GET TO KNOW FRANKIE
AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY

Frankie's sexy audition tape

Frankie joins the cast of "Real World: San Diego"

Frankie is upset.

Frankie is afraid of large boats.

Frankie is upset.

Frankie hooks up with a boy who is not her boyfriend.

Frankie is upset.

Frankie hooks up with a different boy who is not her boyfriend.

Frankie is upset.

Frankie hooks up with a third boy who is not her boyfriend.

Frankie is upset.

Frankie is soulmates with her boyfriend.

Frankie's boyfriend reflects on/ruins show.

Frankie dresses up as a pimp and a ho for a
"Pimps and Hoes" party.

Koko B. Ware and Frankie

Frankie is upset.

Frankie's family refuses to believe Frankie has any problems whatsoever.

America is upset.

Frankie decides she is "too punk rock" for the show; boards plane dressed in a Juliet Halloween costume; hits Jacquese with the "Ghostbuster."

Frankie near death at the Real World Reunion special with a tribble stuck to the side of her head.

Frankie at next year's Real World Reunion.

TUESDAYS WITH FRANKIE
or
MY DINNER WITH ABERNATHY
or
TOO PUNK ROCK FOR GODOT

by Emily and Justin

FADE IN:

INT. QUIET BISTRO - DUSK

Two friends EMILY and JUSTIN come together for an evening meal. There is an air of familiarity between the two, yet it is obvious this is their first meeting in some time. The boy is more OUTWARDLY WARM and FRIENDLY, while the girl seems somewhat DISTRACTED and DISINGENUOUSLY POLITE. Like a food server who never stops smiling, but says the exact same thing to every table. The boy is dressed casually, in jeans and a t-shirt. The girl is dressed not unlike PAUL ABDUL in the "RUSH, RUSH" video; platform shoes, ruffled socks, and a 50's style halter dress with a cherry print.  She has several visible TATTOOS.

JUSTIN
Emily, it's so good to see you. Thank you for coming.

EMILY
Thank you for inviting me. . .

JUSTIN
My pleasure. Absolutely. It's just that I haven't seen much of you lately and. . . you have pink streaks in your hair.

EMILY
Yeah. I've just been spending a lot of time with this new person, Frankie. Every Tuesday in fact.

JUSTIN
Oh! You're seeing someone! Well ring-a-ding-ding. How'd you meet the guy?

EMILY
Frankie is a girl. But it's not like that . . . did you hear that the chef from 'The Frugal Gourmet' died?

JUSTIN
You're dating a chick? Well. . . okay. I mean, I always thought those rating the lesbian things you wrote were facetious. But, I mean hey. Red blooded American male here. I suppose if that's what you want, I'll beat my chest, down a Pabst and say 'congrats.'

EMILY
(agitated) No, I'm not dating a girl. I'm not a lesbian. I mean, god, like, we're all bi, you know? They've proven that there are girl bunnies out there who like other girl bunnies, and boy monkeys who like boy monkeys, so it's so totally nature and not nurture, or whatever. But that's not even what I'm talking about. Frankie Abernathy. She's on The Real World. On Tuesdays.

JUSTIN
(straining hard to maintain politeness). . . You've been avoiding all of your friends because of a girl on a reality show? A girl with an off-centered lip ring, even?

EMILY
I'm so sure you took a shot at her piercings, dude. I mean, it's so obvious that she got the ring off center because SHE HERSELF is left of center. I mean, if you're a person who doesn't walk the straight and narrow, why would you want to express yourself with something as bland as a symmetrical piercing? Plus, it doesn't get in the way when you chew. But anyway, I just happened to turn on MTV one night when I was painting my toenails, and there was Frankie. It was so refreshing to see someone like her on TV. The alternative and subversive are just never recognized in mainstream media. It's always the over bronzed, under educated fratbots in Hollister t-shirts. Then there she was, with her cat eye glasses and plastic bracelets. I just watched her and thought, "That's me! I'm on TV!"

JUSTIN
But you're not-

EMILY
But she's not like me! You know why? SHE'S DYING Justin. She's got like, diabetes, or something.

JUSTIN
Cystic Fibrosis.

EMILY
Yeah, that's it. So I'm sitting there listening to her talk about how she'll probably not live past the age of 30, and I just couldn't believe how god damned strong she is.

JUSTIN
Wasn't she like, smoking a cigarette in the same scene she talked about her debilitating lung disease?

EMILY
Oh, bah! Those were Indian cigarettes, they barely count. They're made of nutmeg, or some shit. Besides, if you knew that your life was going to be a short one, wouldn't you live every day like it's the fullest? Wouldn't YOU want the occasional smoke?

JUSTIN
But. . but that's crap. She hides behind her illness, and only uses the "life is short, play hard" defense when she's done something stupid. I watched the show, she fell face first into a beer quite a few times. And don't even get me started on Dave.

EMILY
(distracted) I think I need to give myself bangs.

