Up & Out - Ariella Papa [58]
At the Hannah meeting, I’m completely out of my element. I don’t have the first clue about appropriate budgets for a live-action show and that’s what this meeting is about. Budgets and casting for a show that seems to have a sucky premise. I can’t believe anyone thinks we should actually be doing this show. Did I mention Jack Jones is a washed-up sitcom actor from the seventies who has decided to produce children’s television shows? I thought so.
He pitches his gig with a confidence that says he believes he doesn’t have to. He thinks it’s in the bag, which it is. Explore! is desperate to get the press that goes with partnering with a celebrity no matter how C-list they are. What’s worse, he’s asking for an exorbitant amount of money.
Delores is running the meeting and is doing her best to impress Hackett with faux efficiency and pedantic words. She manages to slip in one anecdote about Harvard, just in case Jack Jones wasn’t aware of her alma mater.
“Okay, we will have to revisit the budget at our next meeting, but it seems quite sound.” She is totally doing the “I’ve dressed up as an executive” act. She turns to Hackett. “Unless there is something else you want to add, Matt?”
Okay, that is offensive. There are only three of us here representing the network, and by not asking me if I have anything to add, she might as well send me out for coffee. Clearly the purpose of this meeting is to demonstrate that I mean nothing to anyone.
“Let’s move on to casting.” Jack Jones is one of those guys who is half-bald with a big potbelly, but still thinks it’s cool to have a long ponytail down his back. He plays with it constantly throughout the meeting.
“Right, well you know we were thinking ethnic for Hannah.” He spreads a couple of head shots of young attractive girls on the table. I reach for one of them immediately, ignoring Delores’s eye roll. I like to check out what else they’ve done. I’m slightly amazed by parents who have their kids acting at six months—and a lot of these girls have been in the biz for as long as they could drool.
“That one is a front runner,” Jones says, pointing to the photo I have in my hand. “But we think she’s part Hawaiian, and you know what they say about Hawaiians. She’ll probably fatten up as soon as she sees the craft services table.”
I look up at him to be sure he’s making a joke, but he isn’t. I look at Hackett, who appears equally disturbed. Delores, on the other hand, is nodding.
“I don’t think she even really reads Asian enough,” she says. What the hell is “Asian enough”? I study her résumé. It says she was born in Japan and is fluent in Japanese. She lives in California.
“Um—” I say, trying to cut in. “I think she’s actually Japanese.”
I can’t wait to hear what they will have to say about Japanese.
“If we are going to go ethnic I think we should go Latin,” Delores says, ignoring me. She picks up a head shot. “Latins are very sexy right now. How about this one?”
I am disgusted. Did she read that in USA TODAY?
“She’s part Indian and she can’t act. Of course, if you like her look we could have her play Latin and coach her.” Delores nods, considering.
“Excuse me.” Why am I talking? Why did I decide to open my mouth? This is the trap. “I think we should get the actress we think will be most accessible to the audience. Putting on weight isn’t the biggest detriment. I don’t know if the girls need to be a certain ethnicity….”
I could go on, but I realize that Jack Jones is only interested in his ponytail because he already understands that I don’t have any say. Hackett is shuffling through papers uncomfortably and Delores has straightened her four-foot-five frame in the chair and is smiling ever so faintly.
I don’t say another word. I know I’ve done exactly what they wanted me to do, given them reasons for things they would have done, anyway. In the end, they go with a blond girl and decide to forget about having an ethnic lead. They’ll make one of the teachers black. Maybe. It’s no longer that important