The Cruiser Scene

[depicting TINAPAS Core] 

(All enter chattering and sit together) 

1: (Opening a laptop). Ok! Hi everyone, welcome to our 3rd TINAPAS Core meeting, it’s December 13th, 2019. Items on the agenda include finalizing the budget changes we made last week, planning our social media rollout, and identifying the script changes we want. 

2: I feel like that first one will be quick, right? We just like tightened the food budget. 

3: (chuckling) That’s an understatement, the last group spent almost a thousand bucks on Oliveri’s. At least this year we can have, I don’t know, PROPS! 

1: To be fair, what Colgate student willingly shows up to an event without free food? (Pause, then all agree, “Good point,” “Literally none of them”) 

2: Ok so what’s next, social media rollout? 

3: Oh oh, I actually had an idea for this you guys, what if we had a Twitter account? We could make quippy sex jokes and interact with other Colgate accounts and stuff. 

1: Does anyone actually use Twitter here? 

2: I mostly just use it to keep up on new ways the world is ending. 

3: I’m literally never not on Twitter. 

2: Is Twitter like, worth the time though? I think we could probably accomplish everything we need to on Instagram. 

3: Yeah but if someone even mentions sex on Instagram it always turns into a “policy violation.” Don’t even THINK about posting a “female nipple,” they’ll basically burn your account to the ground. 

2: And Twitter’s better? 

1: They let Nazis roam around on Twitter, I’m sure a university play about sex will be fine. 

3: It’s NOT about sex wink 

(Awkward silence) 

3: ... But yeah, good point. 

1: If the main goal of our social media is to get the word out about the show, Instagram is probably our best bet. 

2: Agreed. 

3: Ok it was worth a shot. 

2: So what’s next, script edits? I think we made some decent progress last week. 

1: Last week we came up with ideas for combining, “Dicktations” and “Vagographies” so it’s not such a stark binary. And it looks like we made a lot of tweaks to modernize the scenes in the second half of the show. 

3: Cool, so this really shouldn’t take too long. 

1: BUT, we still don’t know what to do with the cruiser scene. 

2: Fuck, I hate that one. 

3: Is that the one where the guy follows the girl off of the cruiser while calling her a… yeah that one never sat well with me. 

2: I really don’t know how this scene has stayed in for so many years, it’s just trauma porn. It doesn’t come to any actual conclusion about assault or misogyny. If anything it just disturbs the audience. 

3: What do you mean by trauma porn? 

2: It exploits a real, lived experience just for shock value. There’s no reason for us to keep it if it does nothing but negatively affect people. 

1: If it’s a lived experience though, shouldn’t we not delete it?. I always thought the point of the scene was to show the importance of bystander intervention. 

2: But nobody ever intervenes! 

3: Hang on, what does the original script actually include for that scene? Maybe we can take the bare bones and rewrite it as a scene where someone does intervene. 

1: Let’s see (scrolls for a few seconds). Ok, so the scene is called “After Hours,” it’s in the second half, and it depicts a group of people silently riding the late-night cruiser home. The cruiser stops and a visibly intoxicated man gets on, sitting next to a girl who clearly looks uncomfortable. When he tries to touch her she pushes him off, and he gets upset. Then there’s just one line that reads (clears throat): 

“You’re such a cunt. You’re a cunt. Cunt. You’re a cunt. You’re such a cunt.” (Silence) 

3: … Yeah there’s not much to work with there. 

2: I say we just cut it altogether. 

1: Can we do that? I mean if it’s been in the script for this long there must be a reason. 

3: We’re allowed to change whatever we want, it’s in our contract with Poppy. In fact, I think she WANTS us to change stuff. Isn’t that the whole point? 

1: I mean changing stuff is one thing, but deleting an entire scene is another. 

2: Look, all I’m saying is that if the scene doesn’t even have a useful message then what sense is there in keeping it? 

3: Not all of the scenes have a “useful message” though, I think TINAPAS is supposed to just be a collection of Colgate experiences. 

1: Well, isn’t it possible we’ve come to understand that the scene is better off not being included? 

2: That’s fine, but maybe we should reference it. I mean, for better or worse, everyone remembers that scene right? Maybe we could leave some call back in the new script so people know that we gave some thought to it. 

1: I almost wish we could directly talk about it in the show. 

3: What do you mean? 

1: I don’t know, like what if we literally had characters unpacking “The Cruiser Scene.” That way we could keep the discussion but without any of the trauma. 

3: Wait I kinda like that. 

2: I don’t know, how would we even execute that in the middle of the show? (cut lights to end scene) 

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Written by unknown, found in the 2020 script