Tuesday, May 29, 2007

"...if the humor weren't so filthy"

In a New York Times Magazine article about filmmaker Judd Apatow, the writer comments: "Both of the films Apatow has directed offer up the kind of conservative morals the Family Research Council might embrace — if the humor weren’t so filthy." Harrison Scott Key at World Magazine:
Would you go see movies by a director that served his audiences healthy doses of conservative values? You know, movies where a man is tempted to lose his virginity but eventually overcomes temptation to wait for marriage. Or movies where a character learns how to grow up and man up and take care of his child and the child’s mother? Oh, I bet you would. Except that you wouldn’t tell your pastor. The films, which you’ve already figured are The 40-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, are just a little too vulgar – if not completely honest:
In each of the films, the hero is nearly led astray by buddies who tempt with things like boxes of porn, transvestite hookers and an ideology about the ladies possibly learned from scanning Maxim while scarfing down Pop-Tarts. By the end,” however, the friends are exposed “as well meaning but comically pathetic” and the hero ends up doing the right thing.
I suspect the vulgarity masks the conservatism of these films’ themes. But then, someone once said that all comedy is inherently conservative: exposing fakery for fakery and calling for a return to authentic virtue. But this doesn’t go over in scriptwriting classes too well.
Source: Bad movies are so good

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