3/28/2023 0 Comments A story about my uncle badgeI’ve been thinking about the state of affairs lately–commiserating is more accurate–and I’ve come down to the difference between words and deeds. The choice to quit becomes easier and easier, while the choice to endure–while not easier–becomes more familiar, more who you are, more intuitive and easy to make. I am curious to see if, 5 years from now, those two choices are repeated over and over. Secondly, It made me think of the long term consequences of both actions: quitting and choosing to suffer and finish. The trick is to write it in some new way, with some innovative twist.įirst of all, WELL DONE! That sounds BRUTAL. There’s no doubt in my mind that some version of this scene must be in there. Whatever story I’m working on, I must ask myself, “Do I have a Badge and Gun scene of some kind … and if not, why not?” It’s in Westerns, it’s in love stories, it’s in apocalyptic thrillers. In other words, some version of the “Turn in your badge and your gun” moment is a necessary beat across multiple genres. We want our protagonist to be all-in, hell or high water, do or die. If he or she were to back off at this moment, we would hurl tomatoes at the screen. In the audience, we love it because we get to see what the hero is made of. The price the hero must pay has been elevated dramatically. With this moment and the choice that has been thrust upon the hero, the story’s stakes have gone way up. In fact, the hero’s jeopardy is even worse because now she or he has been forbidden under penalty of law/expulsion/sanction from pursuing that (honorable) course. What this beat means for the hero is that he or she must decide, “Will I continue my quest (to solve the crime, to save the damsel, to redeem myself) even though society has revoked my official authority and I am now totally on my own?” This moment, it seems, is a mandatory station-stop on the hero’s journey. In the Special Forces, they take your tab. In the Navy, they tear off your petty officer’s stripes. It means our hero has been stripped of his or her societal authority. What does “your badge and your gun” really mean? I began thinking about this metaphorically. This same scene gets included by top-shelf writers and filmmakers over and over. In The French Connection, Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) is pulled off the case. The Silence of the Lambs, same thing, this time with Jodie Foster. Sure enough, they had a “Turn in your badge and your gun” scene. Last night I was watching the British series, The Bodyguard (which is really good) on Netflix. Richard Madden (he was Robb Stark in “Game of Thrones”) in Netflix’ “The Bodyguard” I remember thinking, “Really? Hasn’t that same moment been in every detective movie since silent pictures?” The director, Andy Davis, said, “We need a scene where Steve is ordered to turn in his badge and his gun.” We were working on the script for the first Steven Seagal movie, Above the Law.
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