JUSTIN
. . . Okay, I'll bite. But Emily, you already have bangs.

EMILY
Well yeah, but only in the front, I want them to go past my forehead, to my temples.

JUSTIN
Were you even listening to me a minute ago?

EMILY
Like Bettie Page.

JUSTIN
GOD! Okay, the thing about Dave is this: He doesn't exist. Or at least he doesn't need to, not really. He's a tool to her. Frankie has spent her entire life feeling nothing about herself except that she exists as an outsider. No one likes her, so she's free to move about different personalities looking for one that fits. She's Enid Coleslaw. Well no, that's a bad analogy, because Enid Coleslaw had some redeeming qualities. So we'll say that she's Enid Applesauce. Anyway, it's very obvious that Frankie has spent her youth, and now her adult life, just surfing between subcultures, trying on anything that would allow her to maintain that she's "not the prettiest, not the smartest." So then she meets Dave who, inherently lame or not, is like the apex of thinking outside the bun. So she latches onto him, living her life by his definitions. Then when she's in San Diego, he becomes the measuring stick. She reiterates constantly that Dave proves "what she's all about." He defines her as a person. But at the same time, she's needy because she hates herself, so she needs something physical to validate her while she's away from Dave. And that's why when she wasn't spouting bullshit rhetoric about how he is her "soulmate" or how she loved him "at first sight," she's got her tongue crammed into some scenester asshole's needlessly large ear plugs. But in the end, WHO Dave is doesn't matter. He could be a tattooed rock star type, or a patchouli-scented Phishead, or a mall Goth in Crow makeup. She just needs someone, anyone, to be that beacon of definition. It doesn't matter who Dave really is. THERE IS NO SPOON!

EMILY
Bullshit. I mean, yeah, Frankie has some self-esteem problems. And yeah, she namedrops him a lot. But you're not going to convince me that Dave is nothing but a placeholder. I mean, it's obvious they have a lot in common.

JUSTIN
Like what? The fact they're both "cutters"? I wonder how deep the cuts were when he had to watch his girlfriend make out with two or three different guys?

EMILY
That's the single most hateful thing I think I've ever heard you say. I mean god, Justin, she's a real person. Not just some character on TV.

JUSTIN
But she IS just some character on TV. I don't know her, I don't care to know her, but she's on a television show for my amusement, and therefore willing and ready to take my inevitable judgement of her. Maybe the Frankie Abernathy you saw every Tuesday isn't the same as the one who exists in real life at all. But that's the character who was created, and THAT's the one you've decided to fashion yourself after.

EMILY
(embarrassed) Well. . . I mean, to say I want to "fashion" myself after Frankie is kind of pushing it. I just thought she was interesting, and I liked her. Maybe I wanted to be like her a little-

JUSTIN
Exactly! I'm not saying that you've gone Single White Female here, but it's obvious you've developed some sort of idol worship. The same as if you'd watched "Some Like It Hot" and then covered your walls in pictures of Marilyn Monroe, or if you'd started listening to the Insane Clown Posse and were all of the sudden a Juggalo.

EMILY
Except we can both agree that Juggalos are lesser life forms.

JUSTIN
Right.

EMILY
Because they worship white, rapping, wrestling-enthusiast clowns.

JUSTIN
Right.

EMILY
Okay, fine. She's flawed. She screws up. But who can say that they haven't been there? Who can say they haven't struggled to find their own identity, and hurt some people in the process? Who lives life without regret?

JUSTIN
She's just a fucked up girl looking for her own piece of mind?

EMILY
Yes!

JUSTIN
That was sarcasm.

EMILY
Oh.

JUSTIN
Did you even see "Eternal Sunshine"?

EMILY
Nah, never got around to it. But you know what's really great? Donnie Darko. It changed my life dude.

JUSTIN
. . . that's good hon.

EMILY
Oh! And "A Clockwork Orange."

JUSTIN
You had me and you lost me.

EMILY
I guess what I'm trying to say is that we all have problems we'll eventually have to come to terms with. Fortunately for most of us, we're afforded the luxury of dealing with them within the privacy of our homes. Imagine what it'd be like to have your grievances aired for the entire fucking public to see.

JUSTIN
Yeah, but what you're failing to get-

EMILY
No, I think I'm well aware of what it is I don't "get". Seems to me you're about to launch into a spiel about how Frankie is the embodiment of everything that's wrong with America. How she obsesses over being different, all the while failing to acknowledge the fact that she's no more unusual than any other chucklefuck with a pair of black framed glasses and a t-shirt depicting how hilarious the 80's are for having happened at an earlier point in mankind's chronological history. Maybe then you'll expound upon how ironic it is that Hot Topic preaches individualism yet at the same time packages it off and sells it to millions of disillusioned kids desperately seeking self-identity and validation.

