(Ed. Note: Using his awesome foot massaging skills, Big Media Vandalism blog runner Odienator has managed to secure a meeting with the bigwigs at HBO. He is currently on-site trying to get a show-running gig at the network responsible for such classics as The Wire, Oz, Deadwood and The Sopranos.
We here at BMV have wired Odie, because we heard there are dragons and shit over there at HBO. Considering they rarely get to eat dark meat, we feared that Odie might look like a three-piece from Popeye's to these fire-breathing creatures. Big Media Vandalism's creator and spiritual lifeforce, Steven Boone stands ready to intervene should any shit go down. Let's listen in to Odie's meeting.)
ODIE
Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Big. Seriously, I can't believe that's your actual name. Is your last name short for anything?
MR. BIG
No, that's my full name. I'm a member of the New Haven Bigs. Our surname goes back to the Mayflower.
ODIE
Cool! The Mayflower Bigs! That's real cool! I appreciate your time today, sir. I promise you won't regret it!
MR. BIG
Time is money, kid. Grab those matches and light my cigar, will you? (Puff puff) Good. Good. Now, pitch me.
ODIE
OK. What had happened was: The other day, somebody in my Twitter feed tweeted a press release about your new show, Song of the South...
MR. BIG
You mean Confederate?
ODIE
Yeah, yeah, my bad! Confederate! Anyway, the showrunners' defense was that they were into "world creating" and that this new genre y'all got called "alt-history" was the hottest thing in TV.
MR. BIG
Indeed, we want to do something like The Man in the High Castle. We were rather pissed Netflix beat us to the punch in the alt-history game. And this sounds perfect--what if the South won the Civil War?
ODIE
Didn't that brother who co-wrote Chi-Raq already do this plot?
MR. BIG
There is nothing new under the Sun, Odie. Your Sunday School teacher taught you that, I am sure.
ODIE
She was too busy telling us that frankincense and myrrh were what the New Testament called weed. I guess she was dealing in Alt-history, right?
MR. BIG
The clock's ticking kid. Can't you hear the Hans Zimmer Dunkirk score playing on the PA system here?
HANS ZIMMER
Tick-tick-tick-tick. BRAAAAAAHHHHHM!!
ODIE
Sorry. OK, I'll be quick! So I got an idea for a new show that'll be as edgy and gritty as the shows HBO is known for. And it's a costume show with fierce creatures like Game of Thrones. Check this out. It's called Lions.
MR. BIG
What? Is this a spinoff of Empire?
ODIE
Not Cookie Lyon! Lions! You know, like the thing in the MGM logo?
MR. BIG
I see. Continue.
ODIE
OK, so we're in an alternate history where the Roman Empire never fell.
MR. BIG
Great! We won't have to cast any minorities in this.
ODIE
It's not gonna matter, you'll see! So you know how, back in Roman times, the emperor would have Colisseum events where he fed people to the lions?
MR. BIG
Yeah, I saw Gladiator.
HANS ZIMMER
(Few notes of Gladiator score plays, then) BRAAAAAAHHHHNMMM!
ODIE
Your Muzak is fuckin' lit, Mr. Big. But anyway! Anyway! We're going to tell this story from the lions' point of view.
MR. BIG
Wait, what?
ODIE
An example! Just hear me out. You mentioned the Bible a minute ago--well, remember when Daniel was in the Lions' Den? Well, we recreate that shit as a flashback because our main human is a descendant of Daniel's. And when God delivers Daniel from the Lions' Den, we'll have a lion saying "Ain't this a bitch? That mu'fucka looked delicious!"
MR. BIG
This is absurd, Odie. Lions don't talk, for starters, and we haven't done animation at HBO since Happily Ever After.
ODIE
No no! This will be live-action. We got some CGI lions voiced by famous actors. Anthony Hopkins can be a lion. Al Pacino--he's done like 40 movies for you guys already--he can be a lion. Oh, James Earl Jones! He can bring that Mufasa shit! And Patrick Stewart too!
MR. BIG
You really think Patrick Stewart would play a talking lion, kiddo?
ODIE
Hey, he's playing a talking piece of shit in that Emoji movie. A chatty lion with a nappy-ass mane would be a step up for him!
MR. BIG
I've heard enough. Security!! Get this fool out of my office!
ODIE
Wait! Wait! Security, please! Before you drag me outta here, I got one more idea. Please, Mr. Big. You know you need more minority show runners up in here when the shit truly hits the fan over this slave fan fiction show you're doing. You need me, dude! Give me one more pitch!
MR. BIG
All right. But this better not have any talking ferrets or tubas and shit in it.
ODIE
No. No. Just real people! OK, this time, it's an alt-history look at the last 8 years. Remember how some folks were scared that, if Obama got elected, he'd enslave all of White America? Well, I'm pitching that this shit ACTUALLY HAPPENS. Every White person's a slave! We can get Margot Robbie as a runaway slave doing illegal TV transmissions on a network called Br'er Fox News and...
MR. BIG
Security!! Drag his dumb, country ass outta here!
ODIE
Wait...waaaaait!
HANS ZIMMER
(End transmission)
2 comments:
Yew stewpih!!! Hans Zimmer's sudden appearance made me do an Arsenio spit take. I'm barely acquainted with all the alt-history or fantasy-history or edgy-history shows of recent years, but many of them do strike me as, essentially, on-the-low odes to ((white)) power and treachery. (I actually got run out of the country for not grooving to GAME OF THRONES. But it seems the whole world has been colonized by that show's fascination with White Ferocity. Next time you see Mr. Big, put in a good word for me.)
Yeah, I'd like to see some alt-history more along the lines of that jet black fashion model who re-created famous white-woman ads after she being consistently rejected by agencies that "already had" a black girl.
But anyway, kid, based on this piece, you're hired to write my all-Nigerian remake of KRULL, directed by Andrew Dosunmu, lit by my teeth.
Can we get Kevin Hart to play Krull?
Game of Thrones is loved by far too many people. I watched two episodes of it and was so turned off by it I never looked again. And yet, when the showrunners want to do some "world buildin' with y'all Negroes," we gotta be slaves. We can't have dragons. "They might set homegirl's Weave on fire," says the showrunners. "Y'all gotta be slaves."
Another alt-history show I would have pitched if HBO hadn't released the hounds on my ass would be:
Elvis discovers he's Black, and is so upset he becomes a big Country singer instead. He has to kill people to keep his secret from becoming exposed, but he's accidentally outed as Black when he records "In the Ghetto."
You're right. I'm stewpih!
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