Dear Hollywood, dear illustrious dreamers of the American fantasy, dear, dear colleagues in art,
There’s something we need to discuss.
Coffee. And when I say “coffee” I mean any hot beverage that comes in a disposable paper cup with a plastic lid. Your chais, your teas, your lattes, your chai tea lattes, and so on, all of that included. Water with lemon, maybe, for some.
The drinking of hot beverages, I don’t have to tell you, is one of the few abiding rituals we have left to sustain modern society. Americans love coffee. We love drinking it. We love meeting for it. We love talking about it. And by the same voyeuristic pleasure that plugs us almost constantly into the virtual lives of the people on our screens, we love watching other people talk about, meet for, and, most of all, drink coffee.
But this satisfaction cannot be realized when characters are flailing their arms about with obviously empty cups. The verisimilitude of an entire show can be—and often is—lost over such glaring and easily avoidable neglect. If the coffee is fake, what could possibly be real?
Is this a union thing? Did someone get burned once and sue a studio? Is this related to the McDonald’s drive-through guy from back when? I’m sick of that guy. I might even start voting Republican, if that’s what it takes here.
I don’t mean to be glib. This is serious business to me. And it’s been on my mind for some years. But I’ve held my tongue long enough, waiting for you to conduct yourselves like professionals. I’ll tell you what brought me to my boiling point (if you will). My wife and I started streaming Ballers on HBO. Now, I admire the Rock’s physical prowess as much as the next guy, but even he knows to be careful with a hot cup of coffee. And yet you would have us believe the opposite. In episode after episode, there are the Rock and his costars waving supposedly full cups of 180° liquid like air itself.
You might fool us with your phantasmagoric effect into thinking celebrities’ lives are actually like what we see on reality programming or that cooking shows are educational, but if there’s one thing you won’t fool us on it’s the mass and risk of a paper cup full of hot liquid. We simply know too much be duped on this front. We have way too many years of personal experience holding onto hot things that are burning our hands and must be set down quickly and carefully.
And yet. And yet! Year after year, show after show, movie after movie, you continue to insult us. Yes, insult us! What else would you call it but an insult to our intelligence.
Compelling programming? Ha! Ha, I say, on behalf of my fellow coffee drinkers, which is to say fellow Americans, which is to say it’s time for you to do better, time for you to be better, time to treat every cup of coffee as if it were precious. Because it is. It is so, so precious.
Available to discuss over a fresh pot (your treat),
Scott F. Parker