Line in a Film...

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Hey I'm making a little Indie Film. And in it I have this line: "When you hire a wash-up athlete as a coach, you get ____ students." Were aiming to keep the vulgarity low, but this line can easily be said as: "When you hire a fucked-up athlete as a coach, you get fucked-up students." Anyway, body have any idea for a word that can go in the blank or rephrasing of the statement?

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First i would note that the term is "washed-up." Then i would note that there is no good reason to assume that a former athlete who can no longer perform professionally cannot be a good teacher. I'd say you need to scrap that entire line.

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I don't agree that you need to scrap the line. Movies would be pretty dull without wrongheaded characters every now and then and it'd be silly to throw out all lines that we don't agree with from such works.

As to how you might replace the vulgarity all I could think of was "dysfunctional" or "messed-up".

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@Muarck,

Who's your target audience for this film? How much vulgarity and "bad" language you can get away with often depends on who you're aiming at.

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Thanks: Yeah, I should have written: "When you hire a washed-up athlete as a coach, you get ____ students." That was really just a typo.

But yeah, I agree with Robert, there are a million great lines in film that was inaccurate. Accuracy of a line has nothing to do with whether it should be used. And by the way, the line is said by an angry faculty member who's lost his job as track coach to a "washed athlete."

Anyway, we are aiming for a relatively family oriented audience. So fuck I was going to keep out. If you have some less vulgarity though. Hit me with it.

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Well, i'd say "messed-up" is the best idea offered so far.

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@Merry Andrew,

you could try 'feckless'. it means pretty much the same thing--and sounds pretty close to vulgarity,

Rap

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@raprap,

Problem is feckless doesn't sound like fucked up.

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Yeah, the ideas are good. But messed up sounds a little weak to me and feckless doesn't have that up and up rhythm. Granted I'm holding these words in comparison to the strength of fucked-up. And that's pretty hard to beat. So i realize this is a tall order.

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Just for throwing something out there. Maybe "up" and "up" is too tall an order. Maybe there's something that could be down with "out", "off", or "down" something like "washed up" -- "_____ out/off/down"? Just for widening the field of possibilities.

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Well here's an example of two that come sort of close to working for me:
"When you hire a wash-up athlete as a coach, you get jerk-off students."
The major problem with that is I am trying to say something more like "messed-up" or "screwed-up".
Also
"When you hire a washed-up athlete as a coach, you get cracked-up students."
That sound more like a car crash.
"Screwed-up" athletes is probably the best thing I've thought of so far, but it sounds like you're trying not to say fucked up.

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Oh, and there's also "burned-out coach" if a different beginning helps.

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"When you hire a has-been athlete as a coach, you get never-will-be students."

I think that's the idea you're trying to convey.

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Joe's suggestion is pretty slick, i'd say.

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@joefromchicago,

I'd considered this one but IMO it comes across as way too cheesy, but that might be because I"m paying to much attention to the line.

Personally, I still think it works best with the vulgarity.

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I like joefromchicago's suggestion as well.
But I'd change "never-will-be" to "won't-be".

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@George,

I refuse to have any of my lines altered! I'll contact the Writer's Guild! I swear I'll walk off this project!

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@Muarck,

Muarck wrote:

Hey I'm making a little Indie Film. And in it I have this line: "When you hire a wash-up athlete as a coach, you get ____ students." Were aiming to keep the vulgarity low, but this line can easily be said as: "When you hire a fucked-up athlete as a coach, you get fucked-up students." Anyway, body have any idea for a word that can go in the blank or rephrasing of the statement?

How you fill in the blank depends on how you want it to build your characters and/or to further your plot. What's the context? I suppose you could draw on the inspiration/persperation dichotomy. Is the team working hard yet the coach fails to inspire them? If so, perhaps the line could be something like this:

When you hire a washed up athlete who doesn't give a shit to coach a bunch of kids, you get an uninspired team. It doesn't matter how hard they work, they're not going anywhere.

Line in a Film...

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