Titles
of books, movies, and plays can be so catchy that they alone draws you to make
a purchase. That is what happened to me recently.
I heard about an off-off Broadway play entitled Don’t Say a Fucking Word to Me.
I
read the brief description about the dark comedy and thought I’d give it a
chance. The theater has a cool
set-up. There are three floors to this
theater, which is based inside of a larger building. You could walk right by it and not even know
you passed by a theater. Each floor features a small theater housing maybe 100-125 patrons. It is a great, intimate setting to experience live
theater.
The
play involved two couples. The talky
play reveals universal themes about competitive men and the complexities of
relationships. It used a tennis rivalry
among the two men to tell the story.
The title comes from a line yelled out in the heat of a passionate and
intense match between the men.
Books,
plays, and movies rely on a number of things to sell themselves, including:
1. Subject
matter
2. Cost
3. Availability
4. Word
of mouth
5. Testimonials/reviews
6. Star
power
7. Timeliness/Newsiness
8. Quality
sampling of content
9. Trailer/advertisement
imagery
10. Poster/cover
visual and description
11. The
title
Titles
are still so important. Let’s face it,
we get seduced by names of people, products, places and entertainment
content. We judge based on
assumptions. We make assumptions based
on looks, how things sound and what we believe.
A play with the F-word in its title makes us curious.
We
are a society that’s used to – and accepting – of cursing and blue
language. In fact, we demand it. Every show on Showtime, Starz or HBO seems to
have to include gratuitous violence, nudity, and coarse language. Not that there’s anything wrong with that,
but we’ve become not just immune to offense, but almost demanding of it. Shocking is the new normal.
The
only reason more content doesn’t include gratuitous violence, nudity, and
coarse language is that conservative stores would suffer a backlash for selling
things with curse-filled titles in the windows of Walmart. Can a movie or Broadway play showcase a title
so explicit that it could yield protests?
You
don’t expect a play to have an F-word in its title, though it doesn’t sound as
shocking as The Vagina Monologues. Still, because that title had a word that is
not typically found in a play’s name, I was drawn to it. I thought this was a very public sign that
the play was saying “Hey, this will be a different experience.” That title expressed anticipation for me, to
expect the unexpected.
Should
book titles resort to using dick, ass, pussy and any other blue
words just for the sake of getting attention?
Are there other eye-opening titles one can come up with that don’t
necessarily express a vulgarity? We need
invention here, but not laziness.
Words
matter. They always have. Every word has not only a definition
prescribed to it but a connotation or interpreted feel to it. The key for authors is to find a short string
of words that can say so much while using so little space. The title is what initiates an impression,
the first impression one will have of a book.
Titles
need to make a statement to convey an idea to raise an issue, propose a
question, elicit a feeling, conjure a desire, and form an image, just as one’s
clothes, hairstyle, body contour, voice, skin color and scent conspire to leave
onlookers with an impression of an individual.
Some
women are too pretty to look away from. Some athletes are too graceful to avert
our eyes from their path. Some books,
plays or movies sound too good to not consume.
It begins with a title.
What will you name your f**king book?
What will you name your f**king book?
Please
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