Title: I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Genre: Comedy/ Romance
Cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Jessica Biel, …
Director: Dennis Dugan
Release: (2007)
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Known among a handful of the world’s top media analysts and sociologists as Adam Sandler’s Forcefield Formula (ASFF), the formula dictates a few simple ways that Adam has pioneered for being able to make fun of any vulnerable minority or special interest group in America with virtually zero repercussions from anyone for doing so. Without going too much into the mathematics of it, there are four key pillars of the formula that anyone attempting to understand the bigger picture of his career should be aware of: justification, diversification, misdirection, and redemption.
The first pillar, justification, simply mandates that whatever socially offensive actions any one character participates in, whether it be just for one cheap joke or the foundational plot of a whole movie, the character’s participation in this type of behavior must be driven by a larger motivation that justifies what they are doing beyond just making fun of people. For example in Chuck and Larry, the characters justification for acting out what is otherwise fundamentally a two-hour gay minstrel show is the caveat that they are only doing so to try to protect Larry’s two innocent little baby kiddies from being snatched up and thrown into the foster care system by the big, bad, unreasonable government if anything were to happen to Larry. And the fact that they’re idea of pretending to be gay means prancing around and shouting things like “Yeah, we totally love to listen to Barbra Streisand and do it in the butt all day.”, well, we can forgive them because they’re just a couple of regular Joe Six-packs who got forced into this situation and just don’t know any better. (And in the back of the theatre, from behind the glass, Adam Sandler looks down past his cigar and over the crowd, and smiles to himself.)
Diversification, the second key pillar, just requires that the abuse be somewhat spread around. So, if he wants to make a movie where he can use all his favorite eighth grade baseball camp gay jokes, that’s fine. Just pepper in a couple jokes at the expense of a few other identifiable groups (occupations, religions, ethnicities – doesn’t matter who) so that it doesn’t seem so much like you’re singling out the group you really want to lay into. As long as you can defensibly argue that “everyone gets it” in this movie, you can feel confident that you have satisfied the threshold for diversification.
Misdirection is a pretty standard tool in a lot of genres, but a definite requirement for using ASFF correctly. Simply put, this is the inclusion of a running subplot that is equally as (if not more so, to some people) compelling as the main story containing the satire. Adam’s misdirections almost always come in the exact same form: the ongoing, boy-meets-girl, will-they-or-won’t-they, heterosexual puppy love subplot. The genius here is not in the idea itself, but in Adam’s virtuoso command of how to use it. No one pulls off the use of an ooey-gooey love story as misdirection better than Adam Sandler. For the hopeless romantics (i.e. 80% of his female audience, 20% of the men), he baits the hook and reels them in with fluid ease of Neptune himself. And for the less sappily inclined, whom a lesser misdirector might decide to just not worry about, Adam picks up the spare by incorporating the most unfathomably, impossibly attractive women into every love story to help distract everyone left in the room (i.e. reverse those other proportions). By the time the movie’s over, the whole audience is too busy processing through their particular fantasy (either of a guy who treats them/talks to them like sweet, fumbly, goofy Adam or a girl that looks like Bridgette Wilson/Julie Bowen/Fairuza Balk/Joey Lauren Adams/Marisa Tomei/Jessica Biel/insert name here) to remember anything they were supposed to be offended by.
The final, and most important pillar, is redemption. The redemption here is not necessarily of the main character, but of the group being most made fun of. The importance of this element can not be stressed enough – it doesn’t have to be realistic or even reasonable, it just has to be there. Even the most superficial redemption of the group being targeted that somehow comes as a result of all the abuse they take throughout the movie is enough to completely forgive all of that abuse in the minds of most audiences. In Chuck and Larry for example, the two hours of manipulation and satire of the gay community is completely wiped away by the inexplicable final few scenes where the entire gay community comes out to support Chuck and Larry and hail them as great, if not misguided, heroes who taught everyone a lesson about what true love really is. The fact that they inspired a few side characters to come out of the closet and be proud to display their cartoonishly flamboyant new gay pride adds further to the redemption. This kind of throwaway bit of redemption is a virtual get-out-of-jail free card that has been a staple of Adam’s formula from the very beginning now. Go back to any movie that he was involved in the writing or production of and you’ll find almost everyone ending the exact same way: an explicit redemption of the most targeted group, and then a return of the entire cast of characters from the whole movie to each be seen in one final shot either dancing, kissing, singing, or anything else to convey with that last image that, despite any lampooning or abuse they took throughout the entire duration of the movie, they are all happier and better off for it now. All is forgiven in the audience and Adam Sandler remains Hollywood’s Teflon Don.
(And, just as a quick aside, let me be absolutely clear here – I LIKE where Adam is going. I like what he is doing and I am a big fan. Not because of any ill will towards anyone, but because I think he also has no malicious intent towards anyone except for the politically correct busybodies who think that the world needs them to let everyone know when to be offended and needs their help to save the innocent, little kiddies from hearing someone say the s-word on TV before they have a chance to learn about swear words the right way at home, by hearing their mom screaming them at their dad from downstairs while laying curled up in a ball under their Horton Hears a Who bedspread trying to make it all go away. These self-appointed media meter-maids are the real target behind Adam’s grand plan, and why I applaud it even more now that I can see where he’s going with all this. He’ll have them all right where he wants them when he lowers the boom – stuck between having to either bite their tongues and just let him get away with it, thereby undermining their credibility in all future efforts to play the morality police, or trying to do something about it and having to explain why none of his other many, many targets over the past decade plus were also worth their efforts. Check and mate on the windbags and hypocrites. Brilliant!)
So now that you know the formula, and now that you’ve stepped back to look at the big picture, are you still really going to try to tell me you don’t see where this is all headed? You’ve seen the progression – slowly warming audiences up for it by gradually targeting more and more politically dangerous targets. You now know the formula – tested and retested successfully for all possible chinks in the armor. You’ve seen the groundwork being laid – Adam building up his credibility with the studios as someone who can get remakes of old movies greenlit and turn a profit on them. And if you see Chuck and Larry, and watch what he does with the casting of Rob Schneider as the “Asian Minister” (which basically consists of several scenes of him taping his eyes back with scotch tape and saying things like “Ohhh, herro theah Chuck and Rally. So, you want to get mallied? What kind of celemony you rike? You want my daughter to thlow some shlimp flied lice for you outside the door? Wha’eveh you rike, we can do. Just fi’ hunled dorrahs.” … etc.), you know that he’s beginning to feel his oats a little more in the racial department. And you really want me to believe that you have no idea how this might end.
Well, if that’s your story that’s your story. If you want to get all huffy and puffy when this goes down, making a big scene about how outraged and offended and appalled-at-such-a-thing you are for all your neighbors to see, I suppose that’s your choice. But you better start thinking now about how you’re going to explain away all the times you’re already on record as having enjoyed these other movies he’s been setting you up with all along.
