I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

Adam Sandler, Kevin James

Just one word, that is all that would be needed. With five little letters conservative brothers and sisters would be putting their arms around their 18-year-old offspring at the front of their churches, proclaiming, “This is my gay son.” At every barbeque pit in America, fathers would be saying, “Junior, sing a little Judy Garland for my friends.” Bosses would be showing pictures of their sons to their employees and remarking, “The boy has the best fashion sense I have ever seen. I’m encouraging him to get into interior design, maybe fashion.” What is that word that can turn us into a nation of Rainbow Warriors and Village People want-a-bees? D-R-A-F-T.

There is nothing new under the comedy sun. There are some comedy bits that have long ago worn out their welcome. Kids today don’t even have a clue of the choreography that went into a banana cream pie fight in the silent era. Glass window movers and push cart owners are now safe to walk the streets without fear of a movie protagonist crashing into them in contemporary cinema. The Amos and Andy, Stepin Fetchit, Mantan Moreland, blackface minstrel humor that once dominated American entertainment is unwatchable now and almost forgotten. There are other bits that never get old. Even though parents don’t want to admit it, “pull my finger” is still comedy gold in every playground in the world. The clueless man child developed in the silent era still works in whatever variation it is paraded out, whether it be Jerry Lewis, Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell, or Adam Sandler. Father might know best, but making the head of the house into a sitcom buffoon is still money in the bank fifty years after Jackie Gleason perfected it. Yet, there are other routines that you think are dead and gone and then someone clever digs them up, dusts them off, kicks them in the butt, and gets a little more life out of them. The pratfall, which stopped working about the time Chevy Chase went in for back surgery, suddenly became funny again when Sacha Baron Cohen did it in Borat. Given Hollywood’s penchant for physical perfection, and the deaths of John Belushi, John Candy, and Chris Farley, one would have thought the Fatty Arbuckle, round comedian, was a thing of the past, until Jack Black gave it new life. Yet, there is one genre of comedy that I thought was on its last legs, especially given the quickly changing social climate, - the straight man pretending to be gay.

I remember being a child in pajamas with the flap, when the most controversial show ever to that point came on the airwaves. I remember my mother lamenting what this society had come to and, when I asked about it, I was quickly told I was banned from ever seeing it, which translated into my ears as a challenge. Every Monday evening I crept through the house like a ninja, weaved behind furniture, crawled across the carpet, turned on the television with the volume as low as possible, and caught the show that was destroying American society, “Three’s Company” with Tex Ritter’s son, a beautiful bubble-headed blonde who you knew was bound to do Playboy in a few years, and smart, perky brunette who you knew would never be seen again once the show was canceled. The scandal… they all lived together. The sky is falling. Run for your life. The sky is falling. Here is the hook, in order to live with these two girls who the character Jack Tripper would never have sex with, in order to fool the landlords, the Ropers, who would never rent an apartment to people living in such sin, Jack pretended to be, can I say the word, gay. Oh, the humor was almost intoxicating. I was transfixed for almost a whole fifteen seconds before I realized how lame it was, and had to sit through another 29 minutes of garbage so I could watch that wacky lesbian couple, the butch Laverne and her girl Shirley. (Come on, no one in America was buying Shirley’s boyfriend, The Big Ragoo, a tap dancing, singing boxer with great fashion sense, complete with glossy jacket, and a perm who never got past first base with the virginal Shirley.)

Little did I realize that “straight men pretending to be gay” was an age old comedy staple probably dating back to the first time a male actor paraded across the stage in a dress in those plays by the likes of Shakespeare, that are now considered high culture or even back to ancient Greece. It is clear that it was in full force when film was invented, as can be seen in Thomas Edison’s “The Gay Brothers” (1895). The confusing of sexual identity by putting on dresses was present in the silent era with films by Fatty Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin. Jack Benny delighted audiences in the 40s by pretending to be Babbs, a female chaperone that allowed his college pals to woo women. Since then straight men pretending to be women or homosexual have delighted audiences for generations in films and television shows like Some Like It Hot, Nuns on the Run, Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire, Birdcage, and “Bosom Buddies.” Yet, two things have changed the last decade that many thought would have spelled the end to such comedies. First, there are only so many situations that allow the hero to pretend to be gay or donning on a dress especially since most social conventions that made such situations believable or just passable are breaking down. There is only so many times that you can be on the run from the mob, have to put on the dress to get away from a prying press, or to be close to your kids after a bad divorce. Second, with homosexuals claiming their place at the table of “all men are created equal” such over the top “swishy” comedy is starting to be as uncomfortable as watching a blue movie with your mother.

So, I was not expecting much when I sat down to watch I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, especially because I have never been a big Adam Sandler fan and pretty much could predict the comedy bits found in it. Still, I knew that there would be plenty of scenes with Jessica Biel running around in her underwear, and I like Kevin James, so it could not be too bad. Larry Valentine (Kevin James – Hitch, “King of Queens”) and Chuck Levine (Adam Sandler – The Wedding Singer, Happy Gilmore) are firefighters and best friends. Larry is the single dad of two little kids and Chuck is a lady’s man. Larry is in the midst of changing his beneficiary from his dead wife to his children but the process is going to take longer than he would like. Wanting to make sure that his children will be okay in the meanwhile, he finds a legal loophole in the system, Larry’s benefits would go to a domestic parent if he had one. Enter best friend Chuck who owes his friend for saving his life. They have to keep this arrangement secret from their friends in the department, even though no one in the system would really believe that they are gay, especially an inspector played by Steve Buscemi who is out to catch them. This means they have to hire the hottest looking attorney in New York, Alex (Beal), to beat criminal charges. Of course, Chuck is in full-fledged lust of Alex who thinks that he is gay and their friends are going to find out. We could not have a heart-warming film with out the boys learning how tough the rainbow nation have it. There is a whole slew of cameos by major celebrities, including the most cring-inducing Oriental impression since Mickey Rooney donned on the buck teeth and big glasses in Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Rob “Thank God I am Adam Sandler’s best friend or I would be working at McDonalds” Schneider as a wedding chapel owner.

There are a thousand ways this movie could go wrong and there is nothing that movie goers have not seen a hundred times before, but it works. Kevin James is wonderful as always, as the overweight, haggard father who is dealing with an effeminate son. Sandler is good for the first time in years and shows the comedic talent that made him a star in his early films. It is much better than the safe Evan Almighty, but not in the league of a film like Borat or Knocked Up. Still, it works, unlike most Hollywood big budget comedies and should be a huge hit on DVD.

Verdict: One of Sandler’s Best Films in Years