1. Blades of Glory is a very funny film; John Heder, in particular, is good. In this respect, the picture culminates a trajectory in Will Ferrell movies, toward giving more and more time to comic co-stars. Compare one of his earlier starring films, Elf - where, outside of the North Pole scenes, Ferrell was really the only "comedian" in the picture - to the trilogy of Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Blades of Glory - all full of supporting comics (Steve Carrell, David Koechner in Anchorman; John C. REilly, Sacha Baron Cohen in Talladega Nights; Heder, Poehler, Arnett, and others in Blades of Glory).
2. Why so many comedians? Not, I think, because Ferrel can't carry a film, but because of a significant shift here in the structure of comedian comedy. In the "classic" structure of comedian comedy - evident in Elf, and virtually omnipresent in the genre - a comedian, qua misfit, is pitted against society, and must either (i) set aside/compromise upon his/her oddities (settling down to a "regular" life as Ferrell does in Elf) or (ii) leave the society that s/he cannot assimilate to (think of Chaplin waddling off down the road at the end of Modern Times).
3. This is not true of post-Elf Ferrell films. In place of the comedian/misfit vs. "normal" society structure, each of his films presents an ENTIRE SOCIETY OF MISFIT COMEDIANS - the oddballs in the San Diego newsroom, the dimwit macho men of racing, and the schizoid sexuality of ice skaters - all social groups presented as objects of laughter for the audience. As such, the relevant structure would seem to be not "misfit comedian vs. society" (the "classic" structure) but "audience vs. comic society" (which we could call a "post-social" structure). Put another way, the binary that structures a Ferrell movie is not the misfit's comic relation to the society in which s/he attempts to function, but the audience's ironic relation to the misfit society represented on the screen. (In this respect, the difference between a Will Ferrell movie and a Christopher Guest film is less than might first appear.)
4. What, then, about our ability to imagine what it means to be a community? Can western audiences only imagine community in a mode of irony? Is Will Ferrell symptom or cause of the end of democracy?
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6 comments:
May I say, RK, that you had me until #4?
However, I was intrigued by the premises you started. For example, you state a classic structure for comedian comedy, as comedian/misfit vs. society. But haven't there always been audience vs. comic society movies as well? I'm thinking of Blazing Saddles,Raising Arizona, most of the Monty Python movies, etc? Or even earlier, Keystone Cops?
My family is from the South(Oklahoma) and I loved Raising Arizona precisely because it used irony to make me feel a part of the southern community. In that, if you haven't spent a large amount of time in the south, you might not get a lot of the humor of this film.
It's the age-old question: Are we laughing at them or with them? In this case, I identified with the comic society, saw myself and my family, and laughed at me.
It is an age-old question. Since I'm inclined to be schematic:
1. Blazing Saddles and the Monty Python movies are explicitly working within the orbit of parody.
2. On the whole, I wonder whether this is true of most comedian comedies: perhaps for Hope and Crosby; occasionally for Danny Kaye (say, The Court Jester as a kind of Robin Hood take-off); no doubt some others. But, in large part, I think the two modes - comedian comedy and parody - are separate modes. (Not that they don't often intersect, but that logically one doesn't have to entail the other.)
3. Might we say that, in Will Ferrell, that distinction is collapsed?
4. There is no number 4.
I'm not so sure that the two modes, i.e., comedian comedy and parody are quite so different. I would almost say that the comedian comedy usual works within another mode. For example, I do believe that the Will Ferrell movies are very much within the parody genre. Talladega Nights parodied the culture of race car driving. My understanding of parody is that it can imitate another work or genre as well as a cultural practice.
Would not many comedian comedies also fit the genre of screwball? My feeling is that a comedian comedy would necessarily have to intersect with some other form of comedy.
So though Blazing Saddles is a classic parody of the genre of Westerns, it is also a satire of racism and of the implicit acceptance of the larger society.
In that way it is the audience vs. society model.
So back to question #4 in your original blog entry: Does Will Ferrell project a symptom of our current idea of democracy? And can Western audiences only envision community within a context of irony? Democracy has always been a notion defined within cultural parameters of the time (Plato's idea of democracy, Rome's version, etc.). So possibly, Ferrell films are a symptom of our times. In that, a new cynicism of what we have been fed about being, say, American is.
Maybe it is the beginning of a new, more honest democracy?
Oh, sure. This blog will review Blades of Glory, but it won't review the Transformers. Where are your values? Damn you, Mookie.
RK, how would you characterize Steve Martin's early films, such as The Jerk and The Man with Two Brains? Both of them rely on a recognition that society is in some sense "wrong," something that the comedian must maintain his otherness in order to navigate. Are these proto-Will Ferrell films?
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