To celebrate winning the Generation Award at last night's MTV Movie Awards, Adam Sandler sang "Nobody Does It Better," dedicating the Spy Who Loved Me theme song to his greatest inspiration - himself.
Afterwards, Sandler claimed "that was probably the most arrogant thing I've ever done." Oh but would that were true Sandler, if only...
This is a subject I have pontificated endlessly on over the past few years, but last night made me want to hash the whole thing out in unnecessary detail one last time. So here it is.
Adam Sandler has, over the past fifteen years or so, gradually increased his power over the American movie audience to the point that we will believe ANYTHING he tells us. Even if that "anything" includes his improbable irresistible-ness to the opposite sex; his possession of an Olympic-competitor level of athletic prowess; or his ability to beat up any living human besides Bob Barker.
It all began with his first couple of hit movies: Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison. I never really watched Sandler on SNL because I don't really watch SNL. (And don't tell me it's not fair to judge Sandler when I'm not an SNL fan. That's like saying I can't judge Wyclef Jean because I'm not a shitty-fake-Bob-Marley-rip-off fan. Oh you think that's equally unjustifiable? Seriously why should I respect a guy whose greatest contribution to music was chanting "one time" over a frat-party-band level cover song. And now those bands actually cover that version. Jesus, we've got that to thank him for as well. But OK for the sake of cogency, let's say its like not judging Hitler because you're not that big a fan of formalized genocide. OK? And anyway Wayne's World and Night At The Roxbury were watchable, the SNL thing makes no difference. Whew!)
Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison were typical, harmless comedies about a regular guy with some special ability (great hockey/golf skills or having a rich dad), triumphing over evil elitist snobs. The approach was relatively humble. Sure Sandler could hit the golf ball a million miles, or jet ski in a fountain. Sure he was already beating up everyone in sight, but he still had drastic short-comings that he acknowledged, like a lack of maturity that he needed to correct, or the inability to beat Bob Barker one-on-one. He was larger-than-life, but he was mortal! In those days, he was willing to present himself as a slightly better looking Rob Schneider, and that was something everyone could believe in.
For his next few outings, Sandler seemed, if anything, to get less arrogant. He appeared to mature in the way that many comedians - other than Dennis Leary - do as they become grown-ups. His two standout movies of this era, The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy highlighted this short-lived tendency in different ways. Wedding Singer featured Sandler as an average guy who has to really exert himself in order to win an average looking girl (sorry Drew, but its true) away from a richer, more successful rival. He even lets the rival beat him up! And then in Waterboy, he presents himself as, well, a retard, stymied even further by a lack of education, whose only skill and outlet is physical dominance. Sure he attracts an good-looking girlfriend, but she's also a redneck jailbird. The whole movie is so silly and fun that its impossible to imagine Sandler is trying to prove anything about himself.
But then things took a horrific turn for the worse. 1999 saw the release of the most beloved/god-awful Sandler movie to date: Big Daddy. This was the last real attempt by Sandler to hide any of the arrogance that was beginning to consume him, but it was the sign that such hubris was to become unavoidable. It was when he committed the worst possible sin - letting his personal vanity start interfering with the comedy.
On the face of it, it was a typical Sandler underdog story (the kind Rob Schneider still gets paid in Purina to star in). A useless, do-nothing twenty-something learns about responsibility by raising a child, and surprises everyone (INCLUDING HIMSELF!) with his ability to do the right thing. Unfortunately, nothing bad actually happens to Sandler. He just spends his time teaching the kid to endanger fitness skaters and rob older middle-class citizens who actually worked for their money, and instead of going to jail he ends up becoming a successful lawyer with a lovely wife. His ex-girlfriend, who had serious, specific ambitions and goals, ends up working at Hooters. What a message for the kids. Meanwhile, in Theater 2, Rob Schneider was pleasuring fat chicks and desperately trying to win the love of an amputee. Things had changed.
