Genre: Dark Comedy/Satire
Premise: (from Black List) When a liberal white girl who knows exactly how to fix society accuses her equally liberal professor of hate speech, it throws the campus and both their lives into chaos as they wage war over the right way to stop discrimination.
About: Today’s script is a perfect example of workshopping something until it’s solid enough to make some noise in the industry. Writers Emma Fletcher and Brett Weiner first got their script accepted into the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, where they got some notes from professionals, and were able to then rewrite the script (presumably several drafts) and get it on last year’s Black list (with 7 votes). Let this serve as a reminder. Pursue every screenwriting avenue you can afford. And if you can’t afford any, there are plenty of free options (Ahem, Amateur Offerings). This is a “No thank you” business. So the only way to break in is by getting as many people to read your script as possible. Then, and only then, do you have a chance of landing that life-changing “yes.”
Writers: Emma Fletcher & Brett Weiner
Details: 115 pages
“I want to open it up to anyone who had an uncomfortable moment, a difficult feeling, or an experienced micro-aggression.”
One of the many great, and terrifyingly accurate, lines from today’s script.
Social Justice Warrior is so accurate at times, that you wonder if it’s a satire, or if this is the world we live in.
It was only a matter of time before somebody wrote a script on this topic. The question was whether it would be any good. Lucky for these two, they got it workshopped at one of the best places in the world to get a script workshopped – Sundance. Getting the tone right is so hard with satire and I’m sure the people at Sundance helped them nail it.
18 year old freshman Harper Penzig (female, white, cisgender) is so taken by classmate Deshaun Barnes’ story of discrimination that she immediately declares herself a fierce advocate for race and LGBT equality.
A few days later, in a European Intellectuals class, Harper takes exception with professor Susan Brodbeck’s (female, 40’s, white, cisgender) use of the word “ugly” in the sentence: “In your reading, Oppel claims that Nietzche is actually employing irony here to comment on societal attitudes that he finds ugly.”
Harper immediatley raises her hand and says she has a problem with the word ugly as it “alienates important segments of our community.” Specifically as it relates to her sort-of trans-friend Liz, who’s also in the class, and has been called ugly before. Liz, for the record, couldn’t give a shit about Harper’s argument.
When Susan refuses to apologize for her use of the word, Harper takes her fight to the school Dean, demanding a hearing for Susan violating the right that all classrooms must be safe spaces.
Within days, Susan has recruited a small army to picket in front of the history department, calling for Susan’s resignation. When Susan realizes this problem may affect her tenure, she apologizes to Harper. But Harper’s already on a roll, uploading her protest to social media.
Meanwhile, Harper starts “SAFES,” a group that will define every single word and action that constitutes hate. Beginning with a “Privilege Walk,” Harper shows everyone in the group just how privileged and, therefore, hateful they are. Which only reinforces how important the group is. Can a white man eat a burrito? Is this not cultural appropriation? SAFES says it indeed is.
Eventually, Harper’s fight goes viral, and she gets drunk on her social media power. Every injustice is instantly uploaded, where half the world can celebrate and the other half decry her. After awhile, the lines become blurred. Is she doing this because she believes in it? Or is she doing it for the attention?
In the end, Harper and Suzanne will battle it out, in a “safe space” room of all places. Whoever comes out in one piece may dictate the direction of social justice for us all.
This script was great.
What made it so great will surprise you, since I rarely talk about it on the site.
Social Justice Warrior built its entire plot around a thematic question: “Have we gone too far in our quest for social justice?” Every scene was built around that question. And what’s so great about the script is that it gives both sides an equal voice. Harper and Susan have several debate scenes together and in each one, they both make solid points. I bring this up because I read so many scripts where the writer has a clear agenda. So when he’s (she’s? they’s?) writing argument scenes, the point he agrees with always gets the best argument. This script proves that it’s way more interesting when you make the debate even because the writer has to keep reading to get to the conclusion.
For those of you who want to construct screenplays around a thematic question, here’s something to keep in mind. It doesn’t work unless the question is a) charged and b) difficult to answer. So if you built your script around the thematic question, “Is it okay to steal if you’re poor?” that’s not a question people are dying to know the answer to. SJW is built around a charged question that people have intense opinions on. And that means readers are going to keep turning the pages.
There are a few plot related things I want to bring up as well. The script starts off with Harper’s pursuit of getting Susan fired. I could see an early iteration of this script where that was the only plotline. If that were the case, the plot would’ve been too thin. So Fletcher and Weiner added the SAFES plot, where Harper’s goal is to define hate speech and implement it around the school.
As a screenwriter, you’re always feeling out if you have enough plot or if you need more. If you need more, this is an option – using dual-goals. Goal #1: Get Susan fired. Goal#2: Define hate speech for the school. This allows us to bounce back and forth between two storylines, keeping each of them fresh.
I also liked Fletcher and Weiner’s choice to make sure EVERYBODY in this story had something at stake. A common mistake is to only give stakes to your hero. But we had it for our “villain” as well. Susan is going to lose tenure if Harper wins this battle. And the Dean gets a call from the president that if this keeps blowing up, he’ll be fired.
What this does is it gives WEIGHT to these characters’ scenes where there otherwise wouldn’t be any. Because Susan has so much riding on this, we can feel her desperation in her scenes. If tenure was never mentioned, her scenes become infinitely less dramatic. Who cares if she loses this battle? As far as we’ve been told, her job will remain the same.
Finally, I liked the message of the script. That there are legitimate strides that need to be made in the area of social justice. At the same time, there are narcissists out there using the cause as a weapon to gain attention. And because they’re the loudest voices, they get propped up as the faces of the movement, which places said movement in a negative rather than a positive fight.
Where is all of this social justice headed? We’ll need a sequel about a year from now to find out.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Thematic questions result in dialogue-heavy scripts. If you want to write a lot of good dialogue, you might try building your script around a thematic question. That’s because you’ll spend many scenes having characters debate the question. And questions that don’t have easy answers are often fun to write and to read. Social Justice Warrior was 95% dialogue for that reason. It set up its question then it let its characters battle for the answer.
