Anyone want to see this movie??

I got this blind query letter in my email at work today:

Subject: Screenplay query from optioned writer: 'Jack The Lad' (comedy)

Jack The Lad is a daring comedy that has a heart of gold. Jack is a serial womaniser and the only relative of a very old gay uncle.
When the uncle dies, Jack is left two million dollars - with one condition. He must stop casual dating and live as a gay man and find a gay housemate for three months and prove to an attorney that he has a feminine side. He is not allowed any female contact or he loses.
The attorney is crooked and is determined to catch Jack out.
Can Jack resist temptation? What will his true love think of the "new" Jack? Will Jack indeed become a better person and win the money?

-Mike

I sent an email back that said:

Dear Mike, I'll take a look at this script if you think I'll enjoy it. I'm a 35 year old, gay, development exec.

No response yet.

UPDATE: Mike emailed me the script along with the note, "I hope you enjoy it." I did not and responded with, "Thank you for sending the script but there's no place I can take this to. I have to pass. Respectfully, -- Kerry Bailey."

I did read the entire thing, and purposefully tried to be subjective about it, after all, I don't know whether the writer is gay or straight. The character of Jack lives with a gay roommate for 3 months and his revelation at the end of the script is that thanks to his roommate, his apartment has never been cleaner and he's never been better taken care of. In the last scene Jack decides to take the gay roommate along with his new girlfriend on a holiday. The reason I passed is because the gay character winds up playing a nanny role or a manservant to Jack, and is supposed to be fulfilled by such a position.

Comments

[ant]

Was it funny at all? Comedy is hard. Maybe you were looking for all the bad points my son ... nothing in it all that made you smile? Did you make it past page 10? If I write a script will you read it? Jack the lad? cute would be better if he was Gay had to live with a women for three months and not see men. And get the money in the end only to give it to Bono. The money that is and Marry his true love ... Tom C..

[Chuck]

Isn't this essentially Three's company with Money?

That show wasn't funny either (but I watched it for some reason...)

[Tom Coates]

Hang on, this is fucking appalling. This isn't just a trivial little thing, this is a really big deal. I don't know when it became okay to use all the old gay stereotypes with a gays aren't so bad really message and have it fly! I mean, just because you say gay people are all right and everything doesn't give people the right to subsequently launch into gay people are ballerinas or camp or feminine or clean or whatever. There are gay people who fit these stereotypes and we shouldn't abandon them by any means, but for Christ's sake, it's hardly in any way representative of the largest proportion of gay people, myself or Kerry or any of the gay people I know, for example.

I'm really beginning to find this troubling. Now even apparently smart people think it's okay to use these stereotypes because they've been disconnected from bile against gay people. The Dirk Bogarde film 'Victim' was a better representation of gay people than this stuff.

Straight people, increasingly, are really pissing me off. RAH!

[Lubin Odana]

It would have been a better script if Jack the Lad realises he can get more (and better) sex with men, discovers his bisexual side and becomes a jaded Chelsea queen, living only for the white parties, addicted to Crystal Meths.

Or perhaps not

[Phil]

Now even apparently smart people think it's okay to use these stereotypes because they've been disconnected from bile against gay people.

I think this is an important point (admittedly, I came here from Tom's blog). I think Ricky Gervais hit the right uneasy note with the 'screaming queen' subplot in the first series of Extras - some gay stereotypes are ridiculous, but laughing at gay stereotypes is still laughing at gays.

[Michael]

A ghetto's a ghetto. We're in it as soon as we are objectified as part of a Them-group. As I get old and intellectually lazy, though, I'm less sure of how much that matters. I'm not sure there is an Us-group, you see, that holds all the levers of power, or that I want to love and understand me. The world is everyday more fractured, and Them vs. Us gives way to an endless cycle of Them-versus-Them-versus-Them-versus-Them-versus-Them-versus-Them-versus-Them-versus-Them-versus-Them-versus-Them-versus-Them-versus...

The only response is, of course, "Fuck Them!" Really. Fuck everybody you can.

[ant]

we are one ... gay men piss, shit, love, bleed and hate so do all men and all woman. One race human. Hate will kill us all. Love will change and free
all. Groups, tribes and all that you and us shit has to go. be who you are and if people don't like it love em. That will fuck them up!