Pitching “The Sacred Whore”

The Sacred Whore is a dark comic thriller that digs into the chronic ills of our spastically contradictory world. We care. But we don’t. What better way to address that malaise than through shootouts, car chases and furiously sexy women?

Sean Baker’s magnificent Tangerine, his first film to focus on sex workers

It begins with a tractor-trailer trip across the country during which one of the sex workers, Corinne, assaults a would-be rapist, altering the direction of their journey. Some of the women – led by Ave and Dorothy – decide upon an outrageous plan to kidnap a college basketball team at the Final Four Tournament and demand primetime coverage to air their views on the moral destitution in America.

Others, led by Corinne, Chantal and Savannah, leave for Las Vegas where they confront JP, the queen-pin in charge of the sex trafficking network. The original group, now named The New World Brigade, dress up as cheerleaders and successfully hijack the college team bus. In Las Vegas, after maiming JP and executing her security team, Corinne is badly wounded by a police counter attack.

Chantal and Savannah find themselves in a hostage-taking situation and reach out to The New World Brigade, hoping to obtain leverage. After tense negotiations with the authorities, The New World Brigade returns with the team to the arena where each of the women post video statements on the travails of sex work. Chantal kidnaps a FBI agent, leading to a car chase in which she and Savannah are both killed. Stunned by this tragic turn of events, Ave delivers an emotional speech on live television, the final scene revealing Corinne opening her eyes to watch the broadcast from her hospital bed.

The Sacred Whore empowers and celebrates sex workers as complex individuals, rather than the tropes and cartoonish figures we have become accustomed to seeing. Outrageous truth drives the spectacle.

My Screaming Pitch – Cx! Cx!

I do my research and read the tweets and bios of the agents who specifically request speculative fiction. And I make my pitch. “No” is all I hear.

The biggest clunker came from an agent asking exactly for what I am writing – a generational ship off to a distant planet – and I got this form-letter response.

My Cx Trilogy pitch must be more of a scream. They need to know that the book is the future of the speculative genre. It is real. It is direct and clear. It has the voice of terror as we go straight off the cliff. In other words, it’s now or never. Now. Or never.

One step at a time. I’m getting there.

Impossible Script Pitch: I Am Elephant

A Bill Murray character pitches the idea of a long-time hockey fan who comes early to his team’s games to watch warm-ups and befriends the opposing goalie before the Stanley Cup finals by talking about gladiator mentality of the goalie, the defender of the universe. He helps him sort his game sticks as he realizes an opportunity to damage his confidence and so help his team win. He takes him out afterwards to a bar and tries to get him drunk, to no avail. The goalie, Elephant, sneaks into a private club which our hero tries over and over to break in and succeeds at the end, finding friends and family inside, with Elephant. He is admonished by all, but promises that there is a plan, citing winning the lottery as the first point. No one believes him until he locks into a death stare – performed by John Turturro and Elephant – during which there is a back and forth series of accusations which makes everyone tear with laughter. 

The agent loves the pitch and commissions it to his go-to – played by Tom Hanks – who sets up his work space into a giant white room like a hockey rink to begin the process. Bill Murray’s character is devastated and sets up his massive musical pitch “I am Elephant” during which a giant King Kong set arises out of the dim with the chant of “I am Elephant” as Murray holds up a placard and high-fives a series of animals – elephants, tigers, hippos, Tony the Tiger, etc. – who come out the King Kong door and then from the opposite way, as the scene devolves into chaos – llamas, sharks, emus parading past. However, the agent is sold on the pitch of the Murray character getting to write, and Tom Hanks bows out gracefully. Murray goes on to write the story in which it is revealed that Elephant the goalie actually is using the fan as part of his routine in the championships, always pretending and manipulating opposing fans to his side. Even with this revelation, they all still love Elephant who lets in the losing goal at the end.