Being Ken (to Hollywood's Barbie)

Now that Larry McMurtry, upon winning his Golden Globe, has thanked his Hermes 3000 ("surely one of the noblest instruments of European genius"), I'm paying tribute to my trusty typewriter, pictured here (the secretary is not mine, alas).

"The writer is the most important person in Hollywood, but we must never tell the sons of bitches."  -- Irving Thalberg, quoted in The Schreiber Theory.

"Ken is not going to save Barbie." -- Isaac Larian, head of MGA Entertainment.

There's a funny little book out on the Cinema shelves -- funny unintentionally, in that its noble intentions are very, very serious.  But though it cracked me up more than it enlightened me, David Kipen's The Schreiber Theory: A Radical Rewrite of American Film History did lead me to understand why, after decades of never identifying with Barbie's Ken, I have more in common with His Plasticness than I might have thought.

The book is a long-overdue rebuttal to the infamous auteur theory (and specifically, to that movement's seminal tome, The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris).  This theory, originating in the writings of French film critics of the late 1950s (among them, Truffaut and Godard) and by now deeply engrained in the movie public's consciousness, holds that the true "author" of a given movie is its director.  By now we speak of a "Kubrick film" (as opposed to a "Raphael movie," i.e. the writer of Eyes Wide Shut), and even critics who ought to know better routinely attribute ideas, scenes, even plot points to the director of a movie under review, sometimes failing to cite the screenwriter altogether.

Why this should matter to the general public is moot, since even to this day, a good portion thereof assume that the actors make up their lines (as do a good many actors).  But on the two coasts at least, the screenwriter v. director credit issue has always been hotly debated.  Screenwriters still bemoan their secondary status, while directors exasperatedly hold onto their supposedly rightful cultural throne.

Would that Kipen's book might turn the tide or tip the point in the screenwriter's favor, but sorry, Charlie: this ain't it.  While he argues valiantly for an auteurist theory of screenwriting (nicknamed the Schreiber theory after the yiddish word that means "writer"), Kipen seems more a gold-hearted and pixilated naif out of a Capra movie, convinced that we could somehow all live in a wonderful-life world, than a hard-headed radical-realist who might spark a revolution.

The book gets off to a wobbly start occasioned by the author shooting off one of his own big toes.  Describing a wacky alternate universe where books in a library are catalogued not by their author's names, but by the names of the people who edited them, Kipen attempts to point out the unfair disparity in assigning credit to directors when it properly belongs to scribes.  But this "director as novel editor" metaphor falls lead-footed flat; your average director is far more intimately and globally responsible for every aspect of a movie's creation than the editor of the average book is for its content (e.g. odd, but you don't hear James Frey's editor decrying being overlooked).

And this is only on Schreiber's second page.   In its consistent doth-protest-too-much ballyhooing of why the writer is The One, the book keeps sounding woefully over-the-top and academic, but it really gets out there by the time Kipen comes round to offering solutions for the current crisis (crisis, meaning that many Hollywood screenwriters still have to cry in their swimming pools while their directors swim in praise).

Kipen's suggestion list for how to tip the balance of power back to the Schreibers got me giggling from the get.  First, "reform the WGA's credit-awarding procedures."  Now, there's a cinch, given that the East and West Coast guilds just narrowly avoided nuking themselves to death, and that arbitration battles between writers on contested projects often resemble particularly bloody gladiators' bouts.  But his second helpful notion really brought on the hysterics: "Appoint a WGA trainee, as each new film starts shooting, to research the script's evolution and monitor its realization."  Yes, and while you're at it, take these thousand sets of wings, and put them on all the pigs you can catch, because by golly, by gum, I tell you, they will fly.

This Valley of the Gwangi world-view, given the realities of how many writers, directors, actors, editors and Chinese takeout deliverymen are truly responsible for the genesis of a given screenplay's gestation and development, is typical of the book's endearing but exasperating sci-fi movie sensibility.  As an after-thought to his "five injunctions," Kipen notes that "if screenwriters are finally serious about overthrowing auterist rule, they can start by not climbing all over themselves--and sometimes each other--to become directors."  Yeah!  Who said it was good to be king?  Let's keep sweating it out on our backs in the whorehouse, folks, we've got nothing to lose but our minds.

