Verbal Dance

So today is Superbowl Sunday. While Nate and Matt were fixated on the T.V. cheering for the Patriots, I worked on a script for one of my classes. I could care less about football. I'd rather watch the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet, but Nate just had to be in complete control of the T.V. all day.

The script I'm working on is supposed to be just 6-8 pages long. It's just a silly exercise, but I'm using it to challenge myself. We're supposed to write a "verbal dance", which is 6-8 pages of discussion between two characters. Well, I made both of my characters gay men in their 30's. They're practically married and they own an organic food company together. The challenge? Make their lines and actions as non-stereotypical as possible.

I don't intend to offend anyone. It's just that every time there's a gay character on T.V., the writers just have to force overly stereotypical tendencies on him. The gay character is always some unfaithful sex-obsessed sleazeball (Queer as Folk, anyone?), a flaming queen (Will and Grace, anyone?), a burly fireman with a lisp who bats his eyelashes every five minutes (Chuck and Larry, anyone?) or all of the above.

Of course such people exist in real life, but it's pretty rare to come across a gay character on T.V. who acts -- gasp -- normal. I have some friends who are gay, but I don't refer to any of them as "my gay friend". It's usually something like, "my theatre friend from high school", "my friend who's a huge Madonna fan", etc. Maybe it's just me, but I don't consider a person's sexual orientation their primary characteristic. I hate -- no, despise -- it when people refer to me as their "deaf friend". The last thing I want is for people to consider my hearing loss as something that defines me. I have a personality too, you know.

Sorry, I digress. So in this script, I'm having my characters talk about whether to expand their business right now or to wait another year to do so. My goal is to make the reader think, "Okay, so they're two business owners who disagree on something. One of them is calm but a spontaneous risk-taker, the other one is sensitive but considers the long-term consequences. Oh, and they're in a relationship with each other." I'm trying to avoid getting the reader to preface the characters' occupation with something a lot more personal -- their sexual orientation.

Because that's what real life is like, you know. People are people. And, to be frank, the kind of people you sleep with is nobody's business.

Gah, I can be so preachy sometimes.