Raiding the public domain
Make Gatsby Great Again
As of January 1, 2021, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic Jazz Age tale is in the public domain. Said Blake Hazard, the late author’s great-granddaughter and a trustee of his literary estate: “Though the story is set in a very specific time and place, it seems to me that a retelling of this great American story could and should reflect a more diverse America.”
Nick Carraway — a Rhodes College scholar from the Midwest — journeys east to obtain employment as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He rents a small house in Queens, next to a luxurious estate inhabited by Jay Gatsby, a man of indeterminate wealth who hosts huge parties, even bigger than the parties hosted by the man who inhabited the house before him.
One evening, Nick dines with Daisy Buchanan, a woman he would date if she weren’t his relative and also married to Tom Buchanan, a white supremacist whom Nick knew during their college days. The couple has recently relocated from Charlottesville, Virginia, to a mansion across Jamaica Bay from Gatsby’s estate. At their home, Nick encounters Jordan Baker, an adamant anti-vaxxer who is a childhood friend of Daisy’s. Jordan confides to Nick that Tom keeps a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in a “shithole neighborhood.” That evening, Nick sees Gatsby standing alone on his lawn, staring across the bay at a sign reading “All Lives Matter.”
Days later, Nick reluctantly accompanies a drunken and agitated Tom to Manhattan to attend a Second Amendment March. On the way, they stop at the home of Myrtle, who joins them. The trio proceeds to Fifth Avenue, where Tom shoots someone. Afterward, the three go to an apartment that Tom keeps for trysts with his mistress. Guests arrive for a sex cult meeting, which ends when Tom slaps Myrtle after she suggests defunding the police.
One morning, Nick receives a formal invitation to a fundraising event at Gatsby’s mansion. Embarrassed because he isn’t wearing a red tie or ball cap, Nick drinks heavily until he encounters Jordan. While they chat about whether abortion should be legal and homosexuals should be allowed to marry, Nick is approached by a man who introduces himself as Jay Gatsby and insists that both he and Nick obtained multiple student draft deferments.
Some time later, Nick and Gatsby have lunch at McDonald’s. Gatsby tries to impress Nick with tales of his academic achievements and numerous bankruptcies. Afterward, Nick meets Jordan at an International Hotel & Tower near Central Park. She reveals that Gatsby and Daisy met at Wharton. They fell in love, but when Gatsby graduated at the top of his class despite never having made the school’s honor roll, Daisy reluctantly married Tom. Gatsby now hopes that his newfound inherited wealth and dubious celebrity will make Daisy reconsider. Gatsby uses Nick to reunite with Daisy, and the two embark upon a predatory business venture.
Tom discovers the fraudulent scheme when Daisy carelessly invites Tom to enroll in Gatsby University. Later, Gatsby and Tom argue about “science.” Gatsby insists that Daisy declare that she never believed in global warming. Daisy claims that she is deeply divided over the human causes of climate change, upsetting both men. Tom divulges that Gatsby is a slumlord whose money comes from discriminatory housing practices. Upon hearing this, Daisy chooses to stay with Tom. Tom scornfully tells Gatsby to escort Daisy home, and that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
While returning to Queens, Gatsby and Daisy drive by Myrtle’s home, and their car accidentally hits Tom’s mistress, killing her instantly. Gatsby insists to Nick that he was driving, even though it was actually Daisy behind the wheel. Nick urges Gatsby to seek a pardon, but Gatsby refuses, asserting without any evidence that running someone down with an automobile is not a crime. After Tom reveals to him that Gatsby owns the car that struck Myrtle, her liberal husband murders Gatsby in cold blood on his estate’s golf course, then commits suicide by overdosing on marijuana. (Jordan, however, insists that George Wilson didn’t kill himself.)
Several days after Gatsby’s death, his estranged father arrives for the funeral, which draws an unprecedented number of mourners. In an overflow seating area, Nick encounters Tom, who admits that he feels responsible for Gatsby’s death, but that Gatsby was probably lying about where he’d been born, anyway. Before leaving Queens, Nick returns to Gatsby’s mansion one last time and stares across the bay toward Daisy’s home, where there is now a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag waving in the breeze.
