centralia -- the musical

Over the weekend, I read an article in the Australian review section about the New World Order acc to SA. It said that what the Australian film industry really needed now were commercially viable upbeat musical comedies, not downbeat, introverted, personal stories about lesbians, Aboriginal people, the desert, etc. (Pretty much in that order: lesbians were actually first on the 'no-go' list.)

I may have gotten it wrong and what might have been cited may have been the opinions of various people hovering round this transfigurated body, but it struck fear into the heart of this wannabee scriptwriter.  (Mind you, a wannabee scriptwriter on the basis on six one-day workshops in Alice and week with British Cardigans in Tas...so much credibility! - Ed.)  Because my script ticked all the boxes content-wise, altho I'd like to think of it as quirky and ironic rather than downbeat, personal, introverted, etc.  But I imagine no prospective producer would ever hear that once I mentioned the words 'lesbians, Aboriginal people and the desert.'

So I wondered if I could make it more upbeat, like a lesbian Strictly Ballroom on mountainbikes. As I was explaining this morning to someone at work, it's just the second draft, after all: Notting Hill had 100 drafts, so there's potentially another 98 to go.  (She said: 'What?  Were they all the drafts removing any possible content?')  But even that might be too much for the Australian film industry.

Then I had another idea...I could write a romantic comedy all about engineers, shire managers and infr*str*ture...without a mention of lesbians, Aboriginal people or the desert at all.  (It could be set euphemistically in the 'arid zone'.)  Centralia!  A lavish, upbeat musical comedy about telegraph cables being laid the length and breadth of the continent and greywater being recyled to irrigate the palm plantations left by the Afghan Traders...do you think SA would buy it?

I'm not even gay, how did I end up in this situation?  Like, I'm not even an engineer, how did I end up in this other situation (and could central Australia somehow have something to do with it?)  I'm supposed to corralling feedback about sewerage, standalone generators, airstrip bunding, etc, into an Excel spreadsheet right this moment.

P.S. I don't have anything against genre-writing or upbeat romantic comedies...in fact I agree about the general overearnestness of much Australian drama.  But I'm less keen about prescriptiveness.

Comments

[Mikhela]

Oh yeah, because there is such an overabundance of Australian films with lesbians or Aboriginal people as central -or peripheral - characters.

[elsewhere]

See:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24643913-16947,00.html?source=cmailer