Five Smiling Fish

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Saturday Night Live (Fiction Workshop): Movies about Writing

This is a silly choice, but here’s a short from Saturday Night Live. This is from earlier this March (2022) when Oscar Issac hosted.

In this five minute skit, a teacher at a monthly writer workshop invites the custodian to sit in on their session because she always sees him with a book in his hand. Custodian Michael (Issac) reveals that is own writing is his late night fantasies about Dua Lipa coming to the school late at night looking for him. The writing instructor, realizing where this is going, tries to stop him. However, the male writers in the room urge him on while the female writers try not to listen.

The instructor, wanting to be supportive and create a safe space for sharing, allows him to continue. Then, the story turns to the janitor “character” making out with the music sensation. Once again, the instructor stops him, but when Michael sadly says, “You’re right. I’m not a writer” she invites him to finish the story.

SPOILER ALERT (like you didn’t see this coming) His story starts to turn pornographic (after a brief criticism of the porn industry as a whole) and he skips to the end . . . of chapter one. Mike then reveals that the “short story” has over 800 pages (yep, authors lie about length sometimes when they’re excited to share), so the instructor and female authors exit while the male authors sit in rapt attention.

I think we can all learn something from this skit about trying to be supportive of other writers . . . but also look out for the creepers.