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    Script Analysis

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    This document provides context and analysis of the contemporary drama Good Boys and True by Roberto Aguirre Sacasa. The play, set in 1989 Washington D.C., explores themes of privilege, masculinity, and LGBT identities during the AIDS epidemic. It focuses on high school student Brandon, who creates a sex tape to cover up his homosexuality but ruins the life of the girl featured in it. The characters represent different motivations and perspectives that come into conflict over the central events of the tape. The artistic vision is to spark discussion on privilege, social expectations, and finding the courage to be one's authentic self.

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    Script Analysis

    Uploaded by

    api-314550470
    263 views3 pages
    This document provides context and analysis of the contemporary drama Good Boys and True by Roberto Aguirre Sacasa. The play, set in 1989 Washington D.C., explores themes of privilege, masculinity, and LGBT identities during the AIDS epidemic. It focuses on high school student Brandon, who creates a sex tape to cover up his homosexuality but ruins the life of the girl featured in it. The characters represent different motivations and perspectives that come into conflict over the central events of the tape. The artistic vision is to spark discussion on privilege, social expectations, and finding the courage to be one's authentic self.

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    This document provides context and analysis of the contemporary drama Good Boys and True by Roberto Aguirre Sacasa. The play, set in 1989 Washington D.C., explores themes of privilege, masculinity, and LGBT identities during the AIDS epidemic. It focuses on high school student Brandon, who creates a sex tape to cover up his homosexuality but ruins the life of the girl featured in it. The characters represent different motivations and perspectives that come into conflict over the central events of the tape. The artistic vision is to spark discussion on privilege, social expectations, and finding the courage to be one's authentic self.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    263 views3 pages

    Script Analysis

    Uploaded by

    api-314550470
    This document provides context and analysis of the contemporary drama Good Boys and True by Roberto Aguirre Sacasa. The play, set in 1989 Washington D.C., explores themes of privilege, masculinity, and LGBT identities during the AIDS epidemic. It focuses on high school student Brandon, who creates a sex tape to cover up his homosexuality but ruins the life of the girl featured in it. The characters represent different motivations and perspectives that come into conflict over the central events of the tape. The artistic vision is to spark discussion on privilege, social expectations, and finding the courage to be one's authentic self.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    of 3
    At a glance
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    The play explores themes of privilege, identity, and masculinity through the lens of a sex tape scandal at a private Catholic high school. Key characters represent different levels of privilege and struggle with expectations placed on them.

    The biggest conflict is between Brandon and Elizabeth, as she tries to understand why he committed such an act while he avoids taking responsibility. Other conflicts arise from the different motivations and desires of the various characters.

    The author provides a one-word description for each character highlighting their function in the story, such as 'foil' or 'protagonist'. Different characters also represent constraint versus freedom or privilege versus lack of privilege.

    Identify and define the drama by genre

    Genre: Contemporary Drama containing mix elements of comedy and tragedy


    Provide historical/cultural context for the dramas action and setting.
    While Good Boys and True was written in 2009 by Roberto Aguirre Sacasa, the action of the play
    takes place in the Washington DC area in the fall of 1989. When I first read the play, I immediately
    connected this story with modern day. Our LGBT community is still fighting for the basic human right
    to be treated like a human being. With the Black Lives Matter movement, there is national awareness
    of white privilege and what it means to be privileged because of race and socio-economic status. With
    rapid technological advances and social media, the government is adapting sex laws, now that sexual
    images are so very accessible with the creation of the internet and cell-phones. I questioned in my
    mind several times, why the 1980s? My answer: the stakes are higher. A sex tape making the rounds
    at the school in a matter of hours/days and ruined a young girls life. The time removed the audience,
    and we are able to really reflect on the devastating effects that this tape has caused in so short time.
    The audience later finds out the reason why Brandon created the tape and presented to the football
    team: to cover up the fact that he was homosexual and to prove that he was indeed straight. The
    audience quickly discovers that Justin is homosexual, and that the boys are involved in some sort of
    sexual relationship, if not romantic. In the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic really effect the lives of
    homosexual in a negative way and created stigmas that the LGBT community cannot seem to shake
    off. Some people thought of AIDS as only a gay disease and at one point in time, AIDS was called
    GRIDS (Gay Relations Immune Deficiency Syndrome). In our time, while AIDS continues to be a
    problem that society grapples with, it is no longer considered a death sentence physically or socially as
    it once was. This merely raises the stakes for Brandon, a teen who does not want that stigma hanging
    over his head.
    Outline the dramatists literary and/or theatrical career.
    Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has accomplished a lot in his life time. Roberto Aguirre Sacasa is a gay
    playwright born in Washington DC who graduated to from Yale School of Drama in 2003. Till this
    day, I still have trouble believe that the playwright who wrote Good Boys and True also write on the
    smash hit TV Glee and for the Archie comics since my discovery summer 2015. It is best to consider
    him a jack of all trades who works with Broadway, Hollywood, Comics, and Television. He tends to
    have a diverse range of subjects to write about from comic books to Catholic school scandals, but
    LGBT identities and issues often arise in his works such as. Below are links to the Dramatist Play
    Services inc site featuring plays written by Sacasa that included LGBT themes or themes closely
    related to his life.

