Confessions (Part 2 of the script)

I, Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman, am the primary author of Daria (the movie), a parody of some of the contemporary practices in making movies. It does not originate with Touchstone Pictures or MTV.

I would like to apologize to everyone whose work I plagiarized, starting with the people at MTV who invented Daria and bring it to us. A great deal of material has been taken from many of the canonical Daria episodes shown so far as of this writing (especially “Esteemsters”, “The Invitation”, “The Lab Brat”, “The Big House”, “Road Worrier”, and “Quinn the Brain”) and the never-finished pilot, “Sealed with a Kick”, as well. Also I have tapped material from The Daria Diaries by Anne D. Bernstein. Most of this material has been rearranged and twisted out of its original context. In some cases the material is barely recognizable (e.g., a phrase taken from a song sung by the Gupty children in “Pinch Sitter” and turned on its head). You can blame me for what happened to the Mystik Spiral songs.

I’d also like to implicate, besides myself, my brother Barry. You can blame Barry for much of the choice of actors, Quinn’s nickname (“the Attention-Slut”), Daria’s clothes, some of the warped things that happen (such as the exploding car engine), most of the interviews, most of the pictures (but not the logos), and for pushing me to warp this script in ways it would not be warped otherwise. Barry is exclusively responsible for the presence of most of the Beavis and Butt-Head characters, whom I know very little about. (I’ve seen very little of Beavis and Butt-Head. When Barry and I sat down to watch two episodes of the show to properly evaluate its worth on its own merits, we soon came to the conclusion that, in and of itself, it had no merits. The pathetic duo got in here only so that I could have nasty things happen to them.) Thus I wrote Stewart as I thought would fit well into the script. Information about Todd, however, is abundantly available in Daria fan fiction; since he is universally depicted as scum and was useful as scum, he was written in this script as scum. Barry is responsible for Andrea being in Mystic Spiral and Daria not playing an instrument; I find it hard to dispute that a flute does not make a good addition to a rock band. Upchuck’s science project is Barry’s fault; it only made it in because it was the most Upchuckian thing I’d ever heard of.

This script does not go as far in cruelty of parody that it might had someone else written it; the author’s religiocultural background is such that there were certain things he could not bring himself to write. Had someone less morally bound written this parody, there is little doubt that 1) the language would have been much cruder, if not outright obscene, and 2) it would be sexually much more explicit, violating even the loosest standards of decency possible without receiving an NC-17 rating. As things were, my standards were seriously bent to the point of discomfort as is. If the script for Daria 2: Quinn’s Revenge is ever written, these standards may well be tightened.

Thanks to Kara Wild for making a dig at the choice of Jennifer Love Hewitt for playing Daria in her “Of Absolute Value”.

Barry Eshkol Adelman’s confession

GUS

It must really be somethin’—makin’ stuff up all the time.

He watches her in the rearview mirror.

CATHERINE

It teaches you to lie.

GUS

How’s that?

CATHERINE

You make it up, but it has to be believable. They call it suspension of disbelief.

GUS

I like that. “Suspension of Disbelief.”

I, Barry Eshkol Adelman, do hereby confess to being the second author of a script of an adaptation of MTV’s Daria which was to be presented in such a way as to be ambiguous whether it was a real movie script or a cruel piece of fanfic or parody. I also confess to having created several pictures to be presented ambiguously as to whether they are fan artwork or actual movie stills and publicity shots. As to why I would involve myself in this project, that stems from two interrelated reasons. The first is Hollywood puts out too many movies that should have never been made, the second that Hollywood usually does a horrible job adapting other works to the big screen.

In recent years, it seems, there has been an explosion of very expensive movies, typically with great special effects, which otherwise suck beyond belief. Somewhere a lot of people have forgotten that you need a decent plot and writing to make a good movie, and that if a movie wouldn’t be worth watching if it had to be done with the special-effects techniques available in the 1970s, it probably isn’t worth making with the current ones. I suspect that a lot of these movies result in part from all the fun things that can be done with computers now, which encourages some movie makers to plan their movies around what kind of effects can be done rather than the writing. Even when there are special effects are not the focus of the film, filmmakers often focus more on the sensational parts than they need to.

