/ 7 September 2007

I do, I don’t

On the DVD of Don’t Try This at Home, a collection of dumb-ass stunts by Steve-O of Jackass fame, there is a warning: “The stunts you are about to witness may appear to be homosexual in content, but in reality they are only stunts and not a way of life. Steve-O and the producers insist that you do not try any of these stunts ever. If you do you will turn gay and/or die and that’s not good …”

This warning, with all its jokey ambiguities, could just as easily apply to I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, in which a pair of straight men pretend to be gay and enact a gay marriage in order to reap some pension benefits.

Personally, I can’t see what’s so gay about the shenanigans of Steve-O — unless rushing about naked, having your pubic hair ripped out in a waxing salon or getting darts thrown at your butt are considered gay activities. Looks like stupid straight white-trash exhibitionism to me.

I can’t really see what’s so gay about getting married, either, but then the fact that gay people can marry in a few American states, or at least achieve some kind of civil union, makes it noteworthy. South Africa, of course, recently passed legislation enabling gay marriage, and it was very controversial. Even Jacob Zuma had an opinion on the matter and he usually doesn’t have opinions, except about his court cases.

In the case of Chuck and Larry, it all seems very easy — there’s no mention of the heavy opposition to gay marriage in any form in the United States, where it’s still a hot-potato electoral issue. Confusingly, Chuck and Larry have to go to Canada to get married, in a union that will apparently be recognised by the US pensions authorities. This, it seems, would not be the case if they’d married in Massachussetts.

It doesn’t make much sense, but then this is an American comedy, and in such movies not much has to make sense. Reality is for indie movies, or European flicks. What’s important to I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is setting up and maintaining the main running gag, in which it is presumed that two straight guys pretending to be gay is going to be very funny — and, in fact, there are actually a few good jokes here. What’s important, too, is that their straightness be emphasised so there’s no confusion about that — Chuck (Adam Sandler) is a rampant womaniser and Larry (Kevin James) is a devoted family man who can’t cook, a surefire sign of heterosexuality.

I’m ambivalent about this movie and I suspect that’s because it’s ambivalent about itself. It wants to be funny, but also to feel good about sexual orientation and/or men discovering their feelings. There is some lovely stuff to do with Larry’s tap-dancing son (sure to be a big poof in later life), but the only gay people we get to see much of in the film are a pervy postman and a campy queen. The big macho man who comes out of the closet instantly goes all limp-wristed. Obviously it would be too much to ask to see a few gay men (or lesbians for that matter) who act “normal”, who wear check shirts and walk their dogs in the park.

The acceptance angle is pushed hard and generally works, I think; the deus ex machina ending is hopelessly contrived. Sandler is as amusing as Sandler usually is, which is sort of medium-funny, but James’s chief advantage as a comic actor seems to be that he is not Vince Vaughan.

So overall, then, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is a distinctly mixed bag  … Like marriage, I suppose.