Title: God Hates Fags
(One of Westboro Baptist Church?s web addresses)
TrixSamurai
A 19-year-old must bomb an LGBT community centre to re-enter her familial cult and free the secretly gay younger sister she failed to escape with one year earlier.
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An interesting premise.? And troubling.
I am fully aware of the Westboro Baptist Church’s odious activities and beliefs.? I am also responding as someone who in my callow youth was ensnared in a fundamentalist & apocalyptic religious cult.? (With less than zero tolerance for gays.) So I know only too well the powerful but invisible chains of dogma and emotion that can keep someone imprisoned in a cult.
From this logline I infer that her sister is not emotionally imprisoned (because she’s in the closet as to her sexual orientation), but literally imprisoned within a cult compound.? Is that the case?? Is she physically unable to escape? How so?? How do they keep her imprisoned?
This is a place where story ideas are vetted and brainstormed which sometimes entails asking for “spoiler” details.? So do you propose a plot where the protagonist actually bombs the LGBT center to get back inside?
The title suggests this is going to be a satire, while the logline suggests a thriller, however, you’ve classified this as a drama. In a drama it is the relationships between the principle characters that drives the story forward, not nefarious plots, but those relationships are missing in your logline. I assume she will have to deal with the cult leader, so tell us who he/she is and why he/she is so dangerous. Also, why does she love her sister so much she is willing to risk her life and sister’s life to get her out? How does she even know her sister wants out?
As for the plot, what is the inciting incident? Why must she free her sister now? She has been out of the cult for a year, what’s the hurry to act now? Why not join the FBI and come back in four years, fully trained, with the full might of the Justice department behind her?
Hi Trix,
Very interesting idea. Very edgy.
What are your film influences for this? All I could think of was “Martha Marcy May Marlene”.
INTENTION: free her sister.
OBSTACLE(s): having to bomb the LGBT community centre? the cult? the sister might not want to leave?
This is a quick go at chopping it down…
A teen sets out to bomb a LGBT community centre in order to free her younger sister who is being kept captive inside – in a familial cult.
It’s not wonderful. Not sure how clear it is that the cult is inside the LGBT centre. Certainly we need to find that out quickly. I personally think it feels too busy.
You could also do…
A teen sets out to free her younger sister who is being kept captive in a cult inside a LGBT community centre.
This one is shorter and arouses curiosity and anticipation. (I also got rid of the bomb part.)
I wasn’t sure what to do with the “sister being secretly gay” part. Whether it’s a hook/twist at the end of the logline or whether it even belongs in the logline.
?
Trix:
The 1st Amendment to the US Constitution (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…’) has been interpreted by the courts to grant individuals wide latitude in how they practice their religion. ? Including how parents impose their religious beliefs on their children.? For example, the cult I belonged to did not believe in vaccinations, did not believe in modern medicine. Period.
I myself find the invisible bondage of emotion and dogma more dramatically interesting to explore than any story with the visible bondage of chains or concrete or barbed wire.? But, imho, that is difficult for people immersed in the lifestyle and values of mainstream culture (as opposed to those of marginal cults) to apprehend, let alone convincingly dramatize.
I am reminded of a recent interview I read of Aaron Sorkin in which he describes how he writes anti-heroes: “You have to write the characters as if they’re making their case to God for why they should be allowed into heaven.? When you’re successful, you get people in the audience saying, ‘Huh, he’s got a point’ to stuff that makes them uncomfortable.”
If you can write all the cult characters like that — give them sincere, credible motivations and arguments for why they think they’re right, why you and the audience ought to at least consider that they just might have a point (no matter how discomfiting and onerous you find their values and praxis), then by all means.? But if you can’t, if you can only see them as deluded, mean-spirited, ignorant bigots and fanatics — well, it’s your story.
Your idea certainly topical and I believe there is a story to be told.? But…
My 2.5 cents worth.
Hmm – reading your ideas…
My only one myself – and feel free to reject this and spit on it…
I’d introduce the LGBT community centre as a mixed bag. But they’re mostly good. Angelic.
And the protagonist, we meet trying to figure out a way to get her sister back. And she’s desperate and dirty and flawed. (Admittedly, my big worry with this is if anyone would follow a character who is desperately trying to bomb a LGBT centre which is why you’d probably have to explain straight away and make sure there’s a huge dose of empathy.)
Hmm – you could even start it off with her moments away from planting a bomb and we go back in time to explain why…
Anyways, by the midpoint, we learn why protagonist desperately wants to get sister back, and we learn she was also there (I can’t help but feel this discovery should come later on). It feels like a twist.
By MP, we should learn there’s some bad apples in the LBGT cult. Like DPG said in his post. Make sure they can put up an argument for why they’re doing what they’re doing.
You’d have some real conflict – if they actually had solid reasons for keeping the sister there.
Perhaps the older sister has history of violence? Or escaped a mental institute or something. (These are pretty awful ideas, but, whatever gets the ball rolling.)
I’m gonna quote Aaron Sorkin about that conflict thing…
“Conflict isn?t just knuckle-boxing. Conflict can be a war of IDEAS. And you want the competing ideas to be equally strong.”
I got that quote from here…