You could feel it in the air as Apatow basked in the glow of his 2006 double whammy, the hilarious “Knocked Up” and “Superbad.” By the time 2007’s “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” rolled around, the backlash was gathering steam.
I told a friend I’d seen it.
“Is it just more of the Judd Apatow formula,” he sniffed. It was, I admitted. But I like the formula. I like it a lot. And not to get too Harry Knowles on everyone, but I’ve liked it for a long while.
I liked “The Ben Stiller Show,” loved “Heavyweights” and what I saw of “The Larry Sanders Show.” Heck, I even chuckled at “Celtic Pride” and saw “The Cable Guy” opening weekend. Aside from the latter, most people didn’t see much of Apatow’s work, but those who had loved most of it.
He got a chance to stretch his wings with “Freaks and Geeks,” probably my favorite show ever this side of “The Andy Griffith Show” (pre-departure of Don Knotts), “Cheers,” and “The Honeymooners.” Paul Feig created F&G, but Apatow nurtured it and, if my admittedly shoddy research is true, was the master at injecting sweetness into some of the storylines. That sweetness, honed so well in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” is what separates his vulgar comedies from other, more obnoxious vulgar comedies. And it’s about to bite him in the ass, I think.
“He has his cake and eats it too,” I’ve heard people say of Apatow. An hour and a half of homophobic, sexist comedy, and it’s all wrapped up in the end with a phony moral message. Sorry, but I call bullcrap on that.
What’s interesting is that I hear the sexist card being played from both sides on “Knocked Up.” Katherine Heigl is a shrew, I’m told, for expecting Seth Rogan to clean up his act. That’s sort of what she said, I think, in an article in a magazine I don’t read. But, but, but…I didn’t think she was a shrew. I thought she was right. I never thought she was the bad guy. I thought we were laughing at Rogan and with him. So I guess Apatow was having his cake and eating it too.
John Nolte pointed out that he doesn’t empathize with the characters. I’ve also heard the complaint that Rudd’s character was doing nothing wrong, and the women made it out to be terrible that he would sneak off to a fantasy baseball league meeting, or whatever the hell it was. The fact that Rudd’s character felt guilty about it didn’t go over with some people I’ve talked to (I corner people and bring up the awesomeness of Judd Apatow, which is the extent of my shoddy research). Again, I disagree. I totally empathized with Rudd and his wife, the hilarious Leslie Mann. Why? I feel guilty when I go to a movie and my wife’s alone with our insane kids. I get where Rudd’s coming from, and picture my wife being as mad as Leslie Mann was.
Ultimately, I’m wary anytime someone calls a movie sexist or racist. I rarely, if ever, think that the characters in a movie are meant to symbolically represent all men, or all women.
As for the charge of homophobia, leveled by none other than “Freaks and Geeks” writer Mike White, here’s the rub, and it won’t go down easy. No matter how accepted homosexuality becomes in this society or just about any other, dudes will always crack gay jokes. The resurrection of Prop 8 could fail by a hundred percent, and dudes will still crack gay jokes. My son is six. He’s never cracked a gay joke, I’ve never told him what gay means outside of the context “The Wiggles” or “Barney” saying something is happy and gay. But when we were at open house at his school in West L.A., he warned me not to use the middle urinal in the bathroom, “Because Mark told me it’s the gay one.”
“So what, what does Mark know?” I asked, stepping up to the urinal.
“Dad! He knows! He’s in the third grade!” my son exclaimed as some other kids came in, laughing and pointing. I’d like to say that I acted like a grown up in this situation, but I’d be lying. Instead, I bellowed, “I’m not gay! You are!”, zipped up before I was finished, and ran back to the open house, my pants stained with pee, their laughter echoing in my head.
Apatow’s swinging for the fences with his next movie, “Funny People”, starring his one-time roommate Adam Sandler, along with Seth Rogan, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jonah Hill, and some Coppola. The trailer looks funny, but again, I have to confess something else as it relates to this self-indulgent post: I’m a big Sandler fan. Always have been, since his sporadic appearances on “The Cosby Show” and “Remote Control.” For several years, I worked at Blockbuster on Sunset Boulevard. When customers would ask me if they should rent a new Sandler movie, say “The Longest Yard,” I’d think, “Just pick a movie, what do you need my help for, you friggin’ Democrat,” but I’d smile politely and gush, “It’s the best movie ever! They never should have remade it, but it’s still the best movie ever.”
About that time, my buddies would say, “Wait, customer. He’s an irrational Adam Sandler fan. Don’t listen to him. It’s a terrible movie.”
A fist-fight would ensue. But anyway, Apatow’s never made any secret about his love of James L. Brooks’ movies (I’m guessing he missed “I’ll Do Anything”), and “Funny People” looks suspiciously like Apatow doing James L. Brooks. With dick jokes and potheads.
I so cannot wait.
But the backlash is just a wave right now, in the distance, crashing tsunami like to the shore in a couple of months. I’m predicting I’ll be defending this movie for the better part of the year, provided I can get a guilt-free trip to the multiplex in the books. I don’t think Apatow can win here, he’s due for a huge backlash. Setting aside my irrational love of his movies, and Sandlers, and Rogan’s (I’ve bored you enough) — if this movie’s only pretty good, KA-BLOWIE! Apatow’s gonna take it on the chin, a victim of his own success.
He’s gotten too big. Alot of the people who claimed to like him before he was popular are upset that he’s popular. He was theirs. And if I’m right that he’s ambitiously entering “Terms of Endearment” territory, with fouler language, many of those same people are going to turn on him.
In the interest of fairness, I get that Apatow has glutted the market lately, but you know what? I don’t blame him. People are finally watching, it’s time to crank’em out. He made it on merit, and he’s earned a little over saturation. It’s like how Hall of Fame NBA star Dominique Wilkins described his offensive philosophy: “Shoot ’til you get hot, and then keep shooting.”
Who’s looking forward to “Funny People”, and who thinks it’s going to be a stinker? I think you know my answer: Bring it on, Judd. I mean, Mr. Apatow.
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