Mothwashing
Devon Walker, Bowen Yang, Chloe Fineman, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Ego Nwodim, Kenan Thompson, Emil Wakim, Sarah Sherman.
INT. Auditorium - NIGHT
DEVON sits on the stage with MIKEY, CHLOE, ANDREW and EGO. Devon is in a longhorn beetle costume, Mikey a bumblebee costume, Chloe a luna moth costume, Andrew a brown house moth costume, and Ego a seven-spotted ladybug costume.
DEVON: Well, I want to thank our panelists here at Exoskeleton Outsiders: Identity and Media Representation in the Creative Industries. And now we're going to open up the floor to questions from the room.
BOWEN raises his hand and is passed the microphone. He is in an oriental cockroach costume.
BOWEN: This is Kevin Yang from the Asian Carapace Foundation. This question is for Chloe. Chloe, since playing the character of Salganea, the giant wood cockroach from the country who finds love in the big city in the romantic comedy Wings of Fancy, you've received a lot of criticism from the cockroach community for mothwashing. Now that it's been more than a year since the movie came out, have you had more opportunity to reflect on the controversy?
CHLOE: Thank you, Kevin. I have. I ask myself before I think about taking on these projects now: how can I be more mindful of the ways I have benefitted from being a member of the order Lepidoptera? However, while I can never understand exactly what members of the order Blattodea go through, I've also felt invisible before. "Mommy, is that a butterfly?" Children ask when they see me at the garden. "It looks like a butterfly." And sometimes I'm too tired to explain to them how that is an act of erasure of my identity as a luna moth.
Bowen and Sarah groan. Sarah is in an American cockroach costume.
MIKEY: I want to add, as the director of Wings of Fancy, that we were very careful about doing our homework. We hired a giant wood cockroach intimacy coordinator because we wanted to be respectful about depicting their sacred tradition of chewing each other's wings off after moving in together. And Andrew here, well, he's not a cockroach, but he is a brown house moth, so you know he's from the streets. Andrew, do you want to tell them about your background in the pantries and your encounters with pest control?
ANDREW: It was a war zone. I'd be chilling with my homies, eating bread, rocking leather, and the next thing I see is some fool hitting my homie with a pump.
Devon and Kenan groan. Kenan is in a Florida woods cockroach costume.
EGO: I think we might be missing the point a little. There are more than 5000 cockroach species living their lives in every corner of every continent, and yet they have virtually no media representation, in front of or behind the cameras. Can the subaltern bug speak? This is why my independent film production company, Chitin Productions, makes sure to hire creatives that have traditionally been marginalized by the big studios.
Kenan and Sarah nod approvingly.
KENAN: That's right. It takes all of us. Gabriel here, for example, is not a cockroach, he's a termite, but as a fellow member of the Blattodea Coalition he knows we face similar issues - human brutality, inhospitable living conditions, prejudice, and starvation - but Hollywood doesn't like to talk about that.
Emil, dressed in an eastern subterranean termite costume, raises his fist.
EMIL: Solidarity! From the basement to the attic, we demand equality!
MIKEY: Guys, sometimes it's not about discrimination, it's about making choices that are more accessible to a general audience.
Sarah raises her hand and is passed the microphone.
SARAH: Hi, Sarah from PETA here. What's wrong with showing us as we are? We are smart, we are resourceful, and we play an important role in the environment. Earthworms also eat human leftovers and they don't get such a bad rap. We work hard and mind our own business. And some, like the Oriental cockroach, came here for a better life and some - I'm talking your Madagascar hissing cockroaches - don't even want to be here in the first place but were brought here by the cruel pet trade.
BOWEN: Just fyi, we don't like to use the term 'Oriental' now.
SARAH: Oh, my bad.
BOWEN: I have to be honest. After being given unprecedented access to our community and our culture, some of the film industry's past decisions have felt like such a betrayal. As Yuri Kochiyama said, "We are all part of one another." Isn't it time our stories reflect that?
DEVON: Well, I think that's a wrap. Thank you all for coming, and I think we have had a lot of meaningful dialogue. Let's continue the conversation at the mixer - hashtag PalmettoPowerHour - in the lobby. We're throwing down with breadcrumbs, apple cores, human hair, and kibble. For drinks there's water from the shower or the sink.