
Hey! What's up, Judd!? Can I call you that? You seem so approachable. Plus you're named after a villain in a Rogers and Hammerstein musical which is fucking awesome. I wanna name my kid "Sky Masterson" after Marlon Brando's character in Guys and Dolls. And when people ask me why I would do such a heinous thing to a defenseless child I'll respond: "Remember when you all ate up everything that fucking Apatow guy did for a couple of years without thinking twice? What was his first name?" And they'll look at me blankly and then slink back to their electric cars or army tanks or whatever it is we are driving in the future.
So what's up, Judd?! You released
Funny People and it killed John Hughes! I'm kidding. Not really.
Back in 2007 I exposed your Macbeth-esque plot to overtake the Hughes throne of "Formulating a New Profitable Film Genre via a Demographic-Specific Commentary Focusing on the Middle Class and Battle of the Sexes". And the only reason I didn't catch it sooner was because I was pretending I'd seen
40-Year-Old Virgin for a solid two years. So in order to land your death blow. You made what the studio could only describe as "the third film from Judd Apatow" and it sent bolts of Emperor Palpatine Lighting into the eye-sockets of John Hughes who was over this shit anyway and opted to spend eternity singing "Twist and Shout" on that big parade float in the sky.
Funny People could have been a GOOD movie. It could have been an OKAY movie. But ultimately it could have been a seriously GREAT movie. All joking aside, Apatow does have a legitimate creative talent for arrestingly realistic moments. Moments in which Apatow catches you off-guard and you're feeling something you might only otherwise feel in peaks or valleys of your emotional life. And that is RARE in movies that open as big as Apatow's do to have moments like that. But they are only MOMENTS. And in the past two Apatow films, these moments seemed to be as carefully framed as his comic set pieces. However after seeing
Funny People I wonder if those lines, beats and even casual looks (from the always impressive and unexpectedly affecting Adam Sandler) that took my breath momentarily away were little more than a gourmet spice flecked and scattered on the carcass of roadkill.
Before we go any further. Let's address the "Apatow hates women" issue. Ok. Apatow definitely DOES NOT hate women. He absolutely does not. Apatow LOVES women. Especially his wife, Leslie Mann. Why else would he sabotage an otherwise fantastic movie by devoting its second half to a completely unnecessary B Story (or at that point C or D Story) involving her?
I would say that, rather than hating women, Apatow just does not find women funny. At all. And therefore has no idea how to write them. And who can blame him really? Does he hang out with any funny women? Has he or any of his collaborators encountered a woman who was humorous and insightful? Judging from his penchant for casting feckless, obnoxious and preening blondes (Mann, Heigl and Banks), I am gravely doubtful. Actually I think the main reason he doesn't find women funny is because he is afraid to portray them as flawed.
Over the course of an Apatow film, the comedy springs eternal from the male lead's inability to be a man. His central struggle and the comