Jody Hill's Sick, Sad World
Ever since first seeing Foot Fist Way, I’ve been struggling with how I view newcomer Jody Hill’s ability to mock the most depressing aspects of American culture. I recognized people that I knew and even liked in his “comedy” about a slovenly, miserable strip mall karate instructor. This made me feel guilty and unclean. And even though I was laughing throughout, I felt overwhelmed by my familiarity with this sad, sad character’s tacky attempts to garner respect and adulation from overweight kids and sleazy B-movie action stars. It put me right back in the rotting heart of Florida painted over in pastel hues, so no one would notice the sickness at its core. Beneath FFW’s patina of jokes lies something dark and sinister. And I think Hill wants us to respond with an unsettling visceral reaction to this more than he wants us to laugh.
I viewed his HBO show Eastbound and Down with similar ambivalence. Kenny Powers is a larger-than-life asshole but he isn’t exactly hyperbolic enough to remove him from reality. In fact, it is his love of big tits, cocaine and jet skis that render him the most realistic depiction of your average small-town pathetic loser since…well, since FFW’s Fred Simmons. It’s mortifying to realize that you knew/know someone like Kenny Powers and might even have humored the guy by sharing a beer or two with him. I want to laugh at Powers’ willful ignorance but I already feel implicated. There isn’t that distance between the characters and me that I usually maintain when watching a comedy.
And now there is the whole date rape controversy surrounding Hill’s new film, Observe and Report. What exactly are Hill’s intentions? How much does he like his boorish antiheroes? How much does he identify with them? Why can’t the female characters be despicable in a way that doesn’t exploit their sexuality? The whole Taxi Driver-as-comedy idea seems innovative, but wouldn’t Travis Bickle have blown away a date rapist? If we view laughter as the death of an emotion, what does this mean when viewing this scene?
I haven’t seen the film yet, but as you can guess I already feel seriously ambivalent about it. I think it’s difficult for Hill to present these ugly truths as something to be experienced cathartically (if that’s even what he is doing). Ultimately, when you have a rapist onscreen in a comedy, it will look somehow as if you are condoning if not glorifying that behavior because the audience is already expecting to be amused by the actions of the protagonist, or in this case the anti-protagonist played by Seth Rogen. When presented with the image of a sweaty Rogen pumping over Anna Faris’s drugged-up cosmetics counter skank, I can imagine the audience will be bemused but not amused. So, what is Hill really after: cheap laughs, cheap provocation or is he fostering the metacognition of what it means to laugh at these sort of things, these sort of dark and twisted things that aren’t just the stuff of melodrama or fiction? I obviously have no clue. But part of me wants to keep watching to find out.
