The Chipotle Stiff Arm
So if you've been kicking around this site at all, you might be wondering if I've ever been rejected by an entity other than McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Well, I have. In fact, my work has been summarily dismissed by none other than that burrito-making restaurant chain you know as Chipotle. When you're a true creative, you can't limit rejection to just a literary humor website. No, you have to cross over into something big, like the restaurant industry.
The rejection process started when one of those sneaky Chipotle employees slipped a promotional card into my burrito basket touting their customer website, MyChipotle, and a contest currently taking place thereon. The purpose of said contest was to create a short (like under 1 minute short) video that extolled the virtues of your favorite custom burrito.
The contest had been running for awhile, so you can imagine the amateur crap that had already been uploaded--things with kids dancing and spoofs of hip-hop videos (okay, one of those was actually not nauseating) and just lowest-common-denominator stuff. Normally, I don't fall for cattle call contests like this, but my buddy, Mike Alonzo, shoots videos in his sleep and was on board. Never underestimate the value of having a camera and editing tools available when shooting a video--the pen alone can only do so much. Plus, they got us with the super big cash prize (something like $10,000) for the winner. I went against my instincts on this one, and it cost me.
After my buddy and I kicked around some ideas, I wrote out a script that borders on the brilliant. Here's all you need to know:
- Three roommates share an apartment.
- One roommate wants to eat the other, who happens to be a cow.
- The third roommate intervenes with the help of a delicious Chipotle vegetarian burrito.
So we have all the elements of a good story, here: cannibalism, compassion, and Mexican food. We end up shooting this thing at the aforementioned Mike's house. He also handled the front-of-camera and editing chores, and we made full use of the amateur thespian skills of Time Barrow (hungry roommate), Jon Reily (compassionate roommate), and Destiny (cow). I was content to be the rarest of species: a writer who's actually allowed on the set.
Here's what we did that day. Enjoy.
So right on deadline day I send the thing off, and those attorneys that Chipotle employs for circumstances such as this wasted no time in firing off this form rejection:
Hello, we’d like to thank you again for your submission to MyChipotle. Unfortunately, we can’t use it at this time for the following reason:
Video/Audio/Image contains profanity or nudity.
Because they didn't identify the actual culprit, I was forced to put on my attorney hat and figure out what in the video would scare me had I wasted three years of my life in law school. At first, I was genuinely confused. Nudity? What, the cow? And as far as profanity, we left all the "fuck you"s and "mother fucker"s that I had liberally populated the script with on the cutting room floor.
Then I realized that they must have taken issue with how we brandished the cleaver. I guess it just looks way too menacing when perched over the head of a docile cow mask. It's a good thing they didn't see the outtakes where we threw that sucker around the set with reckless abandon, laughing all the while.
I've had my stuff rejected for a lot of reasons, but this was the first time that it was due to my choice of cutlery. Lesson learned, Chipotle. Lesson learned.
3 Comments
Reader Comments (3)
Are you going to credit the actors who poured their very soul into your video?
Boy, is my face red. I'm all for giving credit where it's due, and it is most definitely due here. Post has been updated. Thanks for catching my unintentional oversight.
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