Artist Statement
I love cheese. I have
occasionally considered eliminating animal products from my diet as matter of
experiment, and then I remember cheese and despair. I won’t be going anywhere—the
cheese is right here. A multiplicity of flavors, textures and colors comfort my
senses; in its magnificence I wonder how cheese first came to be.
In the article Earliest evidence for cheese making in the sixth millennium BC in
northern Europe by Mélanie Salque et. al notes findings of what appear to
be cheesemaking pottery in 8,000 year old sites in present-day Turkey and even
some findings of cheese residues that indicate cheese could have been consumed
as long ago as the Neolithic period in widespread sites in Europe, the Middle
East and North Africa, with Europe being regarded as the first among these.
Based on this, we decided Neolithic Europe would be the ideal setting for Squeaky Milk. It would be Neolithic men,
then—primitive, but daring—who would be the first to try this strange, now
commonplace delicacy.
What would this first
cheese have looked like? In Europe’s first cattle farmers quickly added
cheese to menu, by Robert Lee Hotz, the first cheese is thought to have
been “a soft, watery concoction resembling a cottage cheese…” Might these
watery curds have squeaked when eaten, like fresh cheese from a dairy? Spencer
thought so, and so it was worked into the script.
Spencer was the primary
writer for the Squeaky Cheese rough
script. Jacob, Spencer and I then discussed the rough draft together in order
to refine it into a finished, targeted product. It was clear we all wanted a
light-hearted tone in our final product. While our characters were Neolithic,
we wanted them to be easy to empathize with. Spencer had the idea of including
references to modern-day phenomena, specifically coffee dependency, inability
to admit alcohol dependency, and on a lighter note mood swings and cravings
associated with pregnancy in Ug-Ug’s (the main character) wife, Lesley.
Ug-Ug and Oo-Goo are
buddies like you might find hanging out at the local sports bar after work,
best friends who get each other into—and out of—trouble. Their language is
rudimentary and brusque but occasionally hints at deeper intelligence in the
midst of monosyllabic grunts, choosing words like “homicidal” and “acquainted.”
Despite their fear of Lesley’s mood swings, she is revealed to be a
precociously well-spoken individual probably responsible for most of the
improvements to life the cavemen have had or will have. As in many households,
the ultimate determinant of what becomes part of daily life (the cheese) in Ug-Ug’s
tent was the woman of the family.
At the charged conclusion of the script, Ug-Ug
and Lesley’s banter is light-hearted but belies a deeper sincerity and honesty like
that demonstrated in Satrapi’s Persepolis—a
world of possibility is open to them, and they have not the least idea—not yet.
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