The second complaint, that adaptations of other works are often unfaithful and usually poor, has a long history; anyone who’s read The Wizard of Oz and seen the movie MGM put out in 1939 will know the movie is not very faithful to the book. (Of course, unfaithful adaptation long preceded movie-making. William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, for example, is often severely different from the legend he based it on. Fortunately, in this case, the adaptation stood fairly well on its own merits.) If anything, a lot of the more recent adaptations are even worse than MGM did around sixty years ago. For example, the recent adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau had some wonderful makeup, but the script was so stupid (and the performance by Marlon Brando so bad) that it was torturous to watch. Needless to say, any resemblance to the book was coincidental. One can point to other adaptations from Casper (in which only the title character appeared in the original cartoons) to The Flintstones to the third and fourth Batman movies, and the trend that emerges appears very disconcerting.

The question of what the resulting film would be like if Daria were adapted into a big-budget live-action movie like The Flintstones or Casper arose with Aaron, the impetus being the recent Hallmark-sponsored corruption of Alice in Wonderland that appeared as a TV movie. While the special effects were decent, the movie was not. While the script plainly betrays that the writers actually read the book, material was added and deleted and scenes were twisted out of their original context. While Lewis Carroll’s book was very dreamlike, the movie was more in the spirit of a bad acid trip. A lot of other TV movies in recent years have had the same problem, such as the version of Gulliver’s Travels starring Ted Danson and the recent version of Brave New World, both of which also demonstrated enough details to show the writers read the originals, but in both cases either the writers didn’t understand what they were reading and/or thought they would be able to improve upon it, resulting in travesties which gut the original intentions of the authors and largely suck. In this context, Aaron began to write, using Daria as a basis, trying to parody the kinds of stupid things that occur in the transition between the original book or series and overbudgeted blockbuster.

From the beginning I have helped shape this work and eventually came on as second author when I had thought up material I could directly contribute. My earliest influence was on the choice of the leading actors, and how badly Hollywood casts these days. Among the worst offenders are Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, my personal pet peeves (which included Chris O’Donnell as Robin, who is supposed to be a child, Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl, who for starters is supposed to be a redhead, and Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face, a role he played really badly and which also contradicts the first movie, where the role of Harvey Dent went to Billy Dee Williams; Williams would have probably made a much more interesting Two Face anyway), though there are other equally bad examples to be found (such as the recent Disney corruption of Inspector Gadget, in which the actor cast as the title character, Matthew Broderick, looks nothing like the cartoon character). Also to be considered was the frequent practice in movies and TV of casting as teenagers people many years removed from being teenagers (such as in Wild Things, in which Denise Richards, who had to be about 25 at the time, was cast as an 18-year-old). In this context, it was hard to top Hollywood, but I felt most of the choices were plausible given the way casting is done today if the casting was done right now. (Obviously one couldn’t cast most of the actors now for if the movie were to be made 20 years from now as it is supposed to be (Aaron’s idea, since the adaptations are done well after the series they are based on were done) since most of the relevant actors are as of this writing currently very small children or yet to be born.) Jennifer Love Hewitt was the obvious choice for the role of Daria, having achieved a high level of fame for her regular role on Party of Five and for her breasts starring in I Know What You Did Last Summer. Of course she looks and sounds nothing like the character, but those criticisms are equally valid for her being cast as Audrey Hepburn, a rumor I’ve been hearing lately. Christina Ricci, of course, did a fairly good job of doing an emotionally muted voice as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family, but given how badly Hollywood casts in many cases, it seemed plausible, if not likely, that she wouldn’t be cast in the title role. However, she is a big name in Hollywood, and she usually has black hair, so it seemed reasonable she would land the part of Jane. Keri Russell was cast as Quinn for her title role on Felicity (a bit of cruelty on my part; someone I know is a regular viewer of this show). We were actually much less certain about who should play Quinn than Daria. Jakob Dylan of the Wallflowers was cast for his superficial resemblance to Trent, and Denise Richards was cast as a Sandi for her recent roles in Wild Things and the critically defamed Starship Troopers. Other roles were filled for varying reasons, such as typecasting (e.g., Joey Lawrence as Kevin because he played an idiot on Blossom, Jonathan Taylor Thomas as Upchuck because his character was somewhat sneaky and manipulative at times on Home Improvement, Jeff Goldblum as a dorky producer because, as Conan O’Brien pointed out, he’s played a dork in just about every movie he’s been in), jokes (e.g., Shirley Manson as Mrs. Manson), because it just seemed right (e.g., Melissa Joan Hart as Brittany), bad analogies (e.g., Lucy Lawless, who plays the strong but sexually egalitarian Xena, Warrior Princess was cast as the misandric Janet Barch, a plausible stupid thing Hollywood would do), and desperation (most of the male teenage roles were cast by going through about every sitcom and drama currently on broadcast TV and pulling the relevant actors).