JUSTIN
That's just it! She's not some "disillusioned kid". She's twenty-one. She's a full-grown woman who should probably have a grasp on how to handle her emotions by now I mean, she went into this thing expecting everyone to do some sort of comically exaggerated double take upon first seeing her because of how culturally removed from the norm she is. Unfortunately, she forgot to factor in the actuality that society as a whole had already gone through its "gawk at people with stupid hair and awkwardly placed piercings" phase sometime during the lapse between the ridiculously hokey hip-hop of the eighties and the ridiculously hokey hip-hop of the nineties. When she got to the house and the roommates treated her the same way they'd tread your average boisterous frat boy, she got pissy because she wasn't planning on being accepted. And since she ended up having nothing tangible to bitch about throughout the duration of the season, she made up some problems, pulled a few major temper tantrums out of her ass, and called it quits.

EMILY
She didn't "make up" her problems, Justin. She cut herself with a knife. She actually made a conscious decision to plunge a blade into her skin, and drag it along the open wound. How can you see that happen and not empathize? Could she have employed a little more tact in doing so? Yeah, probably, but since when has the Real World NOT been about a bunch of attractive twenty-somethings hamming it up in front of a camera in an attempt to make their lives seem much more interesting than they really are?

JUSTIN
Attractive? Did you not see Adam from Real World: Paris? Motherfucker was the closest I've ever seen a human being come to actually being one of the fryguys from those old McDonalds commercials. And those teeth? Christ, they look like the blades I used to sharpen my ice skates on.

EMILY
Oh, fuck, I know. The probability of the volume of product in his hair eventually erupting into an inferno of grease and styling gel is the only thing keeping me from making him atone for thinking he's God's gift to women through means of a 12-gauge shotgun and a round of buckshot through his crotch- Hey, wait a second. Did we just have a moment?

JUSTIN
What? What the hell are you talking about?

EMILY
A moment. Did we just have one?

JUSTIN
N-no. At least, I don't thin- WAIT! There. There it was.

EMILY
Really? Shit. I was checking out these entrée prices. Check this out. The petite filet mignon with wild mushroom sauce is thirty bucks not including gratuity. I'll go buy a pound of ground chuck and pick the mushrooms out of your shower for $3.99.

JUSTIN
What mushrooms? I don't know what you're talking about.
(pauses)
YOU'RE thirty dollars.

EMILY
I'm a predetermined monetary value? That doesn't even make any sense.

JUSTIN
Yeah, well, Frankie's afraid of really big boats. What's the deal with that?

EMILY
She's not really afraid of big boats in the sense that large sea faring vessels which are primarily used for transporting cargo and/or passengers from one destination to another frighten her. The boats are more of a metaphorical manifestation of her insecurities. They're a physical incarnate of the problems she tries to cover up with her "too cool for school" facade. Her problems just happen to be large. Large like the "boats" she was allegedly scared of.

JUSTIN
Oh, so that'd explain why the phobia was only relevant when it was convenient to her getting attention?

EMILY
No, I'm pretty sure that was just a result of her inability to maintain the plausibility of a lie.

JUSTIN
Oh. I see.

EMILY
Yeah, dude, like I said; I'm not obsessed with her. I can recognize some of her more glaring character flaws. Unlike you, I possess the ability to empathize with people as opposed to just needlessly cutting them down just because you don't want to take the time to understand them. I'm not knocking you or anything, because we all do it sometimes. I just think you could stand to open your eyes and take a look at the world outside of the shell you've created and managed to contain yourself within.

JUSTIN
I guess what it comes down to, is that Frankie shall forever remain an enigmatic piece of American pop-culture. Perhaps one day the future historians will look back upon this conversation using one of the machines they'll have no doubt designed to handle such a feat, and draw upon our wisdom to reach some divine all-encompassing conclusion about Frankie and her ultimate role in the evolution of humanity. Then they can dig up our bodies, bring us back to life through concentrated prayer to the scientifically determined "correct" God, and laugh in the face of elders past.

EMILY
You've you've never made physical contact with a woman before, have you?

JUSTIN
I awkwardly leer at them from across a crowded bar until they turn away out of trepidation and disgust. That's almost like the same thing, isn't it?

EMILY
Y-yeah, it is. Hey, here's an idea. Now that we've settled that, what say we order ourselves an appetizer?

JUSTIN
Sure. What do you want?

EMILY
All right. How about the fried calamari with the garlic aioli sauce?

JUSTIN
Sorry, I can't. I'm on Atkins, and the garlic sauce would just rocket my carb count into the stratosphere.

EMILY
Uh, ok. What about the duck confit baked in a puff pastry with a chili honey sauce?

JUSTIN
Yeah, let's get that. And then afterwards maybe we get the HOSPITAL to rig up a complimentary intravenous set-up right here next to the table so they can inject some unprocessed bacon grease directly into my veins. Since, you know, its practically the same thing. Sure, that sounds like a WONDERFUL idea.

EMILY
Jesus Christ, its no wonder I haven't talked to you since junior college.

END SCENE