This week, as the election nears, I decided to treat myself to two movies that I ordinarily wouldn't see under any circumstance. Not just because they looked terrible -- although they did -- but also because they were movies that, in a very literal sense, were not made for me. These movies are less artistic endeavors than they are salvos in the culture war, and if they were aimed at me, it was not as a consumer, but as a target.
But hey, so what? I go see a lot of movies that aren't really meant for me. I've reviewed Tyler Perry movies, which aren't meant for me. I've reviewed Disney animated movies, which aren't meant for me. I'm a big fan of Stan Brakhage, and his movies weren't really made for anyone. I'm a professional, damn it, and as a professional, I can take whatever to the other side in the culture wars dish out. The first tasty bowl of arsenic: David Zucker's An American Carol.
The film, as you may know from Phil Nugent's earlier piece on it, is a high-dudgeoned but low-minded spoof in which a stand-in for Michael Moore (portrayed by a stand-in for Chris Farley) is interrupted in his quest to ban the Fourth of July by a visitation by three ghosts, who attempt to dissuade him from his wicked anti-American ways. Why wasn't his movie released at Christmastime? Why would anyone want to ban a calendar day? Why would you send John F. Kennedy to attack a prominent liberal? I figured if I started asking myself questions like that, I would just go insane. Instead, I focused on whether or not the movie was actually funny. I hope I will be believe when I say that, all ideological considerations aside, it wasn't. It's not that you can't be funny from a specific political point of view; in fact, satire (which, really, An American Carol is too dumb to qualify as, but still) depends on a moral standing ground from which to attack. It's that these jokes lack any kind of universality, humanity or relatability: the only way you can think it's funny is if you agree with where it's coming from. Or, to put it another way: the new, right-wing David Zucker believes it's funny to have Michael Moore slapped around by Bill O'Reilly. If you happen to agree, you might be modestly amused; if you don't, the joke will fall even flatter than it actually does. The old, non-political David Zucker knew better: he just thought it was funny when people get slapped.
Above and beyond the question of its partisan demands, though, is the fact that An American Carol just isn't very funny, even if you're a conservative. Its jokes are lazy, obvious, and predictable even by the subzero standards of modern farce, and while moviegoing audiences have proven time and time again that they'll go to a movie that critics don't like because they genuinely enjoy it themselves, there's very few people who will go to a movie out of spite, which is really the only reason to see An American Carol. This is evidenced by the fact that with half the country or more still self-identifying as conservative, the movie completely tanked at the box office; as Phil reported, though, Zucker and a few of his far-right pals are claiming that its disastrous performance is due to some kind of liberal conspiracy. If I can be allowed one moment of ideology, that's the great strength of the paranoid right: if you succeed, it's because America loves your values; if you fail, it's because liberals sabotaged you. All I can say is, they did a hell of a screw job on this one.
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