The Lowdown on Comedies

Years from now, film scholars may debate at what point movie comedies reached their all-time low.

Was it when Chris Klein got his arm stuck up a cow’s rectum in “Say It Isn’t So”? How about when someone mistook a cancerous testicle for candy in “Tomcats”?

Does Tom Green get the nod for hosing down his dad with something unspeakable in “Freddy Got Fingered”? Or is the nadir yet to come in the spate of sequels and knock-offs intended to lure teenage boys to the multiplexes?

The current sad state of film comedies isn’t just a matter of gross-out one-upmanship, although that certainly plays a major role. Vulgarity can be funny, as Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Monty Python, John Belushi and the Farrelly brothers have shown on occasion.

The problem here is a deeper one. Look at a list of American comedies released just this year--or worse yet, try to watch them all--and you can’t help but wonder: Where have all the howlers gone?

Granted, there was no golden age when everything was great, and comedies are notoriously difficult to pull off, which is why the Oscars should quit snubbing them. But such an onslaught of crimes against humor can’t be a coincidence, particularly given that so many commit similar offenses: an over-reliance on toilet humor and shock-value gags; poorly drawn, unengaging characters; unjustified nastiness; incoherent storytelling; and no discernible subject matter beyond the jokes.

“Something may be happening in popular culture--the kindly word would be ‘democratization,’ but there seems to be an appeal to the lowest and dumbest in the audience and a mean-spiritedness that wears thin very quickly,” said Harold Ramis, who co-wrote “National Lampoon’s Animal House” and “Ghostbusters,” and co-wrote and directed “Caddyshack” and “Groundhog Day,” all of which made the American Film Institute’s recent list of the top 100 American comedies.

“They’re aiming for a common denominator, and it just winds up being so low,” agreed Joan Cusack, who is starring in her own ABC sitcom--”What About Joan?”--after years of delivering strong comedic performances in movies. “But I don’t understand why that is, exactly. Do people in charge think America’s dumb?”

That would be one logical conclusion. Another would be that the people making and marketing these movies aren’t necessarily smart about what will make audiences laugh.

Consider the 2001 roster of comedies. It includes “Double Take,” “The Wedding Planner,” “Monkeybone,” “Down to Earth,” “Saving Silverman,” “See Spot Run,” “Company Man,” “Heartbreakers,” “Say It Isn’t So,” “Just Visiting,” “Someone Like You,” “Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles,” “Tomcats,” “Joe Dirt,” “Freddy Got Fingered,” “Town & Country,” “The Animal,” “Evolution,” “Pootie Tang,” “Dr. Dolittle 2,” “What’s the Worst that Could Happen?” and “Scary Movie 2.” Some are less heinous than others, but none will vie for the next AFI comedies list.

About the only comedy this year that could be considered a critical and commercial success is “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” which happens to be British, adult-oriented, based on a well-regarded novel and the product of a semi-independent distributor (Miramax).

Among American films, audiences probably have laughed hardest at “Shrek,” a computer-animated family film packed with pop-culture jokes. And even “Shrek” resorts to flatulence gags.

To be fair, there’s a dangerously thin line between funny and unfunny.

“When you do a comedy, either everybody was laughing or it stunk,” Chris Rock said. “There’s no middle ground.”

Rock made this comment before the release of his “Down to Earth,” which audiences and critics subsequently deemed to be on the wrong side of the equation. If Rock, a very funny man on stage, can’t necessarily tell what will connect on screen (his new “Pootie Tang” isn’t being hailed as a classic either), how can the Hollywood executives who exert influence over comedies be expected to do so?

“In my dark days at the studios [as an executive at Paramount and MGM/UA], it was always more frustrating to get a comedy through because every studio executive has a different idea of what’s funny,” said Peter Bart, Variety’s editor in chief. “Most people who work for studios are not exactly famous for their sense of humor. I think the studios are suspicious of their own abilities to judge comedies, so they’re subjected to much more testing and fiddling around with the final product.”

Bolstering Studio Profits

Comedies are important to a studio’s balance sheet because they don’t necessarily require pricey special effects or big-name stars, yet they can generate blockbuster box office figures, like the $100 million-plus that “Scary Movie,” “American Pie” and “There’s Something About Mary” each grossed in North American theaters alone.

Although many of this spring’s comedies bombed, toss-offs like “Dude, Where’s My Car?” and “The Animal” each generated grosses in the $50-million range, more than $30 million over their estimated price tags.

Because the demographic driving these numbers is thought to be teenage boys, the studios direct their efforts accordingly.

“They expect you to just aim for the 16-year-old boys on Friday night,” said director Garry Marshall, who made “Pretty Woman” as well as the upcoming G-rated “The Princess Diaries.” “That’s the money, and the rest is ‘Who cares?’ But I think somebody cares.”

Second City founder Bernie Sahlins complained that too many movies violated a key Second City rule: Always play at the top of your intelligence. “You have to play to your audience as if they’re at least as smart as you are and probably smarter,” he said. “Audiences know when you’re talking down to them, and they hate you for it.”

Not helping matters is that many current comedies are about the gags and nothing else.

Mel Brooks and Allen, at least in his early comedies, brought the influence of television to the big screen in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Yet their brand of irreverence itself was making a statement during the societal upheaval that accompanied the Vietnam War. Even a movie like 1978’s “Animal House,” though set in the early 1960s, was striking a blow for individuals against institutions.

“Politically and culturally, there hasn’t been a galvanizing movement or set of events comparable to the late ‘60s that would point to a new comedy,” Ramis said. “I see funny stuff and smart people, but I haven’t seen anything really new. Seeing Tom Green doing a kind of reality comedy really is no different from stuff we were trying in the mid-’70s.”

Few New Talents Have Emerged

The current best comedy track record, at least on the acting side, may belong to Ben Stiller, who has inspired audiences to laugh through his tears in “Meet the Parents,” “There’s Something About Mary” and “Flirting With Disaster.” Aside from the love ‘em/hate ‘em Farrelly brothers (“There’s Something About Mary,” “Kingpin”), what other major movie-comedy talents have emerged over the past few years? Adam Sandler? Rob Schneider? Green? Please.

Many new comedies share a certain toothlessness and general irrelevance. Classic comedies as diverse as Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights” (1931), Ernst Lubitsch’s “Ninotchka” (1939) and Robert Altman’s “MASH” (1970) commented on the world moviegoers experienced outside the theater. Now the most common reference points are pop culture. The “Scary Movie” and “Austin Powers” movies would be incomprehensible without a background in TV and movie staples.

Is there relief in sight? Given that the ceiling on gross-out jokes must be approaching, the pendulum is due to swing the other way. Consider that television comedy, at least on cable, has risen in sophistication, so maybe movies will follow. Right? Right?

To Sahlins, the key is for filmmakers to realize that comedy, like tragedy, is an art form. “Many people who make comedies think it’s a matter of being either silly or sexy,” he said. “It requires in a way even more intelligence than a non-comedy because you have to make it real and believable, and that’s the hard part. If you look at the comedies that have endured in the theater, they’re all comedies that are well-written, the characters are people you care about, and they tell the truth.”

Amen.