LITTLE MISS !#%&*!#SHINE

When I told the studio executive that my new screenplay was an adult family comedy, she seemed disappointed by that first word of description. "Not too adult, I hope," she said. "If we're looking for a PG rating, and we are, I can only give you one fuck. It has to be a non-sexual fuck."

"So fuck you is okay but fuck me is out?"

"Fuck me would only work if it were an expression of disappointment as opposed to a request," she explained brightly.

"As in, say, fuck me hard?" I asked.

"Exactly," she said. "Something as specific as fuck off and die would work. Go fuck yourself is fine, or I really fucked myself good on this one. But have you gotten fucked good lately? Big red flag."

She asked if any of the principals would be fucking each other. I told her there is in fact a love scene, but I wouldn't exactly describe it as fucking, per se, since the characters have been married for thirty years. "It's more like coupling," I told her. "You definitely get the feeling it's been awhile, if that helps."

"Not really, no," she said. "It's not about the quality of the fuck. A fuck's a fuck."

I reminded her that we were looking for the Little Miss Sunshine crowd on this one. A seven-year-old stripping to the musical stylings of Rick James' "Superfreak," Grandpa shooting up heroin in the bathroom, Uncle Frank trying to off himself over a gay lover he meets up with while buying fetishistic porn at 7-11. "Yes, but there was no fucking," she insisted. "Even the parents didn't fuck. I don't remember anybody even saying fuck."

"It was Dwayne's first line, bottom of the second act," I reminded her. "He said it super loud. And he really took his time with it, spitting and drooling. Is there a penalty for volume, length and wetness of the long overdue first fuck?"

"Let me make a call on that," she said.