She stands up there
With her Emmy
Her Emmy
Holding it protectively
The way a mother cat
Might protect her deformed young
Because that is what the Emmy is
It is the mutant kitten
You must protect
It is something
You must convince people
You are proud to have
Oh, look at my Emmy
She's just as good
As any other award
When we know that's all lies
This is a woman
Who was nominated for an Oscar
An Oscar!
Now she's up there holding an Emmy
And telling us how happy she is
That she's forsaken the movie business
So that she can go do 'real' work on television
'Real' work, of course
Because who wants to get ten million dollars
To spend a month in Hawaii
Playing some historical woman
Who, it turns out, had a cocaine problem
And dabbled in lesbianism
Then win awards for it a year later
When you can be on TNT once a week
Playing a detective with narcolepsy
Who refuses to play by the book?
Oh sorry, not TNT
HBO
That's right
She's not doing tv
Not some mere television show
Oh no
Oh no
She's on CABLE
That magical land
Where you can swear
And show your breasts
And be addicted to something
For more than three episodes
How liberating
For her
Normally I wouldn't pass judgment
But that smug look on her face
That expression that almost seems to say--
Look at me!
I was once a star
And now I'm doing television
And calling it a comeback
And feeling superior
That's what makes me mad
Because television can put out as much Walking Dead Breaking Bad Mad Men Nip/Tuck Boardwalk Bullshit Fuckfest Big C Asshole Showtime nonsense as it wants
But tv is tv
And movies are movies
And I'd rather be the monkey wrangler
On Killer Chimps from Venus
Then be the lead
On
A
Television
Show
You know what they should write
On that Emmy of hers?
On ALL the Emmys?
'Congratulations! You used to be somebody.'
That glib look on her face
As if she wouldn't play the Space Queen
In the Evil Chimps movie
If they offered it to her
As if she wouldn't do Die Hard 5
Or Lethal Weapon 7
Or Transformers 18
Or whatever crap it is
That the rest of us were doing
I was filming the next Terminator movie
For five months
Before somebody told me
That's what it was
All I knew was that every day
I showed up to a studio
With nothing but a green screen in it
And screamed 'John, watch out!'
For six hours
And they paid me more
Than she'll get
For two years
On her HBO show
That got her that Emmy
I'd like to tell her that
I'd like to wipe that look off her face
Off all their faces
Television actors
They're like the Emo kids
In the cafeteria
Telling themselves they don't want to sit
With the cheerleaders
When everybody wants to sit with the cheerleaders
You lying motherfuckers
We're the fucking cheerleaders
Of course you want to sit with us
That's why you spend so much time
Talking about how happy you are
That you're not sitting with us
That you're not at the Oscars
Wearing better gowns
With better hair
Watching a host who isn't the third lead
On some bullshit show on CBS
About a guy who runs a pet store
Don't tell me you're not jealous
You think I don't want to cave
And sign up for some stupid hour-long procedural
Where I play a lawyer
Raising kids on her own
Who sees her father's ghost
And screws a judge on the side?
That's a fucking picnic
You know what's hard?
Having to do eight scenes with a giant robot
THAT ISN'T EVEN THERE!!!
So please, spare me the superiority
And the gravitas
And the tears during your acceptance speech
If you're 'fulfilled' by doing television
Then you should have gone there in the first place
Instead of spending ten years building a name for yourself
Then spending the next ten
Refusing to die quietly after the age of forty
Like the rest of us
Instead you do television
And you call yourself an actress
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