The conference part of the Austin Film Festival ended on a great note: a reading of Maggie Carey’s script The Hand Job, featuring SNL‘s Bill Hader and Aubrey Plaza from Parks and Recreation, plus “special guests TBA.” Well, those guests turned out to be Colin Hanks, already at the AFF for a showing of his movie High School, and a lady who looked a lot like Jessica Alba…oh, wait, it was Jessica Alba. But I know I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t sure because when she walked onstage everybody else started whispering. And yep, Jessica Alba looked just as lovely and wispy and ethereal as she does on TV.
(I find that with actors, you can’t win; you’re either surprised to see that they look nothing like they do on TV, or surprised that they look exactly like they do on TV. FYI, Colin Hanks, Bill Hader and Aubrey Plaza also look exactly like they do on TV.)
Maggie Carey, my new hero.
The Hand Job is the story of a type-A girl named Brandy (Plaza) who makes an X-rated “To Do” list for her summer before college, assisted by her friends and older sister — but it’s a really sweet, funny movie at heart, much like American Pie.
The reading was hilarious. As Willie, Brandy’s lifeguard boss, Hader was just as funny as you’d expect and I’ve loved Colin Hanks’ comic stylings ever since the massively underrated Orange County. Aubrey Plaza is one of my favorite young comediennes so it was great to see her play a non-sullen teenager. The actors and script got a full minute of applause when the thing was done, and everybody was happy.
During the Q&A, Carey mentioned the double standard, noting that she’d had to rewrite the script as the original (containing more, um, “action”) had provoked concerns that Brandy was “being taken advantage of” and needed to “think about the consequences of her actions” — hmmm, so nice to see see Hollywood’s family values in action, wonder if anyone ever felt as concerned about the fictional dudes in American Pie?
So I raised my hand and asked whether she was worried that because of the double standard, there would be demands to soften the script further, and she said no, this was why they’d chosen to make the movie as a low-budget indie film. Then Jessica Alba jumped in and mentioned that they had found a female producer, Jennifer Todd, who they felt would protect the integrity of the script, and that, furthermore, we needed to keep pushing the boundaries, showing that there could be female-driven raunchy comedies, until there was no double standard. Go Jessica Alba!
After the Q&A I went up to Maggie Carey, literally running over the fanboys who were there to see Jessica Alba. I told her how important I thought comedy was, and told her that I sincerely hoped to see the movie made. I gushed pretty unapologetically, which I don’t do often. I just hope I wasn’t too spastic.
But I really do think comedy is important. More important, in fact, than using words like feminism or gender roles. And sure, maybe that’s just my refusal to stay classy — it’s documented fact that I’d rather listen to AC/DC than Simone de Beauvoir on tape. But Joss Whedon (who’s officially part of the feminist canon now) figured this out years ago: lecturing people about feminism just doesn’t work. Telling stories does. The fact is, The Hand Job was a good, funny story that just happened to treat teenage girls as real people rather than accessories to Porky’s-style shenanigans.
It sucks that this is a rarity, and it sucks that Maggie Carey had to rewrite it, and it sucks that so many execs passed on it (this is why it was on Franklin Leonard’s Black List of best unproduced scripts), and it sucks that publicly throwing around “academic” phrases like sexist motherfuckers probably wouldn’t help get the movie made.
And I really do want to see the movie get made. At the panel they said that Aubrey Plaza and Bill Hader are already attached (Hader then joked that he had no choice, since he’s married to Carey), and given that they’d found a producer, the odds are looking better.
Till then, I’m just going to repeat that Maggie Carey is awesome, as is her script. And you should write your Congressperson or whatever. And if you’d like to see more woman-driven comedy you can check out The Jeannie Tate Show, comic webisodes made by Carey and former SNL writer Liz Cackowski, featuring a soccer mom who does interviews in the back of her minivan.
To be honest, I’m glad this was rewritten. I read the script after the Black List was announced and disliked it a lot. As an eighteen year old girl, the dialogue wasn’t at all realistic and worse, it wasn’t terribly funny. So, by the sounds of your review, it has improved a lot and I hope to see it come to life.
Sure, rewriting to improve jokes and dialogue is a good and constructive thing. But in this case it seemed pretty clear that some of the demands to rewrite came from expectations about how teenage girls *should* act, rather than from a place of improving the writing. That’s all I object to. But yes, the finished product was very good, and here’s hoping!
sounds like a winner! that video is hilarious
I’m enjoying making my way through the rest of the Jeannie Tate videos, too. There was talk of a sitcom being developed, but I understand that that’s not happening now. Too bad!
[...] List,” which could be the female equivalent of “American Pie.” Carey’s script has been an underground sensation for several years, having made the 2009 “Black List” roster of hot unproduced scripts and [...]