I soon became involved in other aspects, such as faking the pictures, and then things just snowballed and I got sucked into it. (This happens too often.) While Aaron’s fear of this work becoming NC-17 if he wasn’t religious is probably a bit inflated (even adaptations of cartoons rarely add in explicit sex unless they really are porno movies), he did keep a lid on some of the more extreme inflation which could have quickly become implausible, even for Hollywood. (It is Daria, not South Park. Though I wouldn’t think it out of character for Daria to say in perfect deadpan mode “Hi, I’m Daria. F*** you.”) I am the one responsible for Upchuck and Brittany’s science project, including the Princess Leia outfit, as well as for a lot of the “naughty bits” (though Aaron, for a religious person, has a rather dirty mind). Of course, all the Hollywoodesque changes (I tried to keep things believable, at least so far as how Hollywood warps things) would be abhorrent to the (original version of) the title character, from the selection of the actor downwards. (I can imagine Tracy Grandstaff saying it now: “Oh, yes, Jennifer Love Hewitt. A fine actress there.”) If most Daria fans are half as smart as the character on the show, they can see through all the hype and BS which such bad movies depend on to draw audiences. This may be the only thing standing between good taste and a travesty of an adaptation of Daria, where the series as we know it is put through a meat grinder with heavy doses of flash and filler and little of real substance. Unfortunately, too many decent books and series will suffer this fate.

If there’s one thing I regret about this script, it’s that parts of it are too good, perhaps more decent material than would be in a real Schumacher movie.

