I have to write this now because I’m on deadline and procrastinating; this movie keeps rattling around in my head, and maybe writing about John Travolta’s magazine assignment will inspire me to finish my own magazine assignment.

I’m not proud of this, but I only finally got around to watching Perfect because of the Jimmy Fallon spoof that randomly showed up on my feed. I don’t watch the late night shows/don’t have a TV, and I confess I googled the wrong Jimmy when looking for this clip again this morning:

Thoughts on Jamie Lee Curtis and this bizarre sexually charged aerobics scene are best left to other people, but I only first learned of this film’s existence a few months ago when it was included in the Alamo pre-show: I’m fairly certain for Love Lies Bleeding and The Substance, but I could be wrong on one of those. Thoughts about those movies, plus the Apple TV show Physical, are part of a bigger project I have in mind, and right now I just need to write about the writing life…as much as that annoys me. Journalism and aerobics? Sign me up and put me in, coach.

The 1985 movie Perfect is streaming on Amazon, and it joins a pantheon of 80s films I think more people would enjoy if they were more readily available on Netflix (I’m thinking of Youngblood here, but also Skate Town USA, which is still eluding me by only being available at Austin Public Library on Blu Ray, and my dinosaur of a laptop can only play DVDs). These movies aren’t really that hard to find, it’s just a matter of convenience. And time.

Here, John Travolta plays Adam Lawrence, a fictionalized version of Aaron Latham, the Rolling Stone journalist who wrote the articles the movie is based on as well as the screenplay for said movie. There’s a lot of meta activity there, with a tangent into Blue Crush and Susan Orlean that will also have to wait for another day, because it gets more meta: Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone, plays a fictionalized version of himself named Mark. There is so much to unpack there that I’m just going to leave the entire suitcase overstuffed and intact so I can keep rolling on those little suitcase wheels.

While pursuing “real journalism,” Travolta sees two attractive singles interact at a gym; this sparks a story pitch about health clubs as the singles bars of the 80s, which Jann agrees to let him write while he’s in LA to cover legal proceedings for the real story he is pursuing. Dude’s per diem is phat, as is his NYC apartment, and I yearn for the days when writers lived like that. however fantastical (hello, Ms. Bradshaw).

I have so many thoughts about the health club aspect, which I’ll probably save for another post/that bigger project as I get around to it, but since I’m struggling to write my own magazine article today, I want to focus on two things that happen in the course of Travolta’s research: 1) One of the gym trainers tells him he doesn’t want Linda as a source because “she’s the most used piece of equipment in the gym,” and 2) Linda herself tells Travolta that looking for Mr. Goodbody is a lot healthier than looking for Mr. Goodbar, as in it’s better to go to a gym to meet people than to hang out in a bar. Ha ha.

He flat out tells Linda he’s going to use the Goodbody line, which becomes the headline, and the “most used piece of equipment” nickname becomes the concluding hook about the gang bang he witnesses. Yep. Gang bang–Linda’s own words for an entirely consensual experience in a parked van that she apparently invites a Rolling Stone reporter, who has identified himself as such to all involved, to witness. I will also add that, based on context clues and foreshadowing, the [off-screen] gang bang includes the trainer who gave Travolta the “equipment” line by slut-shaming Linda in the first place. Hypocritical? Or just boys being boys? BTW, happy inauguration day to all who celebrate.

Bad writing and bad behavior aside, what I’m hung up on here, today, as I struggle to write my own piece, is how Travolta’s character lets other people’s words write the story for him. The headline and the punchline are both words quoted/borrowed/stolen from other people, and I couldn’t help but wonder… ; )

Where is the line between interviewing and plagiarizing?

Here, in the story that Adam initially writes and had every intention of submitting (and for which someone, probably Aaron Latham, actually wrote the text we and Jamie Lee Curtis can see on Adam’s computer screen), he has gone in with his mind made up about the narrative and just found the evidence and quotes he needed to support that hypoTHESIS in the words and actions of the people he’s covering.

Without getting into spoilers, Jamie Lee Curtis’s character has some experience with this journalistic tendency, and she tells off Adam in a way that I’m still thinking about (and, in the movie, has such a profound effect on him that he perseveres with the other story, the real story he was a covering, in a pigheadedly ethical way that I found deeply satisfying). Her words “It’s not the truth I’m worried about, it’s the tone” keep reverberating as I try to write this admittedly less high-stakes article in a way that honors other people’s words without 1) using their own words against them and 2) allowing their words to drive the story for me.

So here are some more out-of-context screenshots since my Amazon rental already ended. I guess I’ll get to work.