Others are grossed out by the trailer and what appears to be a rape scene in the movie, and I while see why they’re so squicked and angry, I’m actually relatively interested in seeing the movie because I’m a fan of Jody Hill’s previous work. I love “Eastbound and Down” and adored “The Foot Fist Way” when it came out. The trailers don’t do them justice, just trust me on that. Danny McBride, Jody Hill’s partner, is one of my new favorite people to watch, but only in his own projects (I’ll gladly pass on crap like “Tropic Thunder”, thank you). I’ve been brewing up a post on “Eastbound and Down” for awhile now, because I think it’s a pretty scathing commentary on a particular kind of geographical white American male identity. It’s smart. It takes what Judd Apatow and Will Farrell have been trying to say about American male culture and removes the empty humor, keeps the meaty bits, and adds some edge. It’s dark, yes, but so are the cultural narratives about what makes a man a man.
Jody Hill and Danny McBride’s whole schtick, the thing they most often explore, which I think is executed rather well in the two projects I just mentioned, is the grandiose loser and how the delusional ideas he (and it’s always a he) holds are ultimately destructive, wrong, and at odds with the subject’s own happiness and self-interest. They explore image and artifice, presentation and performance of masculinity, and the odd vulnerability underneath. There is humor there, even if their “heroes” are people you’d never want to emulate, mostly because the delusions of grandeur are so apart from the main character’s reality.
Though it isn’t as meaty as the stuff I describe above, here’s a pretty classic example of their independent work:
I see enough of this usually benign, yet grandiose pathology in my real life that I’m piqued by the general theme.
There is some of this, the artifice, the aspirational masculinity, in the trailer for “Observe and Report”, and I’m curious to see how much, or if, it departs from their previous projects. The only drawback to submitting myself to the movie, acknowleging that I’m at a point in my recovery that I can see a rape scene in a movie and not be triggered, is that I think Seth Rogan, actor and person, is a douche, and I’ve walked away from all his movies feeling like I got cheated out of my money. Seriously. “Knocked Up” is a big, shiny piece of shit wrapped up in a big, shiny red bow masquerading as a modern relationship comedy and I’m disappointed the general populace lurved it as much as they did.
There is some of this, the artifice, the aspirational masculinity, in the trailer for “Observe and Report”, and I’m curious to see how much, or if, it departs from their previous projects.
Which I could understand. However, I think that what’s bothering me the most about the trailer is how it doesn’t seem to be an exploration of the dark side of hypermasculinity. It just plays the most noxious aspects of it for laughs. (Both the Slate review and the NY Mag piece saying it’s rape, not drunken sex say that the scene is clearly meant to be really funny. (Dana Stevens says “It certainly constitutes one of the movie’s biggest laugh lines.”) But I’m not buying it: Anna Faris’s character is essentially unconscious, lying on a vomit stained pillow, and showing no signs of participating whatsoever in her sexual encounter with Rogen.
For a movie to effectively satirize a convention, it must be clear to the audience that they are watching satire. If people think that rape is justifiable and funny, the movie flat out fails.
Thanks for this, Lauren.
I don’t know these filmmakers at all, but after reading some of the other feminist blogs’ comments on this earlier today, I watched the trailer and thought, Really? This isn’t supposed to be critical, some kind of satire or something of white U.S. masculine power, or how violent, stupid, disciplinary white U.S. masculinity is constructed as authoritative? Again, I don’t know these filmmakers, and I haven’t seen this movie, and I am way the f*ck out of touch with popular culture, but still I can’t look at that trailer and imagine it could be other than some kind of critical reading of dominant/white/US masculinity/authority, which means I can’t quite read that scene the way it’s being read on lots of feminist blogs. So I’m intrigued by your notes here. Thanks.
yyyyeaaahhh, there’ve been a few too many “ironic” pieces of media that really…weren’t, in the end, in the last decade or two. i think i’ll probably pass on that one.
Oh, I totally agree with both of you on this. I’m interested in seeing it as part of a larger string of works since I like their other stuff. None of these pieces are purposely feminist or progressive in any way, and they’re definitely flawed in a way that my thesis here could be challenged on, but the subject matter is ripe for feminist and progressive analysis. Ultimately they present a generation of white guys and their expectations for themselves and one another as pathologically authoritative, self-policing, vulnerable, and absurd — and the humor lies in the absurdity — and personally I think they hit it on the nose. I can’t speak for this movie, having only seen the trailer.