The next few years saw the arrogance grow, even as things became a little odd. There was Mr. Deeds, a film in which Sandler plays the nicest guy in the world, who likes to beat people up with John McEnroe. (Also, the jaded Wynona Ryder is reduced to tears by his unbelievably fantastic wonderfulness. WHAT!?) Then came Eight Crazy Nights, which hopefully I shouldn't have to say anything about to anyone. Around this time, Sandler gained a lot of attention for Punch-Drunk Love, a movie which was supposed to be his Truman Show moment, but was notable mainly for featuring Sandler's last average looking love-interest. It was even less funny than Deeds (suffering from a lack of John Turturro) and he beat just as many people up. This was all while playing his most "authentic" character to date.
Anger Management was the last hope for redemption. Fans and foes alike were familiar with with Sandler's characters' tendencies towards physical violence by this time, and it seemed like the perfect way for him to attempt a little self-deprecation. Unfortunately, it only received mixed reviews, being merely kinda-funny, and it was obvious that most of the humor was coming from Jack Nicholson's side of the screen. Ironically, it being Sandler's big attempt to mock his own issues, his character in this movie is wrongly forced to undergo Anger Management treatment, as he doesn't actually beat anyone up. And he still has a hot wife. And he rejects Heather Graham.
Yep. Keeping it real.
After this middle-of-the-road feature, Sandler started making movies in only one of two styles. The first of these is the serious-but-feel-good sub genre. Spanglish was the first of these, featuring Sandler as (what else) the perfect man. The next was Reign Over Me, in which Sandler plays a man whose family died in 9/11. The film received mix reviews, being praised for its treatment of the subjects of family and depressions, but criticized for its casual use of 9/11 as a sympathy-grabber and some clumsy moments. Despite a respected overall performance, Sandler drew criticism for being unable to resist using his famous "baby voice," a trademark that works well in the comedic Channukah song but not so much in a study of chronic depression.
The other sub-genre is more important because it consists of the films actually written and produced by Sandler and his Happy Madison production company. It includes 50 First Dates; The Longest Yard; Click and I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry. This is the genre of Sandler-as-an-amazing-womanizer/husband/athlete where all jokes are based around either the irony of his having to do things that go contrary to his own awesomeness (go after one girl/act gay/be in jail) OR the deficiencies of those around him (usually physical, or in Rob Schneider's case, racial).
Sandler's new philosophy of I-just-can't-help-but-be-awesome is best exemplified by the existence of The Longest Yard. Sandler already made a funny football movie, but it was one in which he played a buffoon. The Waterboy was a big hit for Sandler, and if Kevin Costner can make money by sticking to a sport, then why shouldn't others. The only problem is that Costner looks more or less like a baseball player, with the added advantage of the typical baseball player being one of the more average-looking physical specimens one sees as an athlete in the US. If Randy Johnson is one of the game's best, no one's going to blink twice at Costner on the mound. Sandler, as a supposed peer to Brady, McNabb and Manning, is a little less convincing.
And that's the real problem. When the humor is based on a character acting out-of-type, it just isn't funny if the character isn't believable in the first place. 50 First Dates' trailer featured a montage of women talking about the amazing man who swept them off their feet on Hawaiian vacation, only to reveal that man as...Adam Sandler. If this was a Ben Stiller movie, THAT ALONE WOULD BE THE JOKE. We would laugh at the idea of the uber-Don Juan just described being revealed as an average-looking Jewish guy . But with Sandler, who ain't any getting any closer to the "Sexiest Man Alive" title than Stiller, you're not supposed to laugh just yet. The joke is supposed to be that the only women he has trouble getting are those with retrograde amnesia. The reunion with Drew Barrymore in this movie only serves to show how much things have changed since Sandler's underdog wedding singer had to work up the courage just to make a pass at Barrymore's waitress.
