I
put out the call to the Phantomaniacs a few weeks ago for a few guest
posts. I have something I really
want to work on, but it’s just going to take more time than I
normally have to write. It’s a pet passion project – something
which may not ever even get published – but I have to do it. I’m
really excited about it and have already put it off more than I care
to.
Thankfully,
I had a few creative and talented people step up with some truly cool
entries. I told them they could write about whatever they wanted to
that wasn’t religion or politics. I didn’t even want to know what
they were writing about beforehand. I said write it, send it, and
I’ll post it.
Today’s
post comes from Chad J. Shonk. I know Chad from the time he beat me so badly at Star Wars trivia that I spent a whole year questioning my fandom. I will always hate Chad for that. Chad moved out to Hollyweird and wrote an amazing movie called Dakota Skye. It's on Netflix and you should all go watch it because it's really good. I also hate him for that a little bit because who really likes seeing their friends living their dreams?
Just to rub his talent in my face even more, Chad offered to write one of these Guest Posts for me. It is, of course, awesome. What a jerk.
Just to rub his talent in my face even more, Chad offered to write one of these Guest Posts for me. It is, of course, awesome. What a jerk.
I am in no way
famous, but the thing I am most known for is an independent film I
wrote about a 17-year old girl with an odd superpower. It is a little
emo love-song of a film, a teen romance and coming-of-age story, and
I am not going to plug it here. If you're interested, if you like
what I have to say, just Google me or follow me on Twitter or ask our
friend Troublemaker and find it.
Me and the
director and many members of the cast and crew spent the large
majority of a year touring the film on the mid-level festival
circuit. The number one question, sometimes the only question, I was
asked during the question and answer sessions that followed each
screening, as well as in numerous interviews I gave (one in Germany,
remind me to tell you that story some time), from men and women
alike, was this:
"How can
you, a thirty-(mumble) year old man, write a teenaged girl so well?"
My stock
answer, the one I gave twenty times or more, was:
“I am deep
down inside a teenaged girl. I own every episode of 'Dawson's Creek'
and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' on DVD. My wife is metaphorically a
lesbian pedophile.”
It was always
my killer line, and it always got me laughs.
The film has,
after a rather quiet and inauspicious release, grown a cult
following, especially online and through social media. Twitter and
Tumblr and what-not. A lot of people have watched it on Netflix, even
more have torrented it (dirty thieves!), and through said social
media I get similar questions, almost daily, mostly from girls under
the age of twenty:
"@chadjshonk
You are clearly an old man. How come she talks and acts exactly like
me? How did you do that? You are, like, at least, eleventy-one years
old. (Why am I making a Hobbit joke?) Are you spying on me? Do I
need to get a restraining order? Creep... Can I get a follow back?
Maybe an autograph?"
(140 character
limit ignored for sake of mild comedy)
I have
received such questions and praise on other things I have written as
well. The reason for this is not because I am an amazing writer who
is deeply in touch with his inner girl and who has seen every episode
of 'Veronica Mars' more than once. Although that is true.
Man, I miss
that show.
The reason I
stand out to people is simple:
Most movies
are written by guys and most guys suck at writing women.
At the end of
this piece, I am going to tell my secret. I am going to teach the
male writers out there (and directors and artists and all sorts of
creatives) how to portray real, non-stereotypical, emotionally
authentic, women.
But, first,
I'm going to go back to college.
(A fucking
flashback? What a hack! And he's trying to tell me about writing?)
The
first script I ever wrote was called The
Divine Wind
(insert fart joke here). It took place on an American destroyer in
the Pacific during World War II. It was sort of a tribute to my
grandfather, who served as a cook on one such vessel, and it also
explored the mind-set of the kamikaze
pilot.
I look back on it now, and it's embarrassing. Because it was my
first try, and it's not just very good. The script was well received
in my screenwriting class, though, because there are, in my
experience, only one or two people in any writing class at any level
that have an even half-way chance of ever being a decent writer, but
one student in the class had a question. She asked, “Why aren't
there any women in it? Are you afraid to write women?”
I
thought the answer was fairly obvious. “What part about a naval
vessel at war at sea in 1944 don't you understand?” (I worded it
less condescendingly...I hope). But the question stuck with me. Was
I afraid to write women?
I told myself that I wasn't and set out to prove it.
There are very few good parts, and practically zero great ones, in
major motion pictures for actors who are women. But there are lots of
parts for 'girls'. Ever notice how once a young actress becomes
famous for delivering a great performance in a small, arty film, they
then spend several years playing only girlfriends to leading actors?
It happens to nearly all of them. Every young actress, no matter the
quality of her talent or beauty or fame will at some time or another
be cast as 'The Girl'.
It's hard being an actress in Hollywood. Once you're over a certain
weight, it becomes hard to work. Once you're over a certain age, it
becomes hard to work. If you won't show your breasts, it becomes hard
to work. You take what you are given.
It's even harder for older women. Whenever people complain that
Meryl Streep is nominated for an Oscar every year, understand that
there are only one or two truly well-written roles per year for women
over fifty, and that Streep is automatically going to get one of
them. It dramatically increases her chances of winning accolades.
