Learn to Quote (examples: “Young Royals”, “The Godfather”, “As you are”...)
Today I hope to blow your mind.
No, really!
Well, okay…I hope to blow your mind a little bit. Because with you lot being so clever, I never know whether I’m going to get the exploding-head or the eye-roll emoji from you. So, let’s just say: I might blow your mind, or I might draw a yawn from you. Let’s see how it goes. (Please insert your own mental image of me sweating profusely here.)
But yes. Yes, you’ve guessed right: After our trip to the 1600s, we’re going to return to ‘Young Royals’ this week. But it will be ‘Young Royals’ with a twist; just you wait. (I’m rubbing my hands together in glee right now, just so you know.) Enjoy.
Let me tell you a story:
The main protagonist of this story is a floppy-haired guy. He’s a teenager. Introverted, a bit awkward, lanky, polite and quiet. And he has no sexual or romantic experience whatsoever. He lives a strangely isolated life, characterized by a lack of social relationships, his mother a focal point of his existence.
Now, this lonely, introverted teenager meets another guy. A teenager, too. They attend the same school (well, not to begin with; one of them is the new kid at this school). And boy, this second main protagonist really is a force to be reckoned with: He’s outspoken and straightforward in some ways; he seems to tell it like it is. He loves music, and he’s really into making music, too. But while you might think that he’s pretty straightforward, honest and doesn’t give a flying proverbial about what other people think…he’s actually rather secretive, vulnerable and scared. There’s something dark hidden behind his confident façade: He’s got an abusive father. And this strained relationship with his father defines everything about our wonderful young musician, about this beautiful, seemingly carefree, but actually vulnerable and hurt boy’s life…The utter horror hidden there is indescribable.
These two boys – the unkissed, inexperienced, clumsy, but quietly tender introvert and the abused, brash, emotional, beautiful musician – these two boys hit it off right away; they’re just instinctively drawn to each other. And, of course, they fall in love with each other without even understanding what it is that’s happening to them.
Their first kiss is one of those incredibly tense, nail-bitingly realistic, clumsy and wonderfully awkward scenes. It just has to be seen to be believed. It’s so honest and real that it feels like this must have actually happened to the filmmakers themselves. It’s not your average movie kitsch; it’s no contrived Hollywood kiss. It looks like something that might happen in real life when the seemingly confident, but actually vulnerable and sensitive musician leans forward and kisses our astonished introverted virgin boy on the mouth.
The fact that they’ve both been smoking weed and are stoned out of their minds as they kiss makes the scene seem even more realistic where the teenage experience angle is concerned and–
Scratch sound!
Cue you going, “Stoned? Weed? What the hell are you talking about, tvmicroscope?! I don’t remember Simon bringing any joints to that horror movie night in episode two of ‘Young Royals’. I’m sure August would have confiscated those…What is going on?”
Patience, dear reader, patience.
You see, I tricked you above. I said I was going to tell you a story. But I didn’t say it would be a story about ‘Young Royals’. I just said ‘a story’. And I did. I told you a story. A different one.
Which is where the mind-blowing part is going to come in (I hope). Follow me under the cut to discuss how films and shows all like to reference one another and how ‘Young Royals’ unashamedly does what a thousand other movies and TV series have done before.
What you’ll find under the cut:
How to quote, how to reference, how to brazenly borrow and steal and plagiarize, how to do it with a wink and a smile, how to allude to something openly and how to do it obliquely. The different ways of doing it. And my very own classification when it comes to those. And what exactly set my heart aflutter when I started watching ‘Young Royals’ and realized where it borrowed that tiny seed that grew and grew and grew in the writers’ minds until it turned into a whole new show and a completely different story.
In other words…learn to quote!