Wp3 Revised

Gutierrez 1

Kingpin Eddie

Written by Sebastian Gutierrez

7 MARCH 2019

Gutierrez 2 FADE IN: INT. EDDIE’S, THE PROTAGONIST, CHEAP TWO BEDROOM LONG BEACH APARTMENT – MORNING MUSIC CUE: “Smokin’” by Nas Starts EDDIE SHOEMAKER Male, 23 years old, White, skinny build, CSULB biology major drop out who has fully turned into a small-time cannabis grower, oddly wholesome, is laying in bed in his underwear as his alarm goes off, waking him up, a montage ensues of his morning routine including him showering, brushing his teeth, feeding his goldfish, getting dressed in jeans, a CSULB hoodie, and vans, ending the montage. He walks to the other bedroom and opens the door revealing the small in-apartment cannabis farm. To Eddie’s surprise, his entire batch is diseased, destined to die. MUSIC CUE: “Smokin’” by Nas Stops abruptly Eddie visibly stressed, walks to the common room to wake up Creed Garcia CREED GARCIA Male, 24 years old, White and Hispanic, medium build, never went to college, Eddie’s best friend from high school and now roommate, and is his partner in their drug selling endeavor since high school is in his underwear asleep on the couch snoring. Eddie walks up to him and shakes his shoulder. EDDIE Wake up. Creed doesn’t move and continues to snore. Eddie grabs a half full cup of water off the messy coffee table in front of the couch and splashes it on Creed’s face EDDIE Get the fuck up. Creed wakes up instantly and jumps up off the couch. CREED

Gutierrez 3 Dude what THE FUCK was that for? What’s wrong with you? Eddie looks at Creed for a second. EDDIE Follow me. Eddie leads Creed to the growing room and opens the door. EDDIE Look. Creed, still groggy and wiping water off his face and rubbing his eye... CREED What? What am I looking at? It’s weed, we sell weed, what’s new? EDDIE This shit’s dead bro, it’s all dead. CREED Ok, and? What do you want me to do about it? I’m not a botologist. EDDIE A what?... You mean a botanist? - Whatever that’s beside the point. Rent’s due and we can’t sell this to nobody and we need money bad, bad bro, like do you understand. Eddie starts speaking faster. EDDIE I CAN NOT get kicked out of here and have to move back in with my fucking stepdad. If we don’t get moneyCreed cuts off Eddie. CREED Dude, shut up. K? Calm down. Look I don’t know what to tell you man. You grow. I sell. That’s how it’s always

Gutierrez 4 been since high school. Like what do you expect me to do? EDDIE Eddie, collecting himself. Exactly, bro. You sell. You have connections. You know people out there that probably know how perfectly good shit goes bad overnight. Please man, do US a favor and tell me you can find someone who might know what happened. Creed exhales audibly. CREED Fine, you’re right. I only know a few growers though. I’ll see if any of them know anything, but if they sus me out and I get in some heat, that’s on you. Eddie is visibly relieved. EDDIE Oh my God, thanks so much, imma owe you a shit ton for this one. CREED Ya, Ya, shut up and let me get ready to go, and while I’m gone don’t be sitting on your ass, try to figure this shit out too. Creed leaves to the common room, gets dressed, and leaves. CUT TO BLACK. ...

Gutierrez 5 Sebastian Gutierrez Professor Fedorova Writing 2 7 March 2019 Alluding Through Genre Translation For my Writing project three translation, I used the famous play, Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, to display my understanding and mastery of genre analysis. Specifically, I used the first scene where Oedipus realizes there is a plague affecting his city, Thebes, and his subjects are sickly, hungry, and dying. In response, Oedipus sends his brother-in-law, Creon, to an oracle to find out how Oedipus can cleanse the city of its plague. Instead of using the same characters, setting, and plot points and simply translate those straight into a screenplay, I opted to allude to the characters, setting, and plot of Oedipus Rex and have my translation act as a reflection rather than a retelling. The purpose of my translation is to be able to represent the themes and ideas presented by the original text while being able to make the reading and understanding much easier by making it more entertaining for the intended audience. Oedipus Rex being a tragedy as defined by Aristotle in Poetics makes its style dated for the context it is commonly read in resulting in it being difficult to deeply comprehend and understand the material. Such is why it is now read in the context of high school and college literature courses. In my translation, my audience isn’t necessarily new and targets the same audience of the original text, being typically teenage students. The purpose of the translation was to change the feeling the audience has towards the two texts making the audience enjoy reading the translation more than the primary source.

Gutierrez 6 Writing in the form of a screenplay allowed me to flesh out vast amounts of details in a straight forward manner that does not require much analysis on the reader’s part to understand. For example, to easily show the intrinsic good and responsible nature of the Oedipus character in my text, Eddie, despite being flawed, I drew parallels between Oedipus and Eddie by directly saying that the Eddie, was “oddly wholesome” and that he “[fed] his goldfish” in his description. The original text also represents Oedipus as being good-natured and responsible but it was written out as explicitly as in my translation. Since screenplays are very descriptive in their nature and focus on very clearly presenting the setting, it was an optimal genre choice in making the readability easier. The tone in Oedipus Rex is very dismal, dark, and depressing, resulting in the reader feeling uncomfortable as the story unfolds. The original text does this to build up tension within the audience that is later released in the final act of the play. Considering that my translation would only cover one scene of the play, building up tension in the reader that would not never be released would be undesirable. The translation is very light-hearted as it displays banter between two close friends, something that is relatable and easily understood by the intended audience. Also, the setting of the translation and the characters description, while being an allusion to the primary source, are common tropes in mainstream media, therefore being known by the audience. Changing the tone and overall feel from that of the primary source was instrumental in making the intended audience appreciate reading the text more. When changing the setting from Greek mythology to current day nonfiction, there are obviously going to be a lot of changes to the story. Despite this, there are still parallels between the original text and the translation. Clear face values references include the title and the names of the characters: Oedipus Rex and Kingpin Eddie, Oedipus and Eddie, and Creon and Creed. I wanted

Gutierrez 7 to relay Oedipus’s good nature and intentions through the character of Eddie and accomplished this through his description. The translation mirrored the major plot points of the first scene. This was accomplished by representing the plague that ruined Thebes, Oedipus’s responsibility, as a disease that kills Eddie’s entire farm, Eddie’s responsibility. Oedipus’s desire to cure the disease was represented by a need for money but more importantly a hatred for Eddie’s stepfather that was hinted at in dialogue with Creed. This malevolence Eddie has directed towards his father is another reference in itself to Oedipus murdering his own father, a famous plot point in Oedipus Rex. Oedipus and Creon’s relationship was relayed through Eddie and Creed’s dialogue and interactions throughout the screenplay. Oedipus sending Creon to an oracle is directly mirrored by Eddie sending Creed to get information on their predicament. When translating into a screenplay, I had a few concerns. Considering that screenplays are very uncommonly read, their format is unknown and can be confusing to readers who are unfamiliar. This made me believe that the genre’s format could lead to confusion as it might be hard to follow at first. Also, screenplays provide the reader with lots of information, as they should since their purpose is to paint a whole scene, but this may overload the reader with too much to think about and might make the reader lose focus on what the main purpose of the text is. Translating from Oedipus Rex to Kingpin Eddie, taught me more about the primary source than I knew coming into this assignment. Translations in general force the translator to deeply understand the story and its main themes, ideas, and purpose to be able to effectively relay the primary source in the context of a new genre.