Do
you remember a great female character from any Michael Bay movie,
other than Megan Fox's ass? Or any modern action movie, really? Or
Sam Raimi's Spiderman
trilogy, where he managed to take Mary Jane Watson, the sweet girl
next door that you're supposed to love, and made her a character that
everyone hates? If you were to only watch the Star
Wars
prequels, you would assume Natalie Portman was the worst actress to
ever live. Oliver Stone, David Mamet, and Akira Kurosawa tend (or
tended) to avoid consequential women altogether in their original
works.
Even
Aaron Sorkin, who I believe to be the greatest living writer of
English language dialogue, has a problem with how he writes his
female characters. Every character he writes is amped-up and
emotional and hysterical, but the women seem to always be 20-25% more
emotional and hysterical. Or sometimes they're just in the way. How
many people quote Demi Moore in A
Few Good Men?
How many people remember she was in A
Few Good Men?
Don't
even get me started on fucking Sucker
Punch.
(I'm
not mentioning Twilight
because the books were written by a woman, but Bella is the worst
written and most damaging major female character in recent film and
literary memory. Kids, if you're going to look up to a modern YA
heroine, please pick Katniss. Kicking ass with a longbow > having
a Caesarean section performed by a werewolf.)
These
are just a few examples, even a couple from a few men I worship
(hint: Michael Bay is not one of them. One day I'll write a piece
about how he was a racist filmmaker well before his Stepin Fetchit
TF2 robots.). I highly recommend the Bechdel
Test,
a site that breaks down films from the point of view of how they
present women in them. I won't list
Alison
Bechdel's
criteria,
mostly because I want you to visit the site, but I find it
fascinating and true and have begun to look at my own work with her
simple benchmarks in mind.
A large majority of women in film are written by men, and written
terribly and shallowly and I know exactly why. I have cracked the
code. The answer to the problem has been in front of me the whole
time and I wish I had given this answer ever time I was asked the
question instead of the stock 'I watch a lot of Buffy' answer that I
always gave.
(Joss
Whedon, who I quoted above, is, of course, an exception to this. Even
in The Avengers,
Black Widow, despite being the only female character of any
consequence, was a fully rounded-out hero with her own goals and
problems that had nothing to do with what was or was not between her
legs. See also: James Cameron, Woody Allen, Kazuo
Ishiguro, Richard Curtis, Quentin Tarantino, and others that aren't
coming to me at the moment.)
So here's my advice not just to aspiring writers, but also to
established ones who can't seem to understand that a female character
can be more than a sexual object. More than a nag or an overbearing
mother. And more than a victim tied to the railroad tracks.
The secret to writing women (as a man) is:
Don't.
Just fucking don't.
The steps are simple:
1) Write a real character.
2) Give said character a female name.
That's it. That's the secret.
You're welcome, writers of the world who didn't ask for my advice in
the first place.
As an exercise, take a character in something you've written, switch
their gender, and adjust your pronouns accordingly. I promise you
that, with a minimal amount of tweaking, it will play. I just did it
in the book I'm writing.
Men and women are 95% the same, with that remaining 5% being
differences in genitalia and learned societal ideas of gender roles.
(This also applies to writing someone who is of a different race,
religion, sexual orientation, or nationality as yourself, by the
way.)
Just write a damn person.
The reason so many male writers get it wrong is that they look at
the fairer sex (Is it sexist to call them that? Did I just fuck my
whole argument?) and say “Okay. I'm writing a female character.
What makes them different from me?” Which doesn't work. The only
thing you can see looking from the outside-in are the surface
differences: “Girls have tits and like shopping and talk about boys
and care about clothes and get PMS and cry a lot.” What they
disregard is how much alike all human beings are, how much the women
they are writing are just like them.
So they write surface. They write affection. They write shallow.
When you try to portray a character who is an “other” to you,
you get women who always take too long to get ready for dinner, black
guys who say 'nigga' and 'bitch' every other word without any of the
actual cadence and context of the slang, Brits with bad teeth, and
prancing, swishy gay men who wear pink and scarves and ass-less chaps
and listen to Streisand.
I recently finished my first novel, and it will be out in the
Spring. It is told from the point of view of a 38 year-old,
ex-military, Bengali lesbian living in Rome, Italy, a hundred years
from now.
And she may be more 'me' than any character I've ever written.
And yet, we are still very different. If you're really a writer, you
love and become your characters, and they will say and do things that
are unexpected and unplanned. They will tell you what they want. They
will, organically, become women. You, behind the keyboard, no matter
how manly you think you are, will find yourself attracted to the men
in her story (if she swings that way). You will start seeing the
world in a different way. The words coming out of her mouth will be a
little different from your own. More feminine. More specific to who
she is.
But that's not where you start.
Labeling people as “other” is dangerous in society, and equally
so in art.
I don't know if this has been useful or interesting. Probably not.
But it's something I've wanted to get off my chest and here it is. My
one trade secret:
In order for a straight white man to write a (woman, Arab,
homosexual, Jew, little person, Tibetan monk, Martian) the only trick
is...
Don't.
Chad J. Shonk is an award-winning
screenwriter and soon to be novelist.
Follow him on Twitter @chadjshonk
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