload. You're asking him to write an entire screenplay in three weeks.
STUDIO: Boy Wonder wrote an outline. How hard can it be?
DFL: Boy Wonder is a twenty-two year old music video director.
STUDIO: But he's only working for three weeks.
DFL: And in that time he will write an ENTIRE screenplay.
STUDIO: But--
DFL: I understand you've already started production offices.
STUDIO: Ahhh....crap.

(DFL was much improved by that point in her career.)

So here's the plot: Martin Lawrence is a corrupt cop who's co-opted by an ex-member of the Chinese Triads (Asian Starlet) to help her kill her old lover, a Triad leader who's hiding out in Los Angeles.

Complications ensue.

Now this was in the pre-Rush Hour days when teaming up minority cultures for wacky action comedy wasn't its own sub-genre. And despite the fact that I suspected Boy Wonder had a streak of Michael Bay in him that was just bursting to get out, he'd written a pretty good outline and I knew it'd be over in three weeks.

So I start writing and things are flowing quite freely for a few days. Near the end of the first week I read my work. (Craft note: I read my pages from back to front, bottom to top. Don't ask.) Here's what I say to myself at the end of week one:

Man. I use the word fuck a lot.

Now those of you who are familiar with my blog entries probably don't consider this to be much of a revelation. I have been known to drop the f-bomb in Rumsfeldian proportions. But I'm a bit of a pacifist when it comes to dropping the screenplay f-bomb. First of all, there's the issue of infrastructure destruction. Second, we have no exit strategy--

Oh wait. Sorry. Wrong blog. Got all Rogers there for a second.

Anyway, I don't use much fuck when I'm getting paid. (I don't get paid much to fuck, either. But that, too, is a different blog.) But here I was, averaging at least 2.5 fucks per page in my Martin Lawrence script. So I had to look deep into my heart and ask myself this question:

Am I using the word "fuck" a lot because I'm writing this for a black guy?

Sure, the character's a streetwise, corrupt, L.A. cop, and most of them swear like, well like streetwise corrupt L.A. cops. But seriously, would I write dialogue like this if he was white:

"Hey. You hear me? You're not dead are you? Bleeding out all over the back seat? 'Cuz it would really freak me like a motherfucker to be talkin' to you if you were dead--"

Pure poetry my friends.

I spend the weekend in a huge liberal freakout guilt spiral having flashbacks to the last time I co-opted black culture for my own benefit: a very poorly received performance art piece in college involving me sitting cross-legged in front a television tuned to loud static while engaged in a very awkward call and response using selected pieces from Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back."

I cannot tell you how much I wish I was making that up.

So I send the pages to the Boy Wonder, figuring if someone's sensitive to racism it'd be a Hip Hop Asian. Maybe he'd tell me if I'd done something wrong.

He loved them.

Well...fuck. Now what? I decide to ask him straight out:

ME: Are you sure there aren't too many motherfuckers in there? Maybe he shouldn't talk so, I dunno, "street?"
BOY WONDER: Dude I gave your pages to Martin Lawrence's people. They think you're a fucking genius.
ME: Really?
BOY WONDER: Really.
ME: And they're like, black people?
BOY WONDER: The blackest.
ME: Well I'll be a motherfucker.
BOY WONDER: You are a motherfucker.
ME: So are you, Boy Wonder.
BOY WONDER: Now get back to work. You've got two weeks for ninety pages.

So two weeks later I'm finished with the most motherfuckingest script I have ever written. Martin Lawrence's character is, well, so fucking Martin Lawrence it's unbelievable, and Asian Starlet's character is pretty great, too. I love my little Hip Hop/Hong Kong Action movie, and so does the studio.

Only one problem.

BOY WONDER: Dude. We've gotta take a meeting with Asian Starlet at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
ME: Really? Why?
BOY WONDER: She wants to talk to you.
ME: Me?
BOY WONDER: You.
ME: Will there be food?
BOY WONDER: I wouldn't count on it.
ME: Uh oh.

So Boy Wonder and I go to the Beverly Hills Hotel. For those of you who've never been to the Beverly Hills Hotel, just go West on Sunset Blvd and turn North onto We're Going to Fuck You Up the Ass You Stupid Fucking Infinite Monkey Avenue. You can't miss it.

There are upholstered chairs with stripes and gold framed mirrors and people eating small cakes on tiny plates. I'm wearing my dress sweatpants (the ones with socks) and Boy Wonder's taken his hair out of the pony tail. We're reading for a MEETING!

Asian Starlet walks in with a serious posse of people who NEVER SPEAK but as far as I can tell run the entire Hong Kong film industry not run by Jackie Chan. She sits across from me and I immdiately decide that she is the type of person who, upon sitting down on it, changes a couch into a divan.

ASIAN STARLET: So Josh...I just thought the two of us should sit down and have a conversation.
ME: All right. That sounds like a great idea.
ASIAN STARLET: There's a reason for the conversation, of course.
ME: Yes?
ASIAN STARLET: I wanted you to hear my English.
ME: All right. Your English is...lovely.
ASIAN STARLET: My English is perfect. My parents grew up speaking perfect English. I grew up speaking perfect English. Do you hear an accent of any type?
ME: Well, maybe a hint of British--
ASIAN STARLET: Because my English is perfect. Not many Americans know that.
ME: I'm sure they'd be surprised.
ASIAN STARLET: They should know my English is perfect. Not the way you've written it in the script.
ME: The way I--
ASIAN STARLET: You've written it in "broken English." As if I didn't speak perfect English. Is that how you think Asians speak?
ME: No. Not at all. I mean--Boy Wonder, for example, his English is almost flawless--
BOY WONDER: I'm from Texas.
ME: Like I said--
ASIAN STARLET: So you'll change it.
ME: But...and excuse me for bringing this up...YOUR CHARACTER is from mainland China and has never been abroad before. She wouldn't speak--
ASIAN STARLET: Perfect. English.

If it's possible at this point her posse GETS EVEN QUIETER.

ME: Thank you for the heads up, ma'am.

AND THIS NEXT PART IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE...

ASIAN STARLET: One more thing about the language.
ME: Uh huh...
ASIAN STARLET: Martin's character swears too much. You'll have to take all the cursing out.
ME: But...his people...they're black...
ASIAN STARLET: I've seen every episode of "Martin."
ME: "Martin?"
ASIAN STARLET: He's never cursed. Not once.
ME: "Martin?"

And here's what's in Boy Wonder's eyes: "Damn. I wonder if I can still get that Brandy video."

Three weeks later Asian Starlet drops out. The project dies a quick death as Boy Wonder and I cannot convince the studio to hire little known actress Lucy Liu.

Fuck.