Daily Dialogue — January 28, 2016

TRACY: It wasn’t meant to be hurtful — I didn’t mean to hurt you, Brooke.
BROOKE (shaking with fury): You don’t get to decide what’s hurtful and not hurtful.
TRACY: I can only tell you my intention.
BROOKE: You wrote this after ONE night with me? ONE?!
TRACY: I guess so, yeah, it felt longer.
BROOKE: You think I’m a rotting carcass? That I’m doomed to failure???
TRACY: No! It’s fiction that’s why it’s fiction…
BROOKE: So much of this “fiction” did NOT happen this way. Karen, you’re a lawyer. I’m going to sue you until you have NOTHING.
TRACY: I’m just writing from my life…
BROOKE: No, this isn’t your life!
TRACY: But I was there that night.
BROOKE: NO! I was going to have that night anyway, you never were!
TRACY: But I did have it though.
BROOKE: You joined my life — you needed a place to go and I invited you in and then you stole my life. You’re a LEECH. A BLOODSUCKER.
TRACY: You loved being admired by me, you loved it, you loved having lessons to impart…
BROOKE: I DIDN’T ASK FOR YOU.

Tracy looks for support from Tony and Nicolette.

TRACY: Brooke, you know great plays, right? — how would it have been if Tennessee Williams hadn’t used people he knew, there wouldn’t be any plays, there wouldn’t –
BROOKE: I DON’T GIVE A SHIT BECAUSE I AM NOT A FRIEND OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS.
TRACY: You took something I said and made a tweet about it! What about that?
BROOKE: That’s different! You were right there! You knew I was Twittering, it wasn’t some sneaky shitty thing — do you want me to credit you? Or no I’ll just delete it.
TRACY: That’s not the point I’m asking you to empathize.
BROOKE: It’s my least popular tweet anyway!
TRACY: Stop talking about Twitter, it’s so awkward!
BROOKE: You are much more of an asshole than you initially appear.
NICOLETTE: I agree.
BROOKE (looking again at the story): And…you think I haven’t dealt with the pain of my mother’s death? I deal with it all the time, I talk about it all the time.
TRACY: You talk about it all the time, but you never talk about HER. You just throw out that she died and that shuts everyone up. Your tragedy is your armor in which nothing is ever your fault.
Brooke looks around, desperately wild eyed, looking for support.
BROOKE: PLEASE! PLEASE FRIENDS! SOMEONE DEFEND ME AGAINST THIS MONSTER!

Everyone jumps on Tracy, agreeing with Brooke, says she’s a dick.

KAREN: It’s like your whole generation, it’s all pastiche.

Mamie-Claire has been writing. She finishes and calmly joins the discussion.

MAMIE-CLAIRE: The emotional betrayal I can’t speak to –
TRACY: I didn’t “betray” her –
MAMIE-CLAIRE: But I can say that you portray women terribly. And because of that.

Mamie-Claire refers to her piece of neatly folded paper.

MAMIE-CLAIRE: I’ve prepared some questions I’d like you to think about.
TRACY: Are you fucking kidding me?
MAMIE-CLAIRE: And I want you to answer these questions, not for our satisfaction, but for your own.(gazing at her paper) One: Do you believe in the women’s right to choose?
TRACY: Yes, what does that –
MAMIE-CLAIRE: Excuse me, I’m not done.
BROOKE: She’s not done, bitch!
MAMIE-CLAIRE: Brooke, please. Two: What do you think someone who bombs abortion clinics would think of your story?
TRACY: There isn’t even an abortion in this story!
BROOKE: No you just portray women as crazy desperate gold diggers!
TRACY (to Brooke): You seemed so cool so totally amazing I didn’t think it would be possible to hurt you…
BROOKE: Of COURSE it’s possible, I am the MOST sensitive person…
MAMIE-CLAIRE: To your own feelings.
BROOKE (wailing): Mamie-Claire!
MAMIE-CLAIRE: Sorry, I don’t really think that, it’s just something I would have said at one time.
KAREN: I have to say, what you did to Brooke is f-ed up.
TRACY: Karen, you don’t see my side?
KAREN: No, sweetheart.
HAROLD: You don’t have a side you’re just wrong.
MAMIE-CLAIRE: You must call the Lit Society and tell them you’re withdrawing your essay–
TRACY: It’s not an essay, it’s a short story.
MAMIE-CLAIRE: This cannot appear in print or online. Karen, will you represent Brooke?
KAREN: I’m a tax attorney, but OK.
MAMIE-CLAIRE: Will you draw up a contract, please?
KAREN: Yes, and in the meantime, I’m going to ask you to rewrite the story and give Brooke the rewritten story. I’ll give you my email and you can BCC me.
NICOLETTE: She could just CC you.
TONY: Nic’s right, because we’d already know that you’re getting it…
KAREN: Sure, CC me.
HAROLD (sympathetically): Technology can be complicated.
DYLAN: I know! I just learned what “case sensitive” meant seriously yesterday.
TRACY: I’m not going to do any of this stuff. You’re my sister and I love you but I stand by what I did.
BROOKE: Guess what, bitch? My dad isn’t going to marry your slutty atheist mother so we’re not sisters. We never will be. We’re nothing to each other.

Mamie-Claire tucks her folded paper into Tracy’s pocket.

MAMIE-CLAIRE: There are ten questions there. All equally important for you to answer.
TRACY: Brooke…

— Mistress America (2015), written by Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Accused. Today’s suggestion by Katha.

Trivia: Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig worked on another screenplay after Frances Ha and it had the character of Brook in it. Gerwig started talking in the voice of Brooke, and they started writing more about Brooke and they thought: “Maybe we should give Brooke a movie.“

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Katha: “What‘s so funny in this scene: everybody is against Tracy, even the characters who were against Brook before, form a tribunal and bring their own themes in. And this tribunal don‘t stop — over 9 pages of the script.

You as a writer, who is inspired by persons around you every day: Is their accusation justified or false?”