In Chuck and Larry things get even worse. Again, Sandler plays a guy who picks up any woman (or women, like twin-sisters) with ridiculous ease. It then is supposed to be hilarious that this Christian Troy of the firehouse has to pretend to be gay. I mean come on! He can't even remember women's names he's had so many! It must have taken so much effort to say "Yucky!" while groping Jessica Biel's boobies!
If I were being generous, I would say that perhaps Adam Sandler really was a bit of a ladies man in real life, and so it was natural for him to try and express that in his movies. But doing so ignores two important facts.
1. The real Adam Sandler is rich and famous, which cannot help but make whatever experiences he has with women vastly different from those of the amazing-but-regular joes he usually plays.2. No matter how charming or irresistible Sandler might be in real life (again, being generous) it doesn't matter if that doesn't come across on screen. "Fratire" hero Tucker Max is currently making a movie based on his life as a party-animal and ladies man. This is a guy who is famous for actually having the specific characteristics that Sandler is writing into his characters. And yet, Max has refused to play himself in his movie, because:
I want the person playing Tucker to be attractive on camera; the way te character plays, he needs to come off as charismatic and likable...That's just not me on camera. I know--how ridiculous is it that I am not hot enough to play myself. Welcome to the movies...
...(to play myself) seemed like the height of hubris. Yeah, I am arrogant, but I really REALLY want to make this movie as good as possible...In order to make the best movie possible, I'm
willing to put my ego in check.
Hear that Adam?
The other problem is that the lack of jokes at the expense of Sandler is made up for by endless jokes at the expense of other people. And somehow those people never quite seem to deserve it. There's the jug-eared cop in Longest Yard who pulls Sandler's QB over for drunken-driving. "Things happen," he tells Sandler, who replies "Yeah, kind of like what happened to your ears." Wow, good job Sandler, way to stick up for the underdog. Way to hire someone with a physical defect and then use him as a joke. Actually it's not a joke. It's just Sandler pointing out the ears. No humorous use of metaphor or irony. Just some ears.
Or there's the kid in Click, a pre-teen bully who the brave middle-aged Sandler brings down by putting in the path of a fastball using time travel. Let's beat up some kids! Or the endless racial incarnations of Rob Schneider. (He's half-white and half-Filipino people! That's it! Thats all he is!)
I used to laugh at Bobby Boucher mistakenly implicating himself as a fan of incest, then cheer for his come-from-behind victory at the Mudbowl. Now I just watch Mr. Deeds beat up a photographer and silently curse my suite-mate's tiny DVD collection.
These days, when I come across the older Sandler material, I can't help but see the signs. Remember his character in Airheads? Remember Hugh Frasier saying he got more ass than a toilet seat? I begin to wonder who wrote that line, or whether a certain SNL actor's agent made it a pre-condition of the contract. I also look over that list of annoying things that he might have written and think "wait a minute, turning down the radio when looking for an address in the car likely helps if being aided by a friend in the passenger seat or on the phone." Well I guess that list wasn't arrogant but it wasn't funny either.
In the end, though, it doesn't really matter how many sharks Sandler choose to jump. As his receipt of a lifetime-achievement award might indicate, the era of Sandler has had its "Golden Age," and is starting to be replaced by the young princes of the Appatow dynasty. Even if Sandler's plot's weren't getting progressively worse, he still couldn't compete with a new and fresher breed of comedy. He's simply older and less relevant. Let's put it this way: it might be kind of funny to see James Franco and Seth Rogen as firemen pretending to be gay, but I don't think anyone would have found Sandler humurous as a guy who accidentally knocks up a girl who's hotness and career successes put her way out of his league. Of course the "way out of his league" part would never see the pages of a Sandler script in the first place.
Of course, this Zohan business is already marching towards our theaters with ill-deserved confidence - and it'll probably do alright at the box-office, the man still has fans.
I just hope I never live with anyone who owns the DVD. Thank god I graduated.
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