Now, to be fair, once you get past all of Kipen's Pollyanish bunkum, you get to what's the meat of the meal, in which Kipen rather casually delivers a truncated remake of Richard Corliss' long-beloved and out of print Talking Pictures (1974), a book that assigned various writers their places in hierarchical categories that consciously aped Sarris' American Cinema form.  Corliss' book gave props to such true screenwriter auteurs as the great Ben Hecht, but as Kipen rightly points out, Corliss failed to do the same favor for contemporary scribes.

The second half of Schreiber takes over from there, presenting the filmographies of contemporary screenwriters from Attanasio to Zaillian, with thumbnail sketches of what their characteristic themes, stories and distinctive fetishes seem to be.  And to this I say, bravo!  It's a great and worthy contribution to cinematic literature... and I only wish he'd lavished more time and attention on it, because some of this genuinely fascinating material (i.e. entries on the younger writers) is given superficial short shrift.

But I'm being too harsh on David K.  His heart's in the right place, he's lobbying for a noble cause, and his book is a good read.  His valuable work illuminates, for example, the exemplary career of Paul Dehn (1912-1976), a screenwriter I'd never paid much attention to, but who was responsible for one of the all-time great exchanges in the entire 007 franchise:

The captured James Bond, about to be laser ray-ed in half:  Goldfinger, do you expect me to talk?

Goldfinger:  No, Mr. Bond.  I expect you to die.

Credit for this little gem is among the veritable treasure chest of same that Kipen's screenwriting "A list" unearths.  And not since McCarthy and Flynn's Kings of the Bs, another out of print book full of credit lists which, stoned in my halycon youth, I used to love to read aloud, have I had the pleasure of declaiming such a berserko filmography as that of Elwood Ullman (The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, et al).  Do try this at home -- Ullman's Ulmer-esque titles read like an ecstatic dadaist prose poem (...The Spook Speaks, How High Is Up? Boobs in the Woods, You're Next, A Plumbing We Will Go...)  Kipen, all's forgiven; I love you and may your book prosper.

No sooner had I inhaled the back end of The Schreiber Theory, than I came upon this article in the NY Times, which details the high drama of Barbie's struggle to tighten up her loosening stranglehold on the minds of the world's five year-olds. 

Evidently Barbie's been beseiged by competition in the past few years, a period during which her companion Ken went missing.  In 2004, Barbie's heart was stolen by an Australian surfer named Blaine.  "Ken," the article reports, "heartbroken, traveled the world in search of himself, making stops in Europe and the Middle East, dabbling in Buddhism and Catholicism, teaching himself to cook and slowly weaning himself off a beach bum life."

Well, now he's back, and just as the theater profits-challenged movie industry is looking for the next big thing that might turn around a downward trend, Barbie's handlers are hoping that a renovated Ken might do the trick for her.  "Gone are Ken's outdated swimming trunks and dull T-shirts," Times writer Barbaro continues.  "Ken's new wardrobe will include cargo pants, a fitted suit with peak lapels and a motorcycle jacket. A facial resculpting, as Mattel calls it — Ken's first in more than a decade — will give him a more defined nose and a softer mouth.  'It's Matthew McConaughey meets Orlando Bloom,'" says a company spokesperson.

But industry rivals are dismissive (see "Ken is not going to save Barbie"), and who can blame them? Because even if you want to posit a theory that Ken has long been Barbie's muse, her secret source of joy, the font of her ever-supple smiling flexibility, even if you put forth the case that Ken is the true foundation, the can't-have-one-without-the-other genuine auteur of her happiness... no one will really be listening.

I never thought of myself as a Ken before (I mean, he's always been perfect, while I've been short and Jewish), but when I read the Times article right after closing the covers on Kipen, the metaphorical appropriateness became instantly clear to me.  We screenwriters are the Ken to Hollywood's Barbie, see: we can make ourselves over, we can come back enlightened, we can try to barter for equity with the auteur princess while all decked out in our fancy new Schreiberist threads, but in the end, we're still living in a Barbie world, on Barbie's terms.

