Sitcom Aha Moments & You [prose]
excerpt from a free write, 7/4/22
Nobody wants to admit it, but anyone with exposure to mainstream media has had at least one Sitcom Aha Moment. Doesn't matter if you love it, hate it, tolerate it; you get to know it. And if you don't, you should, because it knows you better than you know yourself.
For instance:
Say this is one of the few times you actually go to the movies with your dad. It's 2007. You're a teenager. You are, for the purposes of this scenario, a girl. He lets you pick the movie. You pick Knocked Up. You honestly know fuck-all about it. You pick it purely for the twisting in his face when he asks for the tickets. He may have tried to hide it, but he did a shit job of it, because you know your father to make a shit job of anything.
Especially his fucking kids.
So—after the cashier compares your faces and decides you're related—you're in the movie.
You watch the movie.
It's A Movie.
You laugh at some stuff. Your dad doesn't. He laughs at some stuff. You don't now, but when someone invites you to a viewing party at their dorm, you'll laugh so hard you break the hookah.
Not many times are you both laughing together, but you do sometimes. You look at him then, and he's watching the movie. Maybe you linger, maybe you don't. Either way, he's watching the movie, so you turn your head to watch it too.
{You don't know this, will never know, but he actually waits for you to turn your head before he looks at you. You'll only realize as an adult that you don't know, never knew for sure, his eye color.}
None of these are the SAM. It comes later on in the script...
SCENE: SETH ROGEN—who looks like A DEADBEAT DAD, maybe YOURS—and PAUL RUDD—who looks like A TEENAGE GIRL, maybe YOU—are ON MUSHROOMS in their HOTEL ROOM, pontificating about the OVERABUNDANCE of CHAIRS.
PAUL RUDD ADMIRES their FORM. He FLUTTERS between them, finding a UNIQUE JOY in EACH SEAT, almost UNABLE to SIT with JUST ONE for TOO LONG. Typical TEENAGE GIRL shit.
Meanwhile, SETH ROGEN is TRYING HIS BEST to NAVIGATE the CONVERSATIONAL TERRAIN, but the CHAIRS seem rather CLIQUEY, all huddled TOGETHER with the STARING and the CATTY JABS....
This LINE OF RUMINATION leads him to what may have been a SAM OF HIS OWN, having JUST WATCHED Cheaper by the Dozen:
SETH ROGEN (as BEN STONE in Knocked Up) It's weird that chairs even exist when you're not sitting on them.
{It's weird that now your father fumbles the only thing he's been consistent at. During some spiel about accepting love or some shit, you catch him in the grand finale of his turning away but you see it you saw it that deerish moment of deliberation
stare into the soul of my headlights let this car with you collide
but he flees to the Hollywood hinterlands.}
END SCENE
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