How many exclamation points is too many?

The snubbing of Barbie

Self-censorship has never really been my forte. My natural tendency is to say exactly what I mean, which isn’t always for the best. Especially, as I pointed out in a recent post, when I’m angry. I’ve gotten a lot better about that in the past ten to twenty years, having slowly figured out that letting loose on anyone, no matter how good or well-deserved it may feel at the time, is never okay. There are almost always extenuating circumstances on the other person’s side, and if there aren’t, they are still a human being. And even if they are an extremely nasty and/or thoughtless human being, you are never going to get anywhere by being nasty and thoughtless in return, and you’ll feel like shit the next day. I have instances of things that I’ve said angrily or thoughtlessly that still haunt me, and those are the ones that haven’t blown up in my face.

The tough and super annoying part about this is that I do feel like, as a woman, I’m required to be more careful about everything I say. We are absolutely expected to be nicer and more supportive and more helpful than men, even by each other. Again, the expectation that people should be kind to each other is not in and of itself a bad thing; if our country were run by women behaving this way, we might not have even the simplest exchanges of differences expected to escalate to death threats in under five minutes/tweets the way we do right now, or the better part of the Republican party behaving like dicks during the State of the Union, including the one who specifically asked for “decorum” rolling his eyes like a tween who’s had his phone privileges taken away. But the double standard sucks, leading to self-policing that can go so far as to prevent women from making points that need to be made, or from being clearly understood when they feel that they have to couch them too palatably.

For example, I am in one screenwriting group that is co-ed and one that is only women, and while I think we’ve whipped most of the boys into shape in the co-ed one in terms of getting them to make their comments constructively rather than like it’s mouth-to-ear combat (because I have been in writing groups like that), I sometimes find myself nervous about giving any criticism in the other one. It can feel like it’s devolving into a cheerfest where nobody wants to say anything critical, and while I’m all for a genuine “You go girl!” in most situations, when someone comes to a workshop for feedback, aren’t they expecting to get…feedback? I know I am. I have gotten so much value out of thoughtful criticism from people who have read my work and watched my rough cuts, telling me things I could not see at all because I was way too deep inside of them, that I’d go so far as to say that almost nothing I’ve created that I’m proud of could have been finished without it. (Except, okay, for these blog posts, which are meant to be a little more off-the-top-of-my-head and, shall we say, ranty. If you’re expecting polish, you might need to go elsewhere, just sayin’.) And yet, I often wonder if making suggestions in the best interest of making the script better, like “maybe do a pass on dialogue” or “do some tweaking to the character arc,” might not be in my best interest in this group. Because we are in a business where blowing smoke up other people’s asses is so the norm that I’m surprised we don’t all have cancer coming at us from both directions. I’m still trying to figure out how to do that without feeling gross, maybe because I’ve hated people who are two-faced since that one girl turned on me in junior high. But giving constructive critique for so many years has taught me how to look for the things I do like in work that overall I do not care for, which at least makes it so that I don’t have to outright lie. I’m not a good liar and I don’t really want to become one (and I always thought that was a good thing?).

Putting things in writing is therefore obviously better, because it gives me more time to consider the full impact of my words without the pressure of the people being there, listening to what I’m saying and staring at me while they wait for it to make sense. But that means that I spend a LOT of time on correspondence and written notes.

Including, very much so, punctuation. I am not an uptalker or an enthusiastic person by nature (my Gen Xers, you get it), but I find that when I’m writing, I use question marks and exclamation points a lot. The question marks are to reinforce that something I’m saying is just a suggestion? A possible something to consider?? That even when I have a firm opinion, you might disagree and that’s okay??? I don’t love it, but I do find that it helps me get the point across while also conveying that I could be wrong — which should go without saying when you’re giving your opinion, because we all, always, could be wrong. But it doesn’t, because, again, a lot of people in the current climate do not realize their opinions are opinions — hell, they don’t know what facts are period — so I want to make sure people know that I do, in fact, get that (even when I really really really think that they’re right, which I often do. Like I said, I, too, am the asshole. I just try to be the self-aware asshole). The exclamation points are a bit more complicated, because I feel like this is where my email voice really differs from my personal voice, or even my normal writing voice. I use them when I’m thanking someone, or saying how great it was to meet them, or how much I enjoyed their work way more than I’d probably express that in the flesh; I’m a good laugher, but I’m not a great shower of excitement, at least not to the degree that’s expected of me. But I find that in emails, turning up the enthusiasm makes me sound a little more…girly, somehow. So I guess that’s what I’m going for? And that isn’t uptalk, that’s me not having actually thought about this one. It’s as if I feel like I have to get that cheerleader I never was into my emails, because the written word can be so easily misinterpreted, and I’d rather err on the side of being what people want.

