I Now Pronounce You Demeaning And Offensive

July 27th, 2007

I don’t know where my head was at when I decided to spend 11.95 on Adam Sandler’s latest flick I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Perhaps I should’ve read some reviews before stepping into the theatre. But in my defense, ever since I saw Alexander Payne’s name credited to the screenplay my interest was piqued. However, that doesn’t excuse the act of seeing this film. I was really just expecting a few laughs but DEFINITELY not at the expense of other people.

Where do I begin? First off, let me please start by saying this movie is like an unfunny joke gone wrong. With a premise that has the potential for pure comedic genius, the creative team behind this flick decided to veer in the opposite direction by opting for cheap laughs. Sandler and gang succeeded in offending every minority group out there – I swear they must’ve had a checklist going when they wrote this monstrosity: Overt racism – Check. Misrepresentation of women – Check. Stereotypical portrayal of the gay community – Check.

Considering the fact that the major lesson of this film is ‘acceptance ‘and ‘tolerance’ this movie shows very little of it. In fact, it goes out of its way to be offensive. Rob Schneider dressed as an Asian priest with a lisp, coke-bottle glasses, overbite and bowl-cut wig? Since when did it become OK to demean and insult an ethnic group with a ridiculous stereotype of its people? It wasn’t right in 1961 when Mickey Rooney dressed up as the ‘quirky’ neighbour in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, so what makes it right to do it 46 years later?

And that’s only one example of the film’s offensive nature… What about the mockery this film makes of the gay community? There is not one scene where I saw a non-stereotypical portrayal of gays. This is frightening considering its premise is based around tolerance. There is just way too much misogynistic, homophobic and racist material in this movie to make any person feel comfortable.

These are grown men playing these roles and it’s really unfortunate that they don’t see the wrong in their actions. Moreover, it’s sad to see how oblivious they are to the kind of stereotypes and intolerance they are encouraging. I get that comedies are supposed to be offensive but sometimes people blur that line. Cheap comedy is not good comedy.

How did Adam Sandler take 10 steps back from progressing his legitimate acting career, by not just starring BUT also producing one of the worst movies of ’07? Don’t make the same mistake I did by going to see this train wreck of a film.

Posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 12:02 pm by Jen and is filed under Celebrities & Pop Culture.