I would like to apologize to the musical artists listed as contributing songs. Aside from Hewitt, Brandy, and the Wallflowers, who automatically got included because they and the latter’s lead signer are cast (Shirley Manson’s inclusion, in contrast, was just a whimsey; my original idea was to cast Marilyn Manson as Mrs. Manson (in drag, of course) before I rethought it), I tried to suggest a fairly decent selection of artists so the sound-track could hypothetically do what the sound-tracks of many other films have done and outsold the associated films. Aside from some real songs (Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Garbage’s “Push It,” Nine Inch Nails’ “Head like a Hole,” Hole’s “Celebrity Skin,” “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “It’s All about the Pentiums,” Bananarama’s “Venus,” and Offspring’s “The Kids Aren’t Alright”), many of the songs are fake, though some are extended versions of Mystik Spiral songs, either from the show or the books, so don’t go looking for a copy of “Misery Loves Company”. Natalie Merchant, from what I’ve read, has performed “Sympathy for the Devil” in concert but has not put it on a single or album (I think). “O Canada” is obviously the national anthem of Canada. The adaptations of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky are just whimseys on my part, and they don’t exist either, though both I think would be interesting (and workable yet scary) pieces. The Mozart piece “Revenge” is supposed to be the aria “Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen” (literally “The Hell-Revenge Cooks in My Heart”) from the opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), warped into a rock adaptation and sung by Mariah Carey. For those whose only exposure to Mozart is the movie Amadeus, check out the scene where Wolfgang’s mother-in-law is griping at him about why Constanze left him, her voice getting faster and faster, with the scene finally changing to a piece being sung by someone resembling Glinda the Good from MGM’s 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz. Yes, that song. While the libretto for The Magic Flute is the operatic equivalent of a B-movie, this is a kick-ass song with lyrics best described as something out of Melrose Place. Mariah “Seven-Octave Range” Carey, having some operatic training, is well qualified to sing it. The Tchaikovsky piece “Romeo and Juliet Overture” is that quite literally, being taken from the relevant ballet music and adapted for heterodox instrumentation. Just think of the theme used in almost every comedy when two characters have a love-at-first sight incident; that occurs about halfway through the overture. A treble viol, by the way, is a member of the viol or viola da gamba family, which are bowed string instruments with flat backs, tuned in fourths, and having frets. (Die-hard Daria fans will remember Ted mentioning a viola da gamba in the episode “The New Kid.”) I would like to sincerely apologize to Splendora for having Hewitt perform “You’re Standing on My Neck”; this seemed a probable thing that would be done should this travesty of a movie come to pass. Besides, it was Aaron’s idea. The inclusion of “Weird Al” Yankovic is completely Aaron’s fault.

Inclusion for the nonmusic and nonacting credits was completely as a badge of shame for having worked on a movie that might have been better left unmade. Schumacher, of course, made the atrocious Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, all of which included abominable casting, really bad writing, several memorably poor performances, and costumers with way too much free time and black rubber on their hands. Other films which were examined for potential reprisals included Independence Day, Casper, Lost in Space, Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, and <writhing> Event Horizon, the last of which might be considered a capital offense. Dino de Laurentiis was included for his roles in such films as Flash Gordon and Dune.

Since Aaron has done a pretty good job covering Daria-related sources which contributed to this work, I would like to cover other sources. The style of the Sick, Sad World report was inspired by Monty Python’s Flying Circus, particularly the sketch about the Pirhana brothers titled “Ethel the Frog.” (I can still imagine parts of it being spoken by John Cleese and Eric Idle.) While a lot of Monty Python is very funny, I’ve met too many people whose imitation of them crosses over from flattery to being irritating. Some movies made fairly direct contributions. Daria’s costume was largely influenced by Jennifer Love Hewitt’s costume in Can’t Hardly Wait. (This same movie also fortuitously had Melissa Joan Hart with ponytails, the only source I’ve found.) The coloration of Daria’s clothes (black and gray) was influenced by the Batman series, where the Dark Knight was also dressed in black, at least until Schumacher did funky things with the costumes. Return of the Jedi made a bizarre, indirect contribution when Melissa Joan Hart in real life dressed in the Hutt slave girl costume in public and someone posted the pictures on the Internet; one of these shots was the basis of a faked photograph, which in turn influenced the story. Other movies from which pictures were culled include I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, The Ice Storm, Jawbreaker, Election, and Wild Things, as well as the television programs Felicity, Moesha, Dawson’s Creek, Clueless, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Home Improvement, and That ’70’s Show, as well as many magazines. The picture in the background behind Uma Thurman/Claire DeFoe is “The Shootings of May 3rd, 1808” by Francisco Goya. (This picture, attentive viewers will remember, was in the episode “Daria Dance Party.”) The framed picture in the background behind Jonathan Taylor Thomas/Upchuck Ruttheimer is by Sorayama Hajime. This was a tougher choice as one could easily imagine Upchuck putting up posters of Carmen Electra but Aaron would flip. I suppose some of the tamer Nagels would have gotten past him, but somehow sticking a piece of robot erotica back there made sense as it not only was consistent with his overriding interest in sex, but also with him being a bit “off.” The term “goal-post head” (blame Aaron) was borrowed from the British science-fiction show Red Dwarf, though the denotation was different. (Its use was appropriate, though; Tommy Sherman is a smeghead.) One of the fights contained moves inspired by those on Xena: Warrior Princess (duh!). The Sammy Hagar reference was suggested by an episode of VH1’s Pop-Up Video, in which the lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs to follow Natalie Merchant was referred to as Mary “Sammy Hagar” Ramsey. Exploding cars and roof-jumping (among others) are classic movie cliches. All names, places, products, events, etc. in this work, the “unofficial” movie page, and in the faked pictures were used in the name of parody and satire; no infringement of copyright was intended nor any actual attribution of work not actually done implied. The only thing meant in this prank is criticism of artistic output (or too often a lack thereof).