But as far as identifying with a character that is clearly a bad person, I think of The Sopranos, an awesomely morally ambiguous show of which the genius was challenging the audience on WHY they identified with Tony in particular, who was a killer, an abuser, a bad father, and a criminal. But yet we did. Along with Eastbound and Down, I’ve also been brewing up a Sopranos post for, like, two years, so don’t get me started.
Agreed. Not like it’s high art or anything, or even conscious of the school of thought you’re referencing, but from what I see in the trailer, even in the scene in question, what I see is a main character whose story isn’t a laugh, who is frankly delusional. I see a self-importance, from the insecurity that breeds self-hype, that leads to destructive behavior, meanwhile the character thinks he’s a rock star. It’s classic frat boy shit, and they’re critical of it.
But again, like the Tony Soprano comparison, or hell, any Quentin Tarantino movie, or all of Pesci’s or DeNiro’s bad guy work, some people are going to watch it and their take away lesson is going to be that abusive, violent, fucked up behavior is cool.
Or Shorter Lauren: It’s about dudes’ over-compensation.
Or Slightly Shorter But Still Talkin’ Lauren: It’s about over-compensation and mocking ignorance. There’s a line in Eastbound and Down where the main character Kenny Powers, in his “inspirational” autobiography, says something to the effect of, “Some people say I’m a racist, but I’m not xenophobic, I just think America is superior to everywhere else.” The dumbasses in the audience are high fiving each other and the rest of us are chuckling at the ignorance. He’s like Dennis Duffy from 30 Rock, but rural.
And this is where the douchebaggery that is Seth Rogan makes it impossible for me to get on board with this interpretation. Rogan is quoted as saying that the rape scene is meant to make you uncomfortable in an “how can this possibly be okay?” kind of way, but then she says “why’d you stop, motherfucker?” from beside a puddle of vomit and everything is all hilarious again. Yeah, no, not so much.
Now, maybe Rogan’s just wrong, but if he thinks that’s a reasonable interpretation of the scene, then I’ll bet large sums of money I don’t have that large swaths of the audience will too. There isn’t any redemption here, and while that may be the point, it’s a pretty hideous way to say there’s no salvation.
I want to totally second the frustration with “Knocked Up”.
I went with my parents when we were looking for a movie to go see. I’d heard reviews from formerly trusted sources (when it comes to taste) that it was quite funny and edgy/intelligent. We all left scratching our heads at the idea anyone would find it funny, let along edgy and intelligent fun.
(Not to mention, my mother and I were seriously weirded out by the totally fake wood colored fake belly she had. I still don’t get that……. You’d think they’d bring in someone to make sure that her “pregnant” belly actually looked….. pregnant)
Recently I heard about what the premise for “Superbad” is (namely that a young man wants to rape a woman so that she’ll be “forced” to be his girlfriend. What the shit?). If this type of stuff is “humor” I guess I am a stodgy old fart.
But again, like the Tony Soprano comparison, or hell, any Quentin Tarantino movie, or all of Pesci’s or DeNiro’s bad guy work, some people are going to watch it and their take away lesson is going to be that abusive, violent, fucked up behavior is cool.
which ties into a question that’s been on my mind a lot lately – namely to what extent is an artist responsible for audience perception of her/his work? I mean a lot of people think of Lolita as a love story, or a story in which the protagonist does experience some kind of redemption, & a lot of these people are big-time literary critics (one of whom thought, according to Wikipedia, that it was actually the story of a corrupt youth seducing a weak man – BARF), and honestly having read it? I don’t understand how you could read the book & come across with that interpretation, unless you are assuming that Author’s View = Character’s View which… come on that is so, so basic. To me it is extremely clear (and Nabokov’s own comments on the book, both in interviews and in his afterword, seem to support this) that the book is primarily a character portrait of Humbert Humbert & that we are supposed to take pretty much everything he says with a couple thousand grains of salt – that is, that H. H. wants to draw us into this incredibly fucked up view of the world but I don’t think there’s a shred of evidence that Nabokov agrees. But I also think he probably saw it coming that people would respond that way, and I don’t know how I feel about that because having read the book I also don’t think he could have made the disconnect between H. H.’s POV and reality any more explicit or obvious without compromising his artistic integrity.
but, I actually liked Knocked Up, so what do I know ;)
…uh wow that got really long and tangential. sorry, sometimes the classes I’m taking sort of take over my head for a while & then erupt all over the place. anyway more importantly: really interesting post, if you do see it I hope you write up a response.
