{"id":3462,"date":"2024-06-24T15:53:25","date_gmt":"2024-06-24T19:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jappersandjanglers\/?p=3462"},"modified":"2024-06-24T15:55:30","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T19:55:30","slug":"the-movie-you-cant-make-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jappersandjanglers\/2024\/06\/the-movie-you-cant-make-today\/","title":{"rendered":"The Movie You Can’t Make Today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/a>

The star of the show
Source: Flickr user Dominick D<\/a>
License<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Five seconds on the internet\u2014heck, maybe in person too\u2014and you\u2019ll hear the magic words: you couldn\u2019t make that today. Mores shift. Tastes change. TV in the Eisenhower years seems unlikely to have broadcasted a teleplay of 120 Days of Sodom<\/em> (1785, 1899). Gen Z wants fewer sex scenes in movies. Brian De Palma balks. This particular lament, however, has a particular meaning: we\u2019ve become a bunch of over-sensitive dimwits who can\u2019t handle boys palling around. I\u2019ll leave the truth content of that declaration for others to decide. I do, however, think I\u2019ve found the movie they\u2019re talking about. Friends, Saving Silverman <\/em>(2001). When Adam Carolla says he wants to make anti-woke comedy. This, this is what he means.<\/p>\n

Three twenty-somethings who look like thirty-somethings play in a Neil Diamond cover band for spare change (any guesses as to the name? That\u2019s right. Diamonds in the Rough). J.D. McNugent (Jack Black) is a failed subway training manager. Darren Silverman (Jason Biggs) calls bingo at an old folks\u2019 home. Wayne Le Fessier (Steve Zahn) is the most successful: he fails to chase raccoons out of crawlspaces. Friends since birth, their delicate equilibrium breaks down when Darren finds a thoroughly domineering girlfriend, Judith Fessbeggler (Amanda Peet). His two oldest friends kidnap her, hoping Darren will assume she\u2019s dead and move on.<\/p>\n

A controlling, emasculating girlfriend is only the beginning. Behold how she uses her psychosexual female powers to convince JD he is gay. Notice that she suggests her husband take her last name after they marry. Appreciate how she demonstrates her power over Darren by refusing to have any kind of sex with him (she offers him lotion, a tissue, and a Playboy<\/em>) while demanding that he please her six ways to Sunday. Judith openly admits her mastery. Tied to a chair, she mocks J.D. and Wayne, gloats about her total power over Darren. She fools them again and again.<\/p>\n

Saving Silverman <\/em>is an R. Crumb comic with none of the self-hatred. It is awash in early-2000s male terror. They made, I fear, a walking castration fantasy. And that the thing: the film is so blissfully unaware that it\u2019s letting it all hang out. It bears all. It simply is.<\/p>\n

In its way, the movie doesn\u2019t mind laughing at itself when it catches a glimpse. J.D., it seems, is actually gay. He ends up marrying their old football coach (R. Lee Ermey), a man so masculine he impaled a referee for a call he disagreed with during a football game. Darren is a little weenie. Judith\u2019s power is real, as is her intelligence. We are not asked to sympathize with her. Yet she is attractive; she easily outwits these three bozos.\u00a0Saving Silverman\u00a0<\/em>is not yet conscious of its masculinity. It doesn\u2019t mind throwing the opposition (what opposition?) a bone or two.<\/p>\n

In other words, the movie sticks to another motto of today\u2019s complainers: it\u2019s only a joke. Maybe. But sometimes a joke is more than a joke. Sometimes a cigar is more than a cigar. Had this been made today, it would be far, far more than a joke or a cigar. One thing, however, of which I am sure is that no other culture (or at least not ours now) could produce such an authentic document of male fear, a movie so raunchy, it doesn\u2019t even realize how frightened it is.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five seconds on the internet\u2014heck, maybe in person too\u2014and you\u2019ll hear the magic words: you couldn\u2019t make that today. Mores shift. Tastes change. TV in the Eisenhower years seems unlikely to have broadcasted a teleplay of 120 Days of Sodom (1785, 1899). Gen Z wants fewer sex scenes in movies. Brian De Palma balks. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2640,"featured_media":3465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1731],"tags":[4494,4488,4482,4491,4485,4497],"class_list":["post-3462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-jack-black","tag-jason-biggs","tag-r-lee-ermey","tag-saving-silverman","tag-steve-zahn","tag-woke"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Movie You Can't Make Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When Adam Carolla says he wants to make anti-woke comedy. 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