I’d also like to comment on where this script deviated from the premise of a typical Hollywood corruption of something much better. One significant deviation was that both the heroes (Daria and Jane) and the villains (Quinn and Sandi) are female. Typically either both are male or some mixture. (Trent, while undeniably a good guy, is more of a love interest than an active hero in the script; Jesse became a glorified extra.) The only film I can think of offhand which did this is Supergirl, not exactly a blockbuster nor the height of film artistry. This deviation happened because the villain roles got doled out largely along the lines they seem to be happening all too commonly in fanfic; since Daria and Jane are the persecuted good guys, Quinn is often the baddie, and Sandi is typically demonized. (Austin Covello has commented that in fanfic Sandi is often portrayed as something far more monstrous than she ever has been as yet in the actual cartoons.) As Aaron pointed out, some parts were influenced by fanfic, especially fanfic cliches (such as the Daria-Trent relationship, which was highly accelerated in the script, and the Jane-Jesse relationship, which doesn’t even exist in the original cartoon), and probably more cliches and themes from that source made it in than even he realized (such as switching Andrea from a minor to a major character, Daria writing for and/or singing in Mystik Spiral, the use of spying equipment, Upchuck using said equipment, the downfall of the Fashion Club, any mention of Beavis and Butt-Head, and so forth). (I’m not immune. I hope in the cartoon they do make more use of Andrea, get Daria and Trent together, and bring down the Fashion Club, though with the latter they’d have to introduce something even nastier to take its place.) Rejoining the topic of having both the heroes and the villains female, the alternative would have been to make one of the male teachers the main villain of the story (not as common in the fanfic I’ve read, but not unknown; this is invariably DiMartino since O’Neill is as unthinkable as a baddie as Van Driessen) or introduce an outside character as the villain, such as a greedy land developer, Buzzcut out to get revenge on Daria for leaving him a “going-away present,” or a politician who outlaws something near and dear to the heroes. (Obviously Beavis and Butt-Head couldn’t be the villains since Daria would defeat them too easily and there would be no story.) If the joked-about sequel Daria 2: Quinn’s Revenge ever gets written (which would try to spoof all the stupid things that happen in movie sequels, of course), the appearance of a male villain is a significant possibility. (Perhaps DiMartino coming after Daria with a chainsaw...) The second major deviation, and one that bothered me a little (both because it is a fairly unpleasant comment on many filmmakers and because it does cut down on the believability of this being an actual script) is the use of various stereotypes in films, which annoyingly occur even in some fairly recent examples (such as Independence Day). Given the one-sided, unfair nastiness towards environmentalists, the “Batperson” crack, and kooky scientists becoming baddies in Batman & Robin, I seriously doubt Schumacher and Goldsman would think twice (if at all) before having Mack spout gangsta-rap lingo and carry a handgun, labeling Barch a “feminist,” and perhaps even making Daria a screaming wuss who needs Trent to rescue her from Quinn’s machinations. Some movie idiocies are just too repugnant. (Sadly, some fanfic writers slip here too. I have seen several fanfics where Barch is called a “feminist,” but not one where someone points out this is wrong. Going by the (original, technical, proper) definition of a feminist as a sexual egalitarian, Barch is clearly not a feminist. She is a misandrist, a man-hater, something which is commonly misidentified. Many misandrists call themselves feminists, probably so they can use it as an excuse to be rotten towards men. It is doing a disservice to the genuine article to be confusing it with something no more justifiable or acceptable than misogyny or racism. End of rant.) Finally, despite our best efforts to do a terrible job, I think this came out better than most of the movies that come out these days. Sadly, this isn’t too hard to do.