No, Isabel, I get what you’re saying. Goodfellas and Flatlands are the best movies ever in my book, so don’t trust my judgment either. :D
I do think movies are more susceptible to Characters’ View = Author’s View than books, not sure why. Maybe because there’s more mass appeal? Like a lowest common denominator effect? Or because the critical audience for novels is academic? I don’t know. But I think that’s suspect, too. Novels, at least, are a one person project, or a one person and an editor project, whereas a movie usually involves a hundred people who all put their stamp on it (which leads to a lot of crappy films, IMO). I think it’s a mistake to assume authorial intent in movies for that reason. Not every filmmaker is an auteur.
But I’m susceptible to it too. I develop opinions about the actors and directors and my experience watching movies moves from there, so I’ll never watch another Tom Cruise or Angelina Jolie movie. I think all of Tarantino’s heroines are a big wank-fest of all his sexual fantasies. Seth Rogan reeks of niceguy-ism and fake humility. Don’t like Todd Solandz, but I have loads of indie darlings who are probably no better or likeable than anyone else I hate, but there it is.
I think probably the reason that movies are more susceptible to Character = Author is because we are given the illusion of it being a objective third person narrative. In many books we can decide to trust or not trust the narrator because we know who the narrator is (or isn’t).
If we read a book where everything is told to us as though it is objectively the Truth (as in, by an omnipotent and uninvolved narrator), but it turned out that the author disagreed with hir narrator’s POV, it would be highly confusing. And since there are very few movies not specifically shot from “outside” the action, it makes it increasingly hard to view that camera’s POV as being biased (and thus, it must be what the director/creators wanted).
Lindsay has now posted excerpts from an interview with Jody Hill talking about the scene in question.
He’s not doing much to redeem himself.
Already on it.
I’m totally not understanding why the fuck you’d want to see this movie.
That trailer shows that it’s yet another insipid movie where boys get to be bad and all is forgiven because they put a comedic spin to the shit with some great realization at the end.
Hello?
Jody Hill’s other films include acting in Superbad, which was dumb as fuck. Did he experience some sort of epiphany in his life to where he started making brilliant, life-altering films?
Do we really need another movie with boys being bad while the girls/women/females stand around acting stupid?
You’ve just described a shit-ton of films and teevee shows already out there.
Only insofar as they present new material, which doesn’t look like they do. The only difference between this shit and past shit is the release date.
A Friday night hanging out in the Village watching all the drunken guys walk by would be just as instructive and “ripe for feminist and progressive analysis”–if not more so given they are actual human beings and not shit actors.
Really?
I was hoping that O&R would be a more consistent critique than it actually was. Hill can’t decide whether the movie is about a horrifying anti-hero or an underdog who gets revenge on bitches and elitists.
Anti-hero Ronnie gets high and savagely beats teen skateboarders in the the parking lot. He constantly puts down the nice girl in a wheelchair who’s only trying to be nice to him.
Underdog Ronnie gets the laugh laugh on Brandi, who goes on to sleep with his rival after Ronnie rapes her.
In the climactic scene, underdog Ronnie shoots the flasher when he tries to accost Brandi a second time. We know he’s underdog Ronnie and not anti-hero Ronnie because i) Ronnie hasn’t actually murdered the emotionally disturbed flasher in cold blood. That would be too dark. It turns out he just looks fatally wounded, he’s actually well enough for Ronnie to triumphantly escort him to the police station; and, ii) Before Ronnie leaves he gets a chance to take Brandi down a peg in front of the crowd in cosmetics. She compliments him on shooting the flasher and he rebuffs her, telling everyone: This is Brandi who will have sex with you and then sleep with your enemy.
If O&R were critiquing machismo, Ronnie’s feelings of betrayal would be mocked. How bizarre is it that he rapes her and then he feels betrayed because she chooses to have sex with someone else? But the movie validates Ronnie’s feelings instead of ridiculing them.
Hello? Anne, arbiter of taste. Yes, really.
Lindsay, I have a feeling my review would probably mirror something close to yours (which I’m going to throw up a link to here shortly), except I still think we’ll feel differently on whether Ronnie is redeemed in the end. I could be totally wrong, but I doubt I’ll see the movie until I can get it on cable — I’ll write my review when I do.
Again, I don’t think this is any kind of progressive, awesome feminist thing, but I do think when you look at the Apatow arrested development projects in comparison with what McBride and Hill are doing, you get a much clearer criticism of dude culture with the latter. A lot of ink has been spilled in debate of Apatow’s movies and whether they capture a generational male experience, and I personally think people would be equally interested in the kinds of experiences and personalities Hill and McBride put out there too.