Carine McCandless:
[voice-over] The year Chris graduated high school, he bought the Datsun used and drove it cross-country. He stayed away most of the summer. As soon as I heard he was home, I ran into his room to talk to him. In California, he'd looked up some old family friends. He discovered that our parents' stories of how they fell in love and got married were calculated lies masking an ugly truth. When they met, Dad was already married. And even after Chris was born, Dad had had another son with his first wife, Marcia, to whom he was still legally married. This fact suddenly redefined Chris and me as bastard children. Dad's arrogance made him conveniently oblivious to the pain he caused. And Mom, in the shame and embarassment of a young mistress, became his accomplice in deceit. The fragility of crystal is not a weakness but a fineness. My parents understood that a fine crystal glass had to be cared for or it may be shattered. But when it came to my brother, they did not seem to know or care that their course of secret action brought the kind of devastation that could cut them. Their fraudulent marriage and our father's denial of his other son was, for Chris, a murder of every day's truth. He felt his whole life turn, like a river suddenly reversing the direction of its flow, suddenly running uphill. These revelations struck at the core of Chris' sense of identity. They made his entire childhood seem like fiction. Chris never told them he knew and made me promise silence, as well.
Henry Dawes:
We cannot allow a return to incivility.
Charles Eastman:
Incivility? And what has civility earned them, might I ask? Trained nurses? Even one hospital?
Henry Dawes:
All things the Sioux will provide for themselves, Charles, once this plan has passed. As you yourself agreed - they must adapt.
Charles Eastman:
Must they adapt, sir, to the point of their own extermination?
Henry Dawes:
Extermination? I suppose you say we've exterminated your Indian heritage rather than provided to you the benefits of an entire civilization?
Charles Eastman:
Senator, please sit. Sir, if every individual were taken personally under your care, as was my good fortune, I admit, the outcome might be what you seek. But I am not the example you held up to The Friends of the Indian. I am the example of nothing. I simply do not see how placing each Indian man on a desolate, 160-acre parcel of land is going to lead his children to medical school.
Henry Dawes:
It will, in time. But first, this must pass. Or I guarantee you, destitution is all the Sioux will ever know. I have many opponents, Charles, in the press, in Congress...
Charles Eastman:
You have an opponent before you, sir.
Betty Warren:
[Betty's Third Editorial Voice Over] Wellesley girls who are married have become quite adept at balancing their obligations. One hears such comments as, "I'm able to baste the chicken with one hand and outline the paper with the other." While our mothers were called to the workforce for lady liberty it is our duty, nay, obligation to reclaim our place in the home bearing the children that will carry our traditions into the future. One must pause to consider why; Ms. Katherine Watson, instructor in the art history department, has decided to declare war on the holy sacrament of marriage. Her subversive and political teachings encourage our Wellesley girls to reject the roles they were born to fill.
Katherine Watson:
Slide - Contemporary art...
Connie Baker:
No, that's just an advertisement...
Katherine Watson:
Quiet. Today you just listen. What will future scholars see when they study us, a portrait of women today? There you are ladies: the perfect likeness of a Wellesley graduate, Magna Cum Laude, doing exactly what she was trained to do. Slide - a Rhodes Scholar, I wonder if she recites Chaucer while she presses her husband's shirts. Slide - hehe, now you physics majors can calculate the mass and volume of every meatloaf you make. Slide - A girdle to set you free. What does that mean? What does that mean? What does it mean? I give up, you win. The smartest women in the country, I didn't realize that by demanding excellence I would be challenging... what did it say? [Walks over to a student and picks up her copy of the editorial]
Katherine Watson:
What did it say? Um... the roles you were born to fill. Is that right? [Looks up at Betty]
Katherine Watson:
The roles you were born to fill? It's, uh, it's my mistake. [Katerine drops the student's paper back onto her desk]
Katherine Watson:
Class dismissed. [Katherine walks out of the classroom]
Aunt June:
I want to talk to you about morals. The morals of the young people today is going to get them in big trouble. I'm telling you, because they act like they don't know the difference between right and wrong. And this is the truth. And see, one of the reasons is the parents. The parents are not taking care of their children. They are not telling them the difference between right and wrong. But then...
Aunt May, Aunt April:
[both roll their eyes and turn to leave]
Aunt June:
Wait, now. No, no, no. No, ma'am. You have to listen. Because part of the responsibility is the children's, because this is *their* lives. It's not their mama's or their papa's. I'm talling you, they have to think for themselves. Even if their mama and papa didn't do something about them. Girl, look, the children have to think and try their best to come on up, come on up.
Tom:
[when Kate leaves] I have done it, she is gone! Now I can raise you children the way I want to! Mwa ha ha, ha ha, ha! [kids stare blankly]
Tom:
C'mon, Dad's in charge now, you can... eat candy for breakfast, sleep in, wear shoes in the house, it'll be great! [kids continue to stare blankly. Tom finally gives up]
Tom:
Yeah, I know, let's go inside.
Randal Graves:
So, your argument is that title dictates behavior?
Dante Hicks:
What?
Randal Graves:
The reason you won't let me use your car is because I have a title and a job description, and I'm supposed to follow it, right?
Dante Hicks:
Exactly.
Tabloid Reading Customer:
I saw one, one time, that said, "The next week, the world is ending." And in the next week's paper, they said, "We were miraculously saved at the zero hour by a koala-fish mutant bird." Crazy shit.
Randal Graves:
So, I'm no more responsible for my decisions here than, say, a Death Squad soldier in Bosnia?
Dante Hicks:
Oh, now, that's stretching it. You're not being asked to slay children or anything.
Randal Graves:
Yeah, not yet. [takes a drink of water]
Tabloid Reading Customer:
And I remember this one time- [Randal spits water at him]
Tabloid Reading Customer:
I'm going to break your fucking head! You fucking jerk-off!
Dante Hicks:
Sir! Sir, I'm sorry! He meant to hit me.
Tabloid Reading Customer:
Yeah, well, he missed!
Dante Hicks:
Yeah, I know. Here, let me refund your money, and we'll call it even, alright?
Tabloid Reading Customer:
I'll never come in here again. [to Randal]
Tabloid Reading Customer:
And if I see you again, I'm gonnna break your fucking head open! [Randal salutes him as he leaves]
Dante Hicks:
What the fuck'd you do that for?
Randal Graves:
Two reasons. One, I hate it when people can't shut up about the stupid tabloid headlines.
Dante Hicks:
Oh, Jesus!
Randal Graves:
And two, to prove a point. Title does not dictate behavior.
Dante Hicks:
What?
Randal Graves:
If title dictated my behavior, as a clerk serving the public, I wouldn't be allowed to spit water at that guy. But I did. So, my point is that people dictate their own behavior. Even though I work in a video store, I choose to go rent movies at Big Choice. Agreed?
Dante Hicks:
[gives Randal his car keys] You are a danger to both the dead and the living.
Randal Graves:
I like to think I'm a master of my own destiny.
Dante Hicks:
Please, get the hell outta here.
Randal Graves:
You know I'm your hero.