Come to think of it, McMurtry's typewriter salute was a real Ken thing to do, given that we tinseltown scribes  -- members of a tribe who'd even think to use the term tinseltown scribes, purely because we like the sound of it -- can try to funny our way into acceptance all we want, while the sad truth is... it's all about Barbie, babe.  And even she's not getting all the props she useta.

Comments

[Writergurl]

And what of female scribes? Are we the non exisitent best friend? Ignored by Barbie and Ken at the same time? I dunno WHAT female directors would be... there's so few of them.

[jamy]

As a movie-lover and writer-type, I've always been interested in this issue. Does the director take an even more prominent role when 5,6 or more writers work on a script? Does that first draft still set the tone for the film?

There are also the rare and great writer-directors: Preston Sturges (the first), Fellini, and more that I can't remember.

Why is Hollywood so different from live theater where the playwright is often present at rehearsals and whose vision is interpreted by the director?

Thanks for this post--very interesting and funny.

[JJ]

Back to your hole, scribe. And don't come out until you're carrying 20 pages with you. I'll be at the Director's Guild Country Club having my back waxed by a naked Miss America contestant.

[ECHenry]

Interesting post Billy,

I am a writer. And at this stage of my career getting credit OVER someone else on a project doens't mean that much to me. Getting one of my script made by someone, getting some $$ for it, AND having my name sited for screenwriting credit does.

Their is some validity to the fact that some SUPER SCRIBES out there haven't gotten their proper due. The name David Koepp comes to mind! That dude's pen rocks!

I grew up running home to watch those 60s cartoons of the webslinger. Then when I heard that a movie was being made, well I was very interested. The info on the internet made me think that the movie was going to be a dud (growing up my intereset was in the villians Spidey fought). But when I saw the movie I was blown away by how good the Peter Parker character was, and how well developed and thought out his interest in Mary Jane was. David Koepp took the hero vs. master villian and made it a secondaray plot to the romance -- and he did so masterfully.

Billy, since you're an insider, if you know for a fact that David Koepp wasn't the primary scribe resposible for that hit, please let me know.

In my humble opinion. If scribes deserve more praise, lets heap it on those who have earned it, writing movies that we love.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[chris Soth]

Well, I gots to say, I think Goldman got it right w/his attack on auteur theory, it's a collaborative art form and most of the time, unfortunately, that means it's also a lowest common denominator art form...

...I sort of moved from acting to directing to writing trying to be the guy who decided what story was gonna be told. Call me an egomaniacal power freak, but I thought I had 'em to tell...And now I think I probably should have just learned how to raise money...THAT'S the guy who decides what the movie will be. Live and learn.

cbs

[mernitman]

Jamy, that's a great question re: writers in theater -- possible future post... The issue of "first draft" when a movie's made is stickier, in that often by the time a given script actually gets to its ultimate director (i.e. after the three other directors that have gotten involved with the project and then moved on) who KNOWS what's remained of the original writer's intent? In other words, don't get me started...

[JD]

Ain't been an auteur since Buster Keaton went to MGM.

[Ken Mora]

> We screenwriters are the Ken to Hollywood's Barbie

Funny! And painfully true. But if there's ever going to be a change, it won't be by book readers, or by billboard adds (though I enjoyed the WGA attempt of a couple years past), but by the same "estate" that birthed the auteur theory - the critics. How many times to I hear critichs *cough* Sikel *cough* Roper *cough* ascribe plot twists to directors and lines to actors, THEY at least should know better. The WGA should target them, and once screenwriters make it into reviewer a meaningful larger dialog can result.

[kristen]

Good point, Ken.

[mernitman]

Kristen, ditto that. And Ken, I meant to respond to you, because my "critics, who ought to know better" phrase was mere diplomacy about something that routinely drives me crazy. HOW to re-educate people who are already media-enshrined (at the Times, et al) is the question...

[Anne Thompson]

oh shit I was going to write about this and never got around to it so billy got to it first, of course. by the way, billy, please email me with your tips on how to build comments because whatever you are doing is obviously working