I’d also like to comment on some of the people we’ve criticized, often really harshly, but in some cases there may yet be hope. Regarding Hewitt, the assessment of her acting abilities, of course, was made from the roles she’s actually played, which so far have been lackluster choices. For all I know she might surprise the hell out of everyone and pull this role off brilliantly if the movie were actually made, but based on what I’ve seen, I doubt it. I ran into a transcript of an interview she did on AOL in 1996 while researching for this work in which she mentioned not having taken acting classes and wanting to do some independent films, neither of which I am aware has been acted on in the past few years. (Yes, I'm aware of Telling You. While it is technically an independent film, the reviews I've read of it (I haven't been able to find it in the local video store) were very negative. The key is to get into good independent films.) Given where she is at the time of this writing, she could certainly do a lot to better herself in the eyes of critics as well as her career. I’d strongly suggest some acting classes to her for a start, as well as getting some better roles than milk-toast girlfriend and teenager being chased by an insane fisherman. Independent films would be a good place to find better roles, though she could potentially get lucky with a studio film. Trying a role no one would think of her in and successfully pulling it off might do wonders for her image with critics and even fans. (A terrorist, a street-walker, a con artist, just anything but what she’s done before. I hate to say this since it sounds like something a bad parent would say, but, Hewitt, why can’t you be more like your co-star?) Akiva Goldsman is a tougher case, but there may be hope for him still since even in his writing there’s the occasional item of interest. Even though he totally screwed up Lost in Space and fundamentally misunderstood Dr. Smith, I do have to give him credit that he took Penny Robinson, who was a walking prop in the series, and gave her some personality. (Resentful teenager beats walking prop any day.) If he were to concentrate less on one-liners and flash and write more for plot and character, there might yet be hope that he will someday write something worth making. Given that Lost in Space and Deep Blue Sea even got made suggests that people blame Schumacher more than him for Batman Forever and Batman & Robin and that his career is not irretrievably ruined. As I suggested with Hewitt, I hope Goldsman makes the best of his current situation and, instead of churning out “more of the same” tries to write something that critics will like for a change. And as for Joel Schumacher, may I suggest he does everyone a favor, enjoy the money he made off all of us, and go into retirement. And if this document gets back to MTV (which it probably will at some point, right after Hewitt has people on the street call “Hey, misery chick!” after her to her utter confusion), when you do make the movie, please do it as a cartoon.

On a final note, while I have your attention, I would like to remind everyone of their own part they played in all this. While it does not lessen the offense of the responsible filmmakers, one important reason why so many bad movies are made today is because we, the film-going public, will very often go see them. If people did not turn out in droves for such travesties, there would be no economic reason to make them. As much as we may want to deny it, by not being more selective about which movies we go to see and what television programs we watch, by not taking more interest in the reviews before heading out the door, going to the video store, or reaching for the remote control, by being willing to put down another seven dollars without considering what we will be watching, we are supporting the very thing we so often complain about. Films are usually made to make money, and by allowing ourselves to be drawn to anything with a lot of big-name stars, fancy visual effects, or the lure of outright gratuitous sex and violence, we can only ensure that the status quo will endure. Next time, before going to the movies or renting a video, take a moment to check the reviewers’ comments. Get input from trusted friends who have seen the movie if you can and ask yourself if it is really worth the money.