Question: Do writers have a responsibility to avoid being “offensive”?

An Open Forum question from JD Walters:

Scott,

A more philosophical question. I’m thinking of movies that have provoked outrage on the grounds of (perceived) offensiveness in some way, from the depiction of Persians in 300 as decadent barbarians to Robert Downey Jr.’s repeated use of the ‘R’ word in Tropic Thunder.

My question is, do writers in your opinion have a responsibility to avoid being offensive? It seems to me that certain stories are almost guaranteed to be offensive, for example Scorcese’s depiction of Jesus in The Last Temptation, or the aforementioned examples. And yet all of these movies seem to me to have artistic merit and I have a hard time putting myself in the shoes of those who take offense. Sure, ideally we strive to write scripts with complex, nuanced characters and authentic human drama, but sometimes it seems there is a place for exaggeration and caricature. Thoughts?

In comments, Alex Jenson replied:

Reality is offensive, so any work that mirrors reality is only being truthful. If people cannot deal with high doses of reality in entertainment they are better off choosing their entertainment more carefully. People will always be offended by something or other. As long as you are not setting out to deliberately offend, I wouldn’t worry about it. Hollywood lives in closed-off, idealistic bubble most of the time. Anything that ruptures that pretension has to be a good thing, as long as it is done realistically and respectfully. But like I said, some people will always find something to complain about.

I suppose there are three sets of eyeballs through which to look at this question. The first is the general public. And as Alex suggests, there are always going to be some people who find something offensive. If you let your concerns about the public’s well-being control the content of what you write, the best you can hope for, I would think, is a blank page. And even that would offend some folks!

The second is the studios — as in what will they think the general public will find offensive. To them, there’s ‘offensive’ and offensive. One level or type of offensive can create so much backlash, ala The Last Temptation of Christ, that a studio may figure that they’re better off not making the movie (although by all accounts, the various religious-based protests against Last Temptation only helped to generate buzz and contributed to the film’s success at the box office). The other type of offensive is this:

There is nothing about this concept that is fresh — dorky guy lands a beautiful girl — except the fact that it is a hard R-rated movie. And while the so-called Moral Majority might rage against a movie like this, it’s precisely because of its presumed offensiveness that it will succeed in finding its audience — or the studio is praying that’s the case.

[A side note. I made my living for two years doing as a comedian. As a result, I got to watch a lot of stand-up comics in action. And it never ceased to amaze me how some guys dropped in an F-bomb or MF-bomb with every punch line. To me, that’s a cheap way of getting a laugh. And yet, more often than not, people laughed.]

A third perspective from which to look at the question is, in my view, the most important: Through the eyes of a writer. And my bottom line is that a writer has only one responsibility: To the story. That’s it. Whatever the story is, whatever tone of civility or lack thereof it dictates, that’s what the writer has to write. Period. End of subject.

Now per the exigencies of reality, we already know that no matter what we write, somebody is going to get upset. There’s another thing, too: Because movies are a ‘collaborative’ undertaking, once you get done with the script, you know it’s going to get screwed with. So for example, while you may have assiduously attempted to write a PG-13 movie, something for the whole family, if a studio exec walks into their office on a Monday morning, frothing over the fact that She’s Out Of My League did $100M its opening weekend, then decides to take your project, hand it over to another writer with the marching orders to “give me a hard R movie,” there’s nothing you can do about it.

So even if the decision about what your responsibility is is determined by your commitment to the story, these other factors also point a writer down that same road.

But people change. I had lunch with a screenwriter today. He told me he used to be into violent movies ala Reservoir Dogs. Once he became a father, he found out over time that he couldn’t write those type of movies anymore, that every story he writes now has a “happy ending.”

Like they say: “One man’s effing ceiling is another man’s effing floor.”

By the way, as a counterpoint to the above trailer, here’s a scene from the best damn TV show ever: “The Wire.”

From the 0:25 point on, every word the two cops utter is some version of the F-word. Some people might be offended by it. Me? I just think it’s brilliant writing.

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