Screenwriter Twitter

Spike Lee Films & Film Cred

Photo by Felix Mooneeram on Unsplash

I was inadvertently the catalyst for a screenwriting Twitter outrage and no one even knew I was part of it.

I’ve had a lot of free time in the past week. It was unexpected. Plans fell through and for the first time in a very long time, I had consecutive days of doing absolutely nothing.

I swam. I watched a Cronenberg film. I ate. Then I opened Twitter. It was harmless. I like best lists. They help me remember what’s out there and what I’ve seen and may want to see in the future.

Someone posted a list of first times for certain directors in a theatre. I’m pretty sure the list included Spielberg, Scorcese, and Spike Lee. I filled out my answers and posted. It took all of three minutes.

A fellow aspiring screenwriter on Twitter replied. He was nervous to fill out the form because he might have to use IMDb to check his answers. I encouraged him to do it. He did. He admitted he’d never seen a Spike Lee film. I liked his reply and continued on with my life. I log off of Twitter.

I log in the next day and screenwriter Twitter is going off. While I slumbered, a pro-fascist, racist, all-around horrible screenwriting hopeful had admitted to not watching a Spike Lee film. I remembered my tweet from the night before and got nervous. No way they were talking about my Twitter friend.

I tracked down the source and sure enough he had copied his reply to me and posted it as a reply to the original poster. They came out with their pitchforks.

Let’s pause on Twitter and talk about Spike Lee. I’ve watched all of his films. I respect his work. His is a unique voice that is not amplified like other directors. If you were to line up my entire film class and asked them if they’d seen a Spike Lee film- more than half would have to say no or they would lie. Reading through the comments I could immediately tell the ones that were genuinely telling the guy to watch a Spike Lee film and the ones that were just piling on.

I sent an olive branch and told him to watch She Hate Me. He was a guy that loves action movies and doesn’t get out of his comfort zone a lot. I suggested a film where the new Captain America has sex with dozens upon dozens of women for money.

He doubled down with those he argued with over why he hasn’t seen any Spike Lee films. It was defensive and I understood. There were people telling him that he didn’t have the tools needed to make it in the field that he hoped would be a future for him. That must have sucked.

I can’t judge anyone else’s tweets because I don’t know them, and I don’t know the interactions they had with him prior to the fire. What I do feel is - Spike Lee went to NYU. He studied the craft, and he loves film. If an action buff that packed up all of his stuff and moved to LA to make action films had said within earshot of him that he had never seen a Spike Lee film, I believe Mr. Lee would offer suggestions and wouldn’t have made fun of the guy with his peers and told him he was never going to make it.

After the carnage, the guy deleted his Twitter account. Afterwards, a lot of people wrote about having dealings with him and that he was unpleasant. I’m suspicious by nature. I don’t know if the guy was actually bad, or if they just needed to list out reasons for why they came after someone the way they did.

He sent me the same tweet. I liked it and moved in not giving his answers a second thought. Was I in the wrong for not looking at it deeper, or should we kind of let some things go? I hope he watches She Hate Me.