As you know if you read my last post, Liar Liar gave me some unexpected Father's Day food for thought, and my initial browsing on Sunday night was aimed at continuing that theme. But the right option never really presented itself, so instead I continued to pursue a different theme: people laboring under the influence of a curse/spell, in order to radically change their perception of, and interactions with, other people in the world.
That's right, I landed on Shallow Hal, the 2001 film that nearly cracked my top ten that year, but has since come under probably justified scrutiny for its implied fat shaming -- even if the message of the movie is that we shouldn't fat-shame people. (So why so many fat jokes, Shallow Hal?)
We're different as a society since now, so I wanted to see if I was different as well. And was a little worried about the possible result, making this the opposite of a guaranteed fun viewing experience on Father's Day -- what I was seeking with the Liar Liar viewing.
It turns out yes, I am different, in that I didn't laugh very much in this movie, whereas I remember laughing a fair bit in 2001. But I still thought it was a worthy, possibly misunderstood, effort.
But let's start with the not laughing, and whether it actually has to do with our enlightened viewings toward body positivity or is rooted somewhere else.
I don't think in 2001 I was laughing at things like furniture breaking under Gwyneth Paltrow's Rosemary -- bad timing, as I just broke a piece of furniture in our house the night after I watched this -- or the rear of their canoe pitched six feet off the surface of the water, with a flabbergasted Jack Black fruitlessly rowing air. If you are going to do this concept, these are good visual sight gags, but I don't believe they made me laugh per se. Certainly didn't on this viewing.
So was it laughter that vaulted Shallow Hal to my #13 in 2001, or sentiment?
Peter and Bobby Farrelly do make every effort to shine a light on the humanity of their characters. We know they have a pattern of putting people with physical or mental limitations in their films, to give a showcase for people of all types and to proactively shout down the people who would laugh at them. I think this is what Shallow Hal is trying to do with unattractive people, even though there is an obvious false equivalency between a character with spina bifida and a character who is just "ugly" -- which is actually just "ugly" as defined by society and popular magazines.
Because they are comedy directors, they of course also have to make jokes, and the jokes stem from the scenario they are investigating. I think Shallow Hal is mostly devoid of cheap shots, even though it's clear the movie would never be made today. And characters who are insensitive pricks are taken to task for that.
No, the real quandary regarding Shallow Hal is whether Hal actually displays any personal growth in his journey, at least not until an ending that strains some credibility.
Namely: If he sees someone who he thinks is physically beautiful, is he actually really doing anything different than what he's been doing this whole time?
It's a tricky one. The idea is that by being able to see inner beauty, he's seeing what she actually looks like and not caring. And though he starts to become a nicer guy at the same time, displaying generosity rather than ogling, it's still the guy who thinks he's seeing a perfect 10, and that isn't real growth.
I think the conceptually idealized message that Hal is seeing what people really look like, and then converting it into physical attraction on the basis of connecting with them emotionally, is worth conveying, and I don't know if you could put it in that different a package -- especially coming from a comedy background. (It would still be years before Peter Farrelly made something not explicitly comedic, like Green Book.) But it may never be fully possible to appreciate Shallow Hal without some sort of asterisk.
And the Farrellys may have always known this would be the case. Which actually speaks sort of well of them as "artists" -- I have to put it in quotation marks because I doubt they would classify themselves as such. But artists, by definition, go outside their own comfort zone, or the comfort zones of their intended audience, to present a challenging version of the truth, and it isn't exaggerating to say that this might be what Shallow Hal is doing.
I've written all this about Shallow Hal and so far it has nothing to do with the subject of this post. What does The Cable Guy have to do with all this?
Well, it specifically has to do with the combination of the two movie choices I made this weekend, both of which have similarities to my favorite Jim Carrey movie, and top 20 movie on my Flickchart.
Liar Liar has an obvious connection in that both films star Carrey. In fact, it was the very next film Carrey made after The Cable Guy, and in most people's minds, it represented a return to form after that critically dismissed Ben Stiller film. (The Cable Guy has vastly gained in appreciation since then, and as you might know from previous mentions, I am its biggest champion.)
But there was a funny lesser connection with The Cable Guy that I didn't notice until this viewing. Namely, both films feature Carrey's character beating somebody up in a bathroom.
In The Cable Guy, Carrey's Chip Douglas thinks he's helping out his new "friend" Steven (Matthew Broderick) by attacking the date (Owen Wilson) of Steven's estranged girlfriend, Robin (Leslie Mann). So he poses as a bathroom attendant at the restaurant where they are on a date, and when the jerk comes in to relieve himself, Chip introduces him to various hard surfaces and standard bathroom components.
In Liar Liar, well, of course, it's Fletcher Reede beating himself up. It's his desperate attempt to get a continuance on his court case because he is unable to lie. It's certainly just a coincidence but I thought it was a funny one.
Shift to Sunday night, and there are some funny similarities between Shallow Hal and The Cable Guy as well.
For one, Jack Black is in both movies. He plays the titular character in Hal, and he's the supporting role of Steven's best friend -- his actual best friend -- in Cable Guy.
But Tony Robbins is also in both movies, though his role in The Cable Guy is small enough that you probably wouldn't remember it unless you'd seen the movie nine times (or so) like I have.
We know his role is significant in Hal, as he is the one who frees Hal's mind to see inner beauty by putting a "spell" on him. How Robbins does this is a bit of a mystery, and it doesn't matter. I mean, how did Max's wish come true in Liar Liar? It doesn't matter.
But Robbins also has a small -- albeit off-screen -- appearance in The Cable Guy. There's a moment when Steven, laid low by Robin's decision to take some time apart from him, is listening, only for a moment, to a Tony Robbins self-help seminar in order to get his mojo back. (Yes, I just noticed the Robin/Robbins connection myself.) Chip then arrives to pick him up -- even though Steven didn't realize they were supposed to get together -- and the sequence ends.
So will it be The Cable Guy the next time I'm looking for a comfort food comedy circa the turn of the century?
Could be. You know how I talk about how favorite films seem to come up for me for a viewing about every four years. Guess when my last Cable Guy viewing was?
Yeah that's right: June 18, 2020.
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