The other reason that I use exclamation points is for humor. As much as I prefer my own humor deadpan, it’s very hard to convey that type of humor in an email, particularly when someone doesn’t know you that well. So if I’m joking, and I want to make sure that someone knows that I’m joking, I will often put an exclamation point at the end of it, just to be safe — even if then, in my own opinion, what I’m saying becomes less funny. This is particularly frustrating to me because I also often use humor to make a point in a way that is a little more subtle and softened. Basically, I believe levity needs to be a finely-tuned instrument, whereas exclamation points are, by nature, not that — unless you’re using them ironically or sarcastically, in which case, good luck with that with anyone who doesn’t know your work or isn’t your best friend! (Yes, that was an ironic exclamation point. You didn’t get it? Exactly. Maybe if I’d thrown a “Yay” in there.) Comedy is hard in general, but especially if you’re a woman, because people don’t expect you to be funny. That makes the subtle humor and satire that I love creatively and am most often going for even harder. I do understand that this means that people very often will not get it, but that doesn’t keep me from getting bummed out when they don’t. Wit and whimsy are just so perfect for critique when done right, and when you have to dumb something down or explain it, or put an exclamation point after it, it loses a lot of its magic.

Which brings me to Barbie, and how it was all but shut out of the Oscars last night. I know plenty of people who said, when it hardly got any nominations, that this was because it was a big, popcorn-y entertainment  — although Titanic, The Lord of the Rings, Gladiator, Braveheart, Forrest Gump? And yes, it’s also a comedy, which is even less common for an Academy Award winner because we know the Oscars take themselves very seriously (except when they’re rewarding musicals), but still, Annie Hall, The Apartment, Driving Miss Daisy, and Forrest Gump again, for fuck’s sake? And the thing about Barbie is that, yes, it’s a full of silliness, and it’s big, bright, and entertaining, but, just like all four of those movie comedies that won before, but even more so, it’s also trenchant cultural critique — and that’s from top to bottom, not just America Ferrara’s speech in Act 2. And it made gobs and gobs and gobs of money, which we know Oscar loves.

And then we’re back at being a woman making a joke while also having something to say, and in fact maybe using one as a way to do the other, because it makes the point go down easier, which we always, always, as women, have to be attentive to. The big question, when you’re trying to make art or even just communicate, and it doesn’t go over quite the way you wanted, is always going to be, Is it me or is it them? I’m always trying to take the feedback and improve my work, so I have to figure out if I need to do it better next time to reach this person (in the case of emails), or if they are just never going to get what I’m trying to do, because they are not my audience? Well, in my opinion, the Academy — an Academy that was still, as of 2022, 81% white and 67% male, with directors 61% male, and writers 80% male — just didn’t get Barbie. And maybe Hollywood as a whole didn’t either, because the lesson learned from the massive audience who clearly did get it, anchored by women young and old, who earned it one of the strongest openings ever, seems to be not to make more movies by and about women to reach that audience, but instead, to greenlight a whole shit-ton of movies about…toys. And toys are quite emphatically not what Barbie was about.

So I am definitely going to keep on using (probably too many) exclamation points in my emails. That seems a small price to pay for being understood. But when it comes to Barbie, and the movies women are trying to make that could follow on its success, maybe we just have to keep showing everyone that those big box office numbers happened because we’re the ones who actually get it, and they’re the ones who would benefit from learning how to adjust.