Interview with TV PILOT Screenplay Winner Josephine A. Perry (MY MOTHER MURDERED MY FATHER)

Matthew Toffolo: What is your screenplay about?

Josephine A. Perry: The title of my pilot for my TV series has been changed to SHATTERED. Shattered is more accurate regarding its overarching theme: how one family, generation after generation, tries unsuccessfully to leave its destructive past behind by pretending it never existed. It incorporates a variety of themes in the pilot; some are only hinted at initially but then looked into fully in later episodes: for example, miscegenation, that ugly term used by racist lawmakers to stop people from integrating the races in the US. Or the uniquely American version of narcissism that Americans tend to believe makes them “the greatest nation on earth” as well as the ongoing abuse of women by men of power. It also introduces us to a woman whose life work will be to explore the abuse and pain of young women and young men in…