It is well known in Hollywood that whenever a screenwriter wants to take a shortcut to quickly illustrate a character’s importance or how embarrassing a situation is, they simply insert a clip of a Jay Leno monologue in which the character or event is mentioned. This typically occurs right after another character tries to reassure the embarrassed person that everything is okay. For example:
TOM: Honey, nobody noticed that your top fell off, trust me. Now let’s watch TV.
(Tom flips to a news program.)
NEWS ANCHOR: On the lighter side of the news tonight, Lindsay Davenport, heiress to the Davenport Potash fortune exposed a little more than she bargained for when-
(Tom flips to another channel.)
JAY LENO: Did you hear about this? Apparently socialite Lindsay Davenport had her top fall off. It went down faster than Monica Lewinsky.
(Tom flips to a third channel.)
HISPANIC ANCHOR: Este es un clip de “Lindsay Davenport”-
(Tom quickly shuts off TV.)
Of course, the audience is meant to find this funny and accept it as proof that the character is a Very Important and Famous Person. A lazy shortcut, of course, that still crops up in American films.
Things have obviously changed, however. Now that Jay Leno has been exposed as a backstabbing douchebag whose credibility in Hollywood is at an all time low, will they still use him as the go-to guy for these type of scenes? I suppose only time will tell whether Jay retains these roles or they get passed on to someone else. Ideally, Hollywood should probably think about retiring this creaky cliche, just as Jay Leno should have retired his creaky act.
So- you’ve got a protagonist who is mostly a good person, yet who currently finds himself in a regrettable situation that makes him appear to be completely depraved. How does the filmmaker make sure that the audience knows how messed up this situation is? By letting The Sainted Witness view the proceedings, of course!
The Sainted Witness is typically a respectable person who we would imagine has never seen such depravity in his or her life. While The Sainted Witness is often a nun (dressed in full nun regalia), he or she can also be a priest, minister or an innocent looking elderly person. The protagonist often tries to explain things, but almost always makes things worse. If he’s naked, his efforts to reassure The Sainted Witness will often result in him exposing more of his privates or (even worse) him becoming entangled with her.
Other possible misunderstandings-
* He injects himself with insulin, but The Sainted Witness assumes it’s illegal drugs.
* He’s entangled with someone else by accident but it appears that they are engaging in sexual intercourse. (Bonus points if he’s getting married and the person he’s entangled with is not his fiance.)
* It appears that he is trying to destroy or sully a religious article.
* He just suffered a painful injury and screamed the filthiest profanity he could think of as loudly as possible. (Bonus points if it was in a church.)
While The Sainted Witness might actually confront the protagonist with righteous indignation, oftentimes they say nothing; their mere presence at the scene of the embarrassment is enough to get a laugh out of the audience.
Do you have a woman in your script who has (ahem) loose morals? Want to know the quickest way to let your audience know that she is supposed to be the town tramp? Other than dressing her like a teenage talk show guest, (Next on The Maury Povich Show: “Maury, help me with my wild teen!”) there’s another surefire way to drill this fact into your audience’s head- get her in a red dress and have her sing or dance to the song “Fever”.
I’m sure you’ve seen this on too many movies and TV shows to count. (Married… With Children had Kelly Bundy do this in its third season, but I think we already knew by then that Al’s Little Girl was “Open for Business”.) Either we see the spectacle happen early on in the film or show to establish that this woman is a “friendly girl” or else it is used to symbolize a change in a bookish woman’s demeanor. After all, how many times have we seen straight-laced schoolmarms or librarians take off their glasses and rip off their conservative clothing to reveal a tight-fitting red dress, all done to the tune of “Fever”?
Many people have commented on how a quick way to make money in the music industry is to write a Christmas song that takes off, then sit back and watch the money roll in. I would imagine that an even better way to rake in the cash would be to write a new song that could be used by Hollywood as a replacement to “Fever.” Until then, I would imagine that the people who own the rights to that song are happy that Hollywood movies and television shows are still full of sex crazed women- and written by lazy writers.
