Considering the current media attention given to ChatGPT, VR, and artificial intelligence in general, I thought that this scene from from my screen/teleplay Tuna in Pooderville prescient. Though Tuna was published in 2019, this scene was initially developed from a creative writing prompt back in 1994.
Set up: it's 1961. The Hartley family of Pooderville, NY, are gathered around their dining room table for their weekly Sunday meal and conversation. Father Art; mother Bev; Daughter Terri; Son Ruff; and the little guy, Tuna.
INT. HARTLEY HOUSE, DINING ROOM - DAY
THE HARTLEYS are gathered around their dining room table, ART at one end, BEV at the other, a hearty meal on board.
ART
Thank-you for this day and for what
we are about to receive. Amen.
TERRI
Don't go overboard on grace, Dad.
ART
Hand me the pickles. Where's the
beauty queen?
BEV
She's up at the pavilion getting ready
for the auto show, remember?
ART nods and grunts with his mouth full.
TERRI
So, what's the topic this Sunday, Mom?
BEV
Did anyone see that article in Life
Magazine about those machines
they're building at M.I.T.?
RUFF
Computers. Electronic brains.
ART
Heh, they're big as a house.
RUFF
They'll get smaller.
TERRI
Another tool for the ruling-class to
brainwash us with.
ART
What's that supposed to mean? Where
do you get this stuff? Let me tell you
something, Terri, life’s a rat race and
some rats are faster.
TERRI
And some rats get a head start.
ART
(chewing, nods)
Cause their parents were faster rats…
TERRI
So, you prefer an Aristocracy to
Democracy…
ART stops chewing and gives TERRI a look. He points his fork at her and is about to speak when BEV interrupts.
BEV
Alright, you two…
TERRI
(big sigh, eye roll, speaking into her plate)
It'll end up like T.V., something to
placate the masses and hawk useless
junk.
ART
That reminds me, Mr. Ed is on tonight.
Ha! Funny horse! Will-ber…
RUFF
No, this is different, Terri. This
computer thing is really a big deal, like
the invention of the alphabet, or the
printing press. It’s going to transform
the whole world. But—I think we're
missing the bigger picture here.
BEV
Oh, really? Bigger than transforming
the whole world? Expand our minds.
Please.
RUFF
These computers represent a major
development in the evolution of...the
electronic life forms.
ART
Ruff's been smoking that stuff the
Beatniks smoke.
TERRI avoids eye contact and keeps eating.
RUFF
Think about it. They've already got
cameras for eyes, microphones for
ears, machines for bodies. All they
needed was brains, and now they got
brains.
TUNA
Robots!
RUFF
Exactly, Tuna. They're the next life form.
TERRI
You're such a fascist, Ruff. Since
when is a machine a life form? Can it
write a poem? Can it fall in love?
RUFF
Well, they won't exchange fluids, that
type of thing.
ART
(pause, a look)
Exchange fluids?
ART stares at RUFF then looks over at BEV. BEV shrugs a silent
“Don’t ask me.”
RUFF
Don't you see? They won't need to. In
fact, that's exactly why they're
evolving, so that nature can adapt to
the next great environment, outer
space!
ART
That's what the moon programs for.
RUFF
Waste of time. That's like a bunch of
fish putting on suits to go live on land.
It's a dead-end street. Nature doesn't
work that way.
ART
Better give NASA a call so they don't
waste anymore tax dollars.
BEV
How does God fit into all this?
RUFF
God's an irrational concept, Mom.
BEV
Not in this house he isn't.
RUFF
Oh, come on, Mom, every smart
person knows that the whole universe
is spinning toward nothing for no
reason. In a few hundred billion years
the whole thing is going to implode
into a black egg!
ART
You seem awful happy about it.
RUFF stuffs AN ENORMOUS FORKFUL OF SPAGHETTI into his mouth. Spaghetti dangles from his chin—a gruesome mess of spaghetti sauce.
RUFF
(with his mouth full)
You see, Dad, I can look the void in
the face and not blink—because I
choose dignity.
TERRI
Ruff, wipe your face, you're gross.
TUNA
Hey, Ruff, did you get to see Tony's
color TV?
RUFF
Dad, you should see that thing! It takes
up the whole wall. It's not just a TV,
it's got a stereo built into it, and an
AM/FM radio.
ART stirs his food and makes a disgusted little snort.
And you know what else? It's got this
little box called a remote control. All
you do is aim it at the TV, push a little
button, and it changes the channel for
you. You don't even have to get up off
the couch!
ART
(eating, shakes his head)
How lazy can you get?
TUNA
Gee, Dad, can we get one?
ART
It's just a fad, Charlie. It'll go out the
Hula Hoop—and computers! too.
(to BEV)
Which means we’ll just have to go on
exchanging fluids—right, Bev?
BEV
(calmly eats)
Don’t get your hopes up.
RUFF
Tony said his old man paid four
hundred dollars for it.
ART
Four hundred dollars?! Brother. The
guy must be crazy. You won't find me
wasting my hard-earned money on a
gimmick like that, Charlie.
BEV gives ART a sympathetic look.
_________________________________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION
to Tuna in Pooderville
My childhood, as I remember it through the lens of my childhood, was happy in that happy TV family situation comedy way of the early sixties TV shows that I grew up watching: Leave it to Beaver; My Three Sons; Father Knows Best; The Donna Reed Show; Andy of Mayberry, and others similar, which should explain TUNA’s innocent, if not naïve, G-rated humor and sentimental dramas—with a few disturbing and perhaps controversial exceptions. And I was fortunate in my childhood to have been acquainted with more than a few verbose story-tellers (not the least of which my own father), and harmless eccentrics. Every character in the script, including showman Johnny Starbuck, the formidable Mr. Edwards, and even Bob the alien, is based on an actual person I have encountered in my life at one time or another.
Though the idea was to recreate, superficially, a production identical to a 60s situation comedy, a close reading will show that the script—at times unapologetically experimental, bizarre, and a little crazy—is written to be a (post)modern movie.
As one who studies Zen Buddhism and Eastern thought in general, I see existence not in the Grand Narrative tradition of the West; that is, history as a story of progress with a beginning, a middle, and an end, from which the basic plot-structure of most Western story-telling is derived; but instead, as Philip Roth described his novels: as “individuals meshed in some nexus of particulars.” Therefore, TUNA does not follow the typical movie script formula in which clear plot points manipulate the audience toward some contrived denouement and resolution. In TUNA, performance supersedes meaning. Rather than focusing solely on a protagonist’s efforts to get “what the protagonist wants,” the script simply strives to honor each character’s unique performance in the noble art of being “human, all too human,”—all within the script’s unique “mesh of particulars.”
Also, as a Buddhist, I see the “protagonist” in fiction as an invention, primarily, of the Western mind. The protagonist is a stand-in for human agency and the complex desires of the ego—arriving, arguably, with the appearance of Odysseus, that pro-active and clever man desiring home and Penelope. Although paperboy Tuna may at first seem like the protagonist of the movie, considering his desire for Molly, Tuna’s role is actually more akin to David Copperfield’s role in Dicken’s masterpiece. Copperfield exists as a kind of hub around which Dicken’s entertaining characters live out their dramas, high and low. Though some transition in Tuna’s world view takes place, and TUNA, I suppose, could be interpreted as a coming-of-age piece, Tuna’s transition is not the result of any clever and pro-active agency on his part; it is more the result of his confrontation with life’s realities, both sordid and sacred. (And in that sense Tuna’s transition offers a more honest account, I feel, of how our own life lessons emerge).
Though TUNA is a character(s)-driven script, the family television also plays a central role. It resides in the Hartley’s den like some clandestine, alien creature: colonizing and fragmenting consciousness with its mixed-up stream of absurd commercials, sobering news breaks, passing celebrities, and literati—all within some meshed nexus of 60s American cultural particulars. The channel-surfing, the self-absorbed talking heads, along with Tuna’s psychedelic imagination, and Bob’s strange “visions,” foreshadow our own, encroaching, device-driven fragmentation into collective psychosis.
Lastly, anyone familiar with professional screenplay specifications will soon notice that TUNA does not strictly adhere to those specifications. Realizing that TUNA was far more likely to be read in book form than viewed on any screen, I decided to base my format roughly on J.K. Rowling’s hardcover version of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald—The Original Screenplay. However, after publication a friend suggested that the work would have been more accurately called TUNA in POODERVILLE: A Teleplay, due to its serial-like structure. So, if TUNA ever is produced, it might play best as a three-to-sixpart television series. A dreamer (like TUNA) can always dream.
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