12 Monkeys
written by David Webb Peoples & Janet Peoples (based on La Jetee by Chris Marker)
Guard: This here's James. Now, do me a favor. Why don't you show him around? Tell him about the TV rules and show him the games and stuff, okay?
Goines: How much you going to pay me? How much? I'd be doing your job.
Guard: Five thousand dollars, my man, that enough?
Goines: Five thousand?
Guard: I'll wire a check to your account as usual.
Goines: Five thousand dollars. Five thousand dollars.
Guard: Five thousand dollars.
Goines: I'll give him the deluxe mental hospital tour.
Guard: My man.
Goines: Kidding around, kid around. Makes 'em feel good. We're pals. You're the prisoners. Nooo, you're the guards.
Guard: Now you got it.
Goines: Right, right, right. Okay, okay. It's all in good fun, all in good fun. Here's some games here, and there's -- (suddenly screams at another inmate) GET OUT! GET OUT! He was in my chair... ...Games, Games. Here's some games. (the games are locked behind a metal screen) Games that want to get out, ha. See? More games. Games, they vegetize you. See? BAH! If you play the games you're voluntarily taking a tranquilizer. I guess they gave you some chemical restraints, huh? DRUGS! What'd they give you? Thorazine? Haldol? How much, how much?? Learn your drugs, know your dosages, it's elementary.
Cole: (weakly) I need to make a telephone call.
Goines: Telephone call? That's communication with the outside world. Doctors discretion. Uh-uh. Nah. Hey, if all these nuts could make just make phone calls, it would spread insanity oozing through telephone cables. Oozing to the ears of all these poor, sane people. Infecting them. Wackos everywhere, a plague of madness. In fact, very few Jim, Jim, very few of us here are actually mentally ill. I'm not saying you're not mentally ill, for all I know you're (twitches) crazy as a loon. But that's not why you're here. That's not why you're here, that's not why you're here!! You're here because of the system.
There's the television. It's all right there. All right there. Look, listen, kneel, pray. Commercials. We're not productive anymore. We don't make things anymore. It's all automated. What are we for then? We're consumers. Yeah. Okay, okay, buy a lot of stuff, you're a good citizen. But if you don't buy a lot of stuff, if you don't, what are you then I ask you? What? Mentally ill! Fact, Jim, fact. If you don't buy things: toilet paper, new cars, computerized blenders, electric operated sexual devices, stereo systems with brain implanted headphones, screwdrivers with miniature built in radar devices, voice activated computers!!
Nurse: Take it easy, Jeffery. Be calm.
Goines: Right. That's right. You're a very attractive woman. Haaaah! (thumbs up sign) So, uh, you wanna watch a television show, you go to the charge nurse, you tell her the day, the time, the show you wanna see. But you have to tell her BEFORE the show comes on. There was this guy, and he was ALWAYS requesting shows that had already played. YES! NO! You have to tell her before. He couldn’t quite grasp the idea that the charge nurse couldn’t make it be yesterday, you can’t turn back TIME, thank you Einstein. Now HE, HE was nuts! He was a fruit cake Jim!
Kudos and much thanks go to Scott and John (respectively) for this monologue, it is very much appreciated.