An excerpt from my script review for Not Okay which will be available 08/29/22:
1.) Marketability of the Idea
This is the second script I’ve reviewed in a row where a character wanted desperately to be famous, or at least have a loud voice separate from the masses.
(The other was Vengeance, from two weeks ago…give or take.)
I don’t understand the infatuation with influencers.
Let me rephrase that…
It’s perfectly understandable why human beings want to be influencers, taking a shortcut to fame and fortune without putting in any real work.
We’re a lazy species when given the choice.
What I meant to say is I don’t understand the infatuation of fake influencers, a la fictional stories like this.
Now it’s certainly okay to make your character an influencer, even having it be a crucial part of your story, but just making the entire story about a character influencing or wanting to influence?
It just doesn’t seem appealing.
Yet this is billed as a “satire”. But is it really?
Aren’t all the people involved with this project just trying to become more famous (i.e. more influenc-ie) by “arguing” they’re trying to teach us a lesson?
And realistically isn’t simply using the word “satire” an attempt to sound clever when it turns out something you meant to be a comedy isn’t that funny?
“Oh, you just didn’t get it!” – Oh but we did, and your story’s not half as elevated as you think it is.
This script came off less as a unique look on the social anxieties stemming from social media, and more just a reboot of She’s All That where instead of a jock learning a lesson from a lie, it’s a twenty-four year old young woman working at an influencer website.
My point?
There are more interesting stories out there.
You want to send a message about the downside to looking for fame from the internet, do it inside a compelling narrative and not a paint by numbers plot we’ve seen countless times before.
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