    Based on a Totally True Story


    Doctor Cerebus
    Discuss your artistic vision for the production. What is the significance or importance of this
    drama? What effect or impact do you wish the show to have upon the audience?
    I interpreted this play as a commentary about privileges. Brandon is a Catholic hetereosexual white
    male with a well off family. He is a boy, without remorse, who thought he could get away with a
    terrible horrific and degrading act done to another human being. In a way, I connect to both Justin and
    Cheryl because the way that they feel in the play is the way that I felt my entire private Catholic
    school life. That feeling that no matter what I did, they would always be ahead of me because I wasnt
    born into wealth or born with darker skin. I had to work hard. Our younger generations have taken an
    interest in social activism especially when it comes to race, women, and LGBT rights. If you dont

    believe me, just visit the social justice side of tumblr for five minutes. This play makes a statement
    about class and identities in America. We live in a world where some people are privileged and others
    are not.
    While I wanted to really focus on privilege, I found myself wanting to tell another story along side
    with the privilege story. A part of my heart ached for Brandon despite the terrible actions he
    committed in the play. He was a scared little boy who thought he no other option out. I begin to think
    about masculinity. I began to think about how our society packages us up into tiny cardboard boxes
    filled with expectations of us. When we try to break free of that box, we are chastised and alienated as
    outcast. Some find the strength to withstand it, while others are too afraid. Inside Brandon, I found
    two characters in one. I found the charm, poster kid. The perfect obedient son. Stunning athlete.
    Handsome Casanova who always had the right words to say. The boy who everyone expected him to
    be. The expectation. And then there was the other Brandon. The sort of awkward dork who geeked out
    over the Hardy Boys and liked the V-neck sweaters that they always wore. The boy who shared this
    special connection with Justin Simmons, someone who was close and yet so far away. But no one was
    allowed to see that Brandon. I guess that is why my heart ached so much.
    More importantly, I wanted to leave the audience with these two big issues in mind To inspire
    conversation and dialogue about what happens after and these larger themes and issues.
    Discuss each characters dramatic function in the show, including each characters overall
    motive /goal/desire and each characters metaphorical/emblematic value.
    If I had to describe the characters function in the show in one word, I was use the word foil.
    Brandon-Brandon is the center of our conflict. He needs to protect his image. It means everything to
    him. His image is his power. Brandon acknowledges that straight is power. He must be seen as
    stronger in order to survive this privileged world that he grew up in.
    Elizabeth-I would label Elizabeth as the protagonist of our story. She struggles to hold on to the son,
    the life, and the world that she once knew so very well. She struggles to sort fact from fiction and to
    find the answers that she so desperately needs. She looks for the answers in Brandon when she asks
    why. She searches for them in Justin as she ask if Brandon committed this heinous act because of his
    relationship with Justin. She tries to make excuses for not having answers with Maddy. With Shea, she
    struggles to find answers and starts to delude herself. In Cheryl, she doesnt find the answers, but
    solutions.
    Justin-For the beginning, Justin wants to know if Brandon is the guys on the tape. Acting as a foil for
    Brandon, they are both homosexual senior boys at St. Joseph with an infinity for the Hardy Boys.
    They share a very special connection to each other. While they do have a lot in common, they
    represent two different things in the play. Brandon is constraint while Justin is freedom. I think a part
    of Brandon envies Justin because he can be himself without the expectations weighing down on him.
    Brandon has this weight that he cannot shake off. There is no other option. He can not be gay. While
    that is an option for Justin, that cannot be an option for him
    Maddy- Obviously, Maddy is the foil for her sister Elizabeth. They were both born into the Emerson
    family and was shipped off to Garrison for school, but developed into two extremes. A public school
    teacher with an infinity for outsider art and guitar players. A doctor with the perfect husband and a son
    going to Darmouth. Despite Maddy being the reckless/frivolous sister, she appears to be the voice of
    reason for Elizabeth in this situation. The audience expects the doctor to have the more leveled head
    and objective view, but Maddy is full of wise advice that draws Elizabeth out of her delusion.

    Cheryl- If the quad is the heart and soul of St. Joe, then I consider Cheryl to be the heart and soul of
    Good Boys and True. She is the center of the conflict, and without her, there would not be a story. But
    she also plays the foil to Erica, Brandons girlfriend. She both envies and yet looks up to Erica,
    without her.
    Shea- Russell Shea acts as the catalyst for the drama. The story begins to spiral down hill the moment
    Russ hands Elizabeth the tape. Why? Why give Elizabeth the tape? Why risk being fired by giving this
    tape to Elizabeth first? For me, I interpret as Shea possibly being in love with Elizabeth. The one who
    got away. Shea is also the foil for Michael, the dad. They were best friends, two teens at St. Joe. Both
    incredibly evenly matched in football skills. Both equals until the fight. On that day, Shea lost
    everything. The honor. The status. A friend. And everything that Shea ever wanted, Michael had. The
    status. The power. The wealth. The girl. In the second act, Shea has to show her some tough love to
    help her see the truth of the world and the reality that she lives in.
    Identify and discuss the conflicts that arise as a result of the collision of the various characters
    motives/goal/desires.
    Brandon/Elizabeth is the biggest conflict that occurs between characters. In the Brandon/Elizabeth
    scenes, Elizabeth needs to know why Brandon committed this terrible act. Her world is crumpling
    apart and everything that she had ever know about her son is falling apart. Brandon seems to be
    dragging his feet on the issue. He dodges, ducks, and weaves by the answer.He needs to be perfect. He
    needs to fit the expectation of what this privilege world wants from him. He will protect this same
    privileged world that he has with all of his might.

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