"If you thought Abu Ghraib was a laugh riot then you might love 'Observe and Report,' a potentially brilliant conceptual comedy that fizzles because its writer and director, Jody Hill, doesn't have the guts to go with his spleen. [...]
"What follows next should have been the shock of the movie: a cut to Ronnie [Seth Rogen] having vigorous sex with Brandi [Anna Faris] who, from her closed eyes, slack body and the vomit trailing from her mouth to her pillow, appears to have passed out. But before the words 'date rape' can form in your head, she rouses herself long enough to command Ronnie to keep going."
-- Manohla Dargis, New York Times
"Because we laugh and gasp at what follows, does that mean we approve? Having seen Ronnie's actions in a movie, do we now believe that date rape should not be prosecuted -- that it is just harmless fun?
"Although I have never had such a dilemma in life, usually being the first to pass out, I hope I'd have the decency to walk away from a semi-conscious woman. I hope I also wouldn't harass a Muslim co-worker, use a Taser on a man who parks next to a loading dock, break into a mall and assault policemen, or triumphantly shoot an unarmed criminal. Although I adore 'Lolita,' I hope I am never tempted to lay a finger on a prepubescent girl....
"All this might seem crashingly obvious, but at least in this culture it can't be restated too often that comedy is not safe."
-- David Edelstein, The Projectionist
Last weekend I witnessed a sort-of argument over whether "Observer and Report" was funny or not. Or maybe it was really about whether the movie was even supposed to be funny. I don't know for sure because I haven't seen it yet. So to me the discussion sounded mostly like: "It's not funny!" / "Yes it is! I laughed!" / "No it's not! I didn't!" / "Yes it is!" / "It's only funny to people I hated in high school!" / "Humor is hard to analyze because it's personal!" / "No it's not!" / "Yes it is!"...
So, maybe writer-director Jody Hill is the anti-Judd Apatow. No sweetness to leaven the raunch. I say this having seen neither of his features ("Observe and Report" or "The Foot-Fist Way"), and only the first episode of "Eastbound and Down," a portrait of a small-time sociopath I found extremely funny. Favorite moment: birdlike John Hawkes ("Deadwood, " "Me and You and Everyone We Know"), shivering in his unheated backyard pool while drinking a Foster's while his blubbery pink brother (Danny McBride) splashes around obnoxiously.
But regardless of whether the so-called "date rape" scene is or is not a) date rape, or b) funny, (I'll have to figure that one out for myself), I've been interested in people's perceptions of the characters. I mean, nobody has said they were meant to be role models (thank goodness), but how "sympathetic" are the characters meant to be? Ronnie is a bi-polar sadist, and Brandi is... well, I cannot report until I observe first-hand. I'll let Kim Voynar of Movie City News give you her take:
I saw an interesting documentary at AFI Dallas called "Haze," which is mostly about the excessive alcohol consumption on college campuses in the Greek system. But there was one bit in particular that struck me in that film where a professor talks about studies on how drinking patterns, particularly among female students, have changed over the past couple decades. He says that many female students these days come to college intent on drinking as much as the boys do. They binge drink excessively -- 15-20 drinks at a sitting is no longer uncommon.
Another professor in the film states that many of the college-age, binge-drinking female students he has interviewed say they do so specifically to absolve themselves of responsibility for promiscuous sexual behavior. I'd like to read an actual study that verifies this somewhere, but the prevalence of overtly sexual behavior by college-age girls at spring break parties and exploitative series like Girls Gone Wild would seem to indicate that many 20-something young women today view their sexuality as something to flaunt and exploit, not hide under a bushel -- and they're using drugs and alcohol to relieve themselves of the inhibitions that might otherwise make them think twice about what they're doing.
Female empowerment is about the idea of women in control of their lives and their choices, not about women choosing to drink and drug themselves into a state of non-responsibility for their sexual decision-making. The depiction of Brandi in "Observe and Report" is clearly the latter.
Brandi is reprehensible -- and offends me as a woman by the way she represents women -- and you could argue that Jody Hill's take on her and the type of woman she represents is completely misogynistic, but Hill just put the stereotype of this young, sexually active, hard-partying woman on-screen. And if you don't believe that, just take a stroll down the main bar drag in any random college town on a Friday or Saturday night...
Kim Morgan at MSN Movies' Hollywood Hitlist and Sunset Gun thinks "Observe and Report" reflects contemporary reality from another angle. The Travis Bickles of today aren't to be found driving cabs but at the mall:
[If] you get behind director writer Jody Hill's subversive, hilarious, weirdly poignant and almost horrifyingly timely "Observe and Report," you'll see Travis, not only as a power-hungry security guard in the form of a schlubbier Seth Rogen, but also as a regular Joe consumer. He might be traversing the food court or staring at the ice skaters in the center rink or wondering if he can afford a flat-screen TV while making his mortgage payment, but he's there, facing down all of that cheaply made fast food, recycled air and overpriced merchandise. He's killing time and, to become even more of a downer here, he's killing his soul. Yes, he's killing his soul at... Cinnabon. It's funny and yet it's not. It's also, so far, the best movie of the year.
Such is the power of "Observe and Report," a movie that tips its hat to movies like "Taxi Driver" and "The King of Comedy," but remains an animal all its own. Hill's study of a delusional, deranged head of mall security could only exist now. And, as funny as it is, it's going to get to people who are feeling faceless, disenfranchised and empty. With all of cinema's syrupy bromances, mean, shock humor comedies, and Judd Apatow life lessons to either catch an easy, gross-out laugh or lift one's spirit, emboldening one to finally grow up, "Observe and Report" reveals how complicated this really is.
But again, I repeat, "Observe and Report" is a comedy. I think...
The humor, Morgan says, is rooted in that very uncertainty, the queasy feeling of not knowing if you should laugh... and the prospect of maybe feeling even queasier if you do. She knows many people will absolutely hate the soul-sucking ugliness on display. But she relishes the perversity, which she considers "more shocking than, say, (and I admire the following examples) that junkie epic 'Trainspotting,' and a lot more subversive than anything Michael Haneke hatches up. Because 'Observe and Report' isn't playing at your local art house. No, it's playing right in the belly of the beast: at the mall."
I've been meaning to see this for weeks now, but haven't had the time. Still, it's been a hot topic between me and a friend, who also hasn't seen it. He suggests that the aforementioned subtext of the film is irrelevant, because from interviews, he doesn't think Rogen or Hill intended that sort of social commentary. To which I responded, well:
"A movie exists independent of its maker: All that matters is what's in that rectangle on the screen, no matter whether it was put there on purpose or not. As the saying goes: Trust the art, not the artist."
Hopefully I wasn't out of line in re-appropriating that quote. Although his response was, "I don't agree with that." At any rate, maybe soon we'll go and actually see this movie we have such strong opinions about.
JE: Sometimes a film is just the pretext for a discussion of matters that could have been raised by any number of things. In this case, I decided to publish others' responses even before I'd seen the film myself, because I thought they raised interesting issues -- not just about this particular film, but about movies in general, from Bunuel to Haneke, the Three Stooges to Apatow.
As a moviegoing public we have faced this issue before with films firmly grounded in drama or horror, but perhaps comedy is the final frontier.
Can we have a comedy about date rape? How about genocide? Subjects like these are never inherently funny. What are we willing to let a comedy confront us with? What can we do when a fairly serious issue is slipped into an otherwise innocuous comedy? When can we laugh?
We are allowed, and encouraged, to experience these serious subjects in the context of drama or horror. When we go to one of those movies, we expect ugliness. That's part of the deal. Not so with comedy. Ugly characters in comedy are usually dismissed as villains - or their disconcerting characteristics are mitigated by the dramatic arc of the film. If "Observe and Report" manages to break this rule, and still take it's stance as a straightforward comedy, what do we make of it?
I haven't been to see "Observe and Report", and so I don't know exactly what Jody Hill is up to. Neither do I know anyone who's gone to see it. But I wonder how audiences are taking it. Whatever the case may be, "Observe and Report" is not "Paul Blart: Mall Cop".
On another note, I would like to second the fourth paragraph of the Kim Voynar quote. It is never polite or wise to stereotype people, but it's also ignorant to assume that those stereotypes leapt into our collective consciousness out of nowhere. Movies can, and will, portray stereotypes. It's how and why they are portrayed that matters most.
Some thoughts on the film:
(NUMEROUS SPOILERS FOLLOW, JIM. STOP READING AND GO SEE IT ALREADY!)
It has been a while since a film has left me this conflicted. To be clear, it's certainly worth seeing, though you could go weeks without coming to a solid conclusion as to what you saw and what to make of it. The Travis Bickle analogy is only partially accurate: Travis' delusional tendency really only comes into play at the end of his story, after a brutal and traumatizing climax, and even then one could argue either way whether the conclusion is to be taken at face value or not. Ronnie's story is all delusion, or rather a self-myth carefully constructed around his banal everyday existence. Travis, despite his deeply disturbed persona, still manages to elicit some measure of sympathy from the viewer. This is obviously not the case with Ronnie. He appears to be entirely lacking in any redeemable traits.
And yet he does not come across as a caricature. This may be in part because Ronnie is telling his own story; every frame of the film is seen from his point of view. This becomes increasingly clear as the story progresses. He appears to like himself as he is. The comedy (or something approaching it) largely arises from this aspect of the film. Ronnie has absolutely no clue just how disturbed he is.
Consider the crucial events of Ronnie's surprise victory over the gangbangers, his taking on a dozen police officers, his getting away with coldbloodedly shooting the unarmed streaker, being hailed as a hero, getting his job back, triumphing over the detective. The viewers would have to suffer from some kind of mental block to see this as anything other than a wish-fulfilling fantasy, the kind of daydream a schoolkid may have to escape the reality of being bullied.
The closest I come to a verdict is to imagine that the film itself was made by Ronnie. Not once does it break character and cast a disaproving glance at Ronnie. That's left entirely in the hands of the viewer. This is why it's so disturbing. While in reality Ronnie is likely sitting in jail, this telling remains his version of events, something he may brag about once he gets out, about some cool things that happened to him when he was working as Head of Security, with the unfortunate incarceration ending replaced by a more desirable conclusion, even if plausible only to him.
Would anyone who's comparing "Observe & Report" to "Taxi Driver" or "The King of Comedy" rather watch it than either of those movies? Yes, it's like those movies in that the main character is a potentially-dangerous loner. And "The Last House on the Left" is like "The Virgin Spring."
Hill wants to shock us with the idea that people like Ronnie and Danny McBride's character in "Foot Fist Way" (haven't seen "E&D") exist and get away with existing in the real world. But to me it seems that's all the thought he's put toward it. Once you get what he's trying to do (in the first five minutes of "Foot Fist Way") you're just watching a couple of sub-par comedies with a lot of dreary moments.
If you want material that hovers between the comedy and tragedy of "real people" and uses its (much) low(er) budget with wit and style, watch Canada's "Trailer Park Boys" TV series, which has been doing that for most of a decade. "The Match Factory Girl," "Me & You & Everyone We Know," and "The Last Seduction" (which is totally a comedy) also apply. As do the Coen Brothers, sometimes.
Of course, in "Observe and Report" you get to see a defenseless kid get hit hard in the head with a skateboard. Hah.
I saw the film a week and half before it opened, so I had a chance to consider it on my own without the "outrage" over the date-rape scene (outrage almost entirely from people who haven't seen it), and I came to many of the same conclusions about it that Morgan did. I think it's analogous to "Funny Games" in the way it prods it's audience to question their rooting for what's on screen. It is definitely more successful than that film however, because it is playing to large audiences.It also helps that it's hilarious.
As for Hill's intentions, I too didn't know if his intentions were in line with my conclusions about the film, but I found this interview that assuaged any doubts I'd had.
(Specifically questions 2-5)
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/04/observe_and_report_director.html
I'm interested to read what you think when you do finally see it, Jim.
The scene being referred to was pretty funny, but probably wouldn't have been had Faris's prompting for Rogen's character to keep going not been in it. At first the scene makes you chuckle, but with a squirm, because this does look like a date rape and it's clear that Ronnie has entered fantasy land and is unaware of the implications of what he is doing. As the scene proceeds for a few seconds the nervous laughter fades and you start thinking, "That's just wrong." But right when you want to say it's way over the line Faris chimes in for Ronnie to keep going, which ends up being the punchline of the scene. Sure it's disturbing, but it will make you laugh. And don't forget, as George Carlin taught us, you can make anything funny.
Carlin: Rape Can Be Funny
When you do finally sit down to watch the film, you may find yourself wondering, as I did, how much of the action is really happening, and how much of it is a product of the main character's delusional mind. And I'm not just arguing how his behavior would not have only gotten him fired for his job and sent to jailfor years. We don't go to movies for reality, but for him to emerge unscathed defies any realm of plausability. But notice how what happens plays directly onto his delusions of grandeur. Not to spoil anything, but it does seem that at any time he feels the need to "prove" himself, an oppotunity arises that allows him to fulfill his fantasy in the most brutal way possible, and all to zero consequence.
Of course, that interpretation can only fuel the outrage that many have over the "date rape" scene. Did Brandi really offer her drunken "consent"? Or did Ronnie hear what he wanted to hear to assuage his guilt?
Observe and Report has been compared to Taxi Driver and The King of Comdedy over and over, but Observe and Report has it's character Ronnie act socially awkard in front of flat stereotypical characters who are in many ways just as strange as Ronnie, whereas in the other films the outcasts Travis and Rupert act this was in front of actors who are trying to be real flesh and blood people. Since the actors based their performances in reality in Taxi Driver and the King of comedy tension and comedy is created when Travis or Rupert misunderstands the codes of acceptable behavior. No such comedy exists in Observe and Report because how can it be awkard or funny if all the other characters are just as removed from reality as Ronnie is?
I have not seen the movie but I have learned from watching DVDS with extras like "deleted scenes" that sometimes when a scene in a movie does not make any sense that parts of it may have been cut for time or to improve the story
Of course comedy, like everything else, is a matter of taste. Although I haven't seen the movie either, the "controversy" about the so-called date rape scene seems to boil down to (a) how sensitive you are to the subject of date-rape; and (b) how tolerant you are of unpleasant characters onscreen. About (a) I can't say much; if you're sensitive, you're sensitive. About (b), though: such people drive me crazy. The idea that unlikeable movie characters are impossible to engage with is, in my view, entirely ego-driven and narcissitic. If all you're after in a movie is a mirror reflecting your own values, then you're missing out on some of the biggest rewards art has to offer: its ability to show you (and make you appreciate) the world through a lens other than your own.
And all subject matter can be material for comedy, depending on the way the material is handled. Even a brutal murder can be made funny in the right hands (like, say, David Lynch's).
I don't think a date-rape can or should be exempt from that. Still, if you don't think it's funny, stay home. There are lots of other things you can do.
Well I have in fact seen the movie and thought it to be crazy. I also felt the same about Jody Hill's first film "Foot Fist Way." In "Foot..." the comedy seems to allude from the direct to video action films of the 80's and 90's (I think it is combination of "Sidekicks" and "The Karate Kid" with the bad karate instructor as the vocal majority). Hill has a way of spotlighting the antagonist as opposed to the heroine. "At the Movies" made a point that if "Observe and Report" were made with Anna Faris as the lead the movie would play as a thriller. The same could be said if the "Foot Fist Way" was made with one of the student's as the main character, but that's been done too many times. Bottom line the scene is not rape but it is simply funny. Sex in the cinema has been used more for a gag reel than for intimacy.
I haven't seen the film yet but I can see the discussion around this happening in a similar vein to the "full retard" discussion around Tropic Thunder.
It seems that many times people confuse not saying outright and clearly that something is wrong and understand from that that you think it is right.
Comedy probably takes more hits for this simply because comedy presents us with truths about ourselves(and/or society) that we may only see in a peripheral way but not think about, or at least not fully.
On another note, rather than just a study about drinking and promiscuity among young women, a study of why both young men and women feel the need to drink "liquid courage" before doing what should be pretty easy and common in urban areas may be more interesting.
To be honest, I have had the same queasy feeling about Seth Rogan films for a while. "Knocked Up" bothered me because the characters all struck me as either contrived or unlikable. Seth Rogan's characters often appear to be seriously maladjusted individuals, and yet his films seem to be constructed so that we're supposed to root for him.
I'll admit I can't pass honest judgement on "Observe and Report" since I haven't seen it yet, but I've seen some other Seth Rogan films and I'm having trouble seeing the appeal in the "let's adopt the viewpoint of a hopelessly self-absorbed stoner" form of comedy.
In the realm of this movie—which is completely absurd—and knowing what we know about these characters, the scene that’s depicted would have gone down exactly the way it did in the film. Brandi may or may not have remembered it, but I guarantee you that she could have cared less either way when she woke up, right or wrong. That’s her character. Is it funny? In context, yes. I laughed out of desperation right after a wide-eyed gasp. And because I laughed, that doesn't mean that I approve of anything. It just means the scene was skillfully put together.
"I've seen some other Seth Rogan films and I'm having trouble seeing the appeal in the "let's adopt the viewpoint of a hopelessly self-absorbed stoner" form of comedy."
Self-absorption isn't exactly a good thing and I agree the Apatowian/Rogenian male is immature but I think it's the insecurities these characters have underneath all that and their eventual willingness to admit it that makes us able to feel for them. They're big softies. Underneath all the fart jokes and all that, there's warmth there.
And I think the slacker culture that tends to come with them is actually refreshing (on the one hand) versus the go-go-go of the consumer/workaholic society we're living in. Doesn't surprise me that Rogen now finds himself in a movie where the evils all begin in the mall, as Kim pointed out and Jim left as the last line of this blog entry for emphasis.
And I also think that you can sense the 'nice guy' in all the Rogen characters if you will. I mean, for all his stupidity, he too is surrounded by people who are unaware of their ridiculousness - in his movies anyway - and so I think you understand why he makes some of the sarcastic jokes he does. I think you also see plenty of times throughout his flicks we're he's just a genuinely loving guy of other fellow human beings... who aren't tools/drones of what culture has pushed on them.
And, yet, his characters are too, always, to some degree... and I agree, there's hints at a twisted, perverted, dark side to the Rogen character, no different than John Wayne's dark side (revealed in "Red River" or "The Searchers"), or Christian Bale's (revealed mostly in the on-set temper tantrum) or, ya know, many actors have that alternate roll you could see them playing, the subtext. I think that's what can make them really interesting. But I haven't seen the movie so I don't know if I can applaud Rogen for taking this on or not. At least it isn't a 'safe' choice. He's exploring/exposing... some would say exploiting too. But there's some food for thought before we hate on him...
You know what? I feel the way some people are describing about War of the Roses. The sadism in that film was just plain ugly to me. Yet so many people think that film worked as a comedy.
Something that I find interesting is that people are up in arms over a scene that is possibly date rape (I say possibly because is it edited in such a way that we never actually see how they make it to the bedroom) in a black comedy filled with unlikable characters. Yet male-on-male rape is constantly played for huge laughs in broad, mainstream, PG-13 comedies, and there is nary a peep of complaints.
I'm also a little annoyed that so many people are passing judgment on this movie without having seen it (not accusing you of this, Jim). It's an ugly look at a disenfranchised young white man's violent fantasies and delusions of grandeur, and, I think, something of a spoof of the Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow "man-child" comedies.
After seeing it (before the controversy), I went back and forth on how I felt about it about 40 times in two days, before coming to the conclusion that a movie that makes me so conflicted is ultimately more interesting than about 90% of the movies I see.
Oh, brother, Brandi offends Kim Voynar because "of the way she represents women." And of course, based on Brandi's character, Hill probably is a raving misogynist. What if Brandi is just a fictional character that doesn't represent an entire gender? Or entire race? Or women with (dyed?) blonde hair? Long live Post-Mod Feminist Theory!
It's real simple...(SPOILERS!!!!)
Ronnie's passive sex scene with Farris is to be compared to the one later in the film with Ray Lioatta and Farris...
The first sex scene is so non-pleasurable for the sexpot, but when Ronnie catches the love of his life really enjoying sex with his arch enemy on his own turf (the mall parking lot), it's enough to make him go over the top crazy!
That's the point of the scene...it shows him how much of a tool he really is...
Wouldn't make sense to see the film before writing a blog on it?
Just to be clear about the context: the scene lasts about fifteen seconds total, just enough time for the dramatic point to be made, when people get it on DVD to look for that scene, they'll probably scan past it. And then it immediately cuts to a scene of his psychiatric evaluation.
What I've heard about this movie puts me in mind of The Break-Up, starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. What was interesting about the film was it didn't really turn out to be just a regular romantic comedy. The characters' attempts to hurt each other were often very mean-spirited and the movie did not do the expected "they're really meant to be together" kind of thing. To shorten that, the movie was not a sweet silly romantic comedy it was advertised as. Many edgy comedies are advertised as much "nicer" fare, because marketers create trailers based on what will sell the flick. So, while people may be expecting Paul Blart, Mall Cop by the way this movie is advertised it's much darker and filled with reprehensible characters. So people don't know what to do with it when they finally see it.
I want to add a specific definition that people seem to forget sometimes. In the movie world a Comedy is not a movie that's funny. It's a movie that is intended to be funny.
There seems to be some confusion as to whether or not the scene pictured at the top of this post is or is not date rape. So let me clear that up for you - yes. It is rape. In almost every state, rape includes situations where a person cannot give informed consent to sex - where they are too incapacitated, by drugs or alcohol, to know what they're saying (or unable to say anything). See the stain in front of Farris's mouth in the picture above? That's supposed to be vomit. Her character is so drunk that she can barely walk and is vomiting.
Let me put this another way for you - if you get staggeringly drunk, and someone comes up and punches you, and you slur "do it again!" Do they get to beat you bloody? Or are you too drunk to know what you're saying?
JE: In her piece, Kim Voynar asks not only at what point consent cannot be legitimately given, but what is the culpability of the person who deliberately gets wasted in order to avoid accepting responsibility for his/her own actions. "Superbad" is explicitly about that -- and "Knocked Up" shows what happens when both parties get so drunk the nature of the consent isn't fully understood by either of them.
JE, I have to disagree with Voynar's assessment of Brandi's reasons for getting drunk. Voynar says Brandi represents women "choosing to drink and drug themselves into a state of non-responsibility for their sexual decision-making." Did Brandi get drunk because, secretly, she wanted to have sex with Ronnie? She forgot their date. She didn't have sex with him again. She was a fan of casual sex. Why would she need to get plastered to have sex with him? Unless she was getting drunk just because she liked to get drunk, and not because she needed some liquid courage to hop in the sack with Ronnie. And then Ronnie, a creep who was obsessed with her, took advantage of her drunken state to rape her.
Go see it already Jim! But to answer the question: Yes, it's rape. And yes, it's funny. It's not funny because rape is funny, it's funny because Ronnie certainly doesn't think it's rape, he thinks he's found the love of his life. I found it funny because it was so pathetically sad for both people. That sounds depressing, but the way that Hill pulls it off I actually found quite funny.
The discussion reminds me of a scene from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" in which a woman is surprised to find Sundance in her home and, at gunpoint, he orders her to strip -- and then we find out, ha-ha, that it's all an act and they atually know each other. I know a woman who thought the scene was hilarious. I never did. Rape, or the suggestion of it, is just too disturbing to find any "humorous" context.
I have not seen the movie. However, I have a pretty clear picture of the rape scene after reading a number of articles and discussions on the subject.
Consider time. If a person is presently unconscious, their prior actions, regardless of how deplorable, have no bearing whatsoever on a present act of rape. Even if the unconscious person quite literally asked for it just moments earlier. An unconscious person has no ability to rescind consent or continue providing consent. An unconscious person clearly is not a participant in the act of sex.
She was raped. There is doubt about it in my mind.
Whether or not this is funny is something else entirely, and I'll see for myself at some point.
I find it funny (and sad at the same time) that everyone is up in arms about the "rape" scene but so almost nobody commented on shooting an unarmed man who posed no threat.
Maybe it's because I'm European, but the shooting scene horrified me. I kept thinking 'Ronnie, now you really done it' -- only to find that he's treated like a hero. For what? Shooting a deranged man at point blank range (and denying medical assistance). I am supposed to believe that a naked running middle-aged guy was life-threatening for Brandi? If so, then no wonder so many US cops get overzealous...