An excerpt from my script review for Miss Sloane which will be available 12/12/16:
2.) Plot Stability
This script hit all the points it needed to, and had the necessary twists.
But we’re not going to focus on that.
What we will focus on is how bluntly this script stated the problems that face our democracy (meaning the US for our overseas readers).
Road Map for Everytown
The problem in a nutshell (and an argument for term limits).
ELIZABETH
…A Congressman’s priority
isn’t representing the people, it’s
keeping his ass in office.
(Later)
CLARA
If Congress only care about
protecting their position, that makes
them slaves to public opinion.
Polling data puts a majority of
Americans in favor of Heaton-Harris-
ELIZABETH
And that’s exactly why you keep
losing.
(Later)
RODOLFO SCHMIDT
Public opinion’s overrated. Turnout
for the last midterms was 36 percent.
ESME
And I’ll bet most of them were paidup
members of the Gun Lobby.
ELIZABETH
Thank you. Our opposition has built a
base of voters, vast and fanatical,
who go out and vote exclusively on
the issue of guns.
ALEX
How do we compete with that?…
ELIZABETH
We compete. We build our own base of
supporters, who demonstrate their
willingness to get their asses into
voting booths and elect against guns.
We target a state, hit it with phone
banks, ad campaigns, TV spots.
Having public opinion on your side isn’t enough. You need to find committed voters, and to Congressmen that means voters who literally put their money where their mouths are.
Senators and Congress get (re)elected and almost instantly go back into campaign mode raising money for the next cycle.
Most voters argue that’s a shitty system, when do these elected officials actually do their jobs?
It’s also a reason why Congress has such abysmal approval ratings. Voters generally hate Congress as a whole, NOT their individual Congressman or Senator that they keep electing, they hate everyone ELSE’S representatives.
***(My shit’s stuff because it’s mine. Your stuff’s shit because it’s NOT mine.)
The script explains this quickly and easily.
Liz, being a morally ambiguous lobbyist, uses a potential client’s own strategy against he and the gun lobby, unite a coalition of women voters that rival the NRA (never actually mentioned in the script) via donations.
Did you hear that Everytown?
DONATIONS!
By uniting smaller groups focusing on women’s issues through common sense and making the serious problem of gun violence against women a cornerstone.
That’s what gets all these folks’ attention in both houses of Congress! Donations.
And that’s sad really, when you think about it, and the reason why legislation most Americans agree on can’t get passed…
ELIZABETH
The current system is so porous, it
floats. The Heaton-Harris Amendment
starts plugging the holes.
GEORGE
When did this happen? I don’t
remember you ever caring one way or
the other about guns?
ELIZABETH
I guess my position solidified
somewhere between Columbine and
Aurora. Background checks apply to
sales from licensed gun dealers only.
Any thug or head-case can procure a
thirty-eight special from a gun show,
the internet, or his buddy from the
Bowl-o-rama without so much as an
I.D. card. Heaton-Harris puts a stop
to this madness.
I live in a small rural town, where gun owners selling guns meet other owners purchasing guns in the parking lot at Walmart.
The first party rarely asks what the second party is using it for, especially if both are white.
Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Especially when considering a car sale (cars being the more frequent killer pro-gun advocates point to) requires both parties register the vehicle even if it’s a private sale.
But again, even with public opinion on their side, groups like Everytown for Gun Safety keep losing when it comes to common sense gun legislation.
Reading this script, the “why” makes sense based on a broken (and arguably corrupt system) while also providing a realistic strategy to combat one of the most powerful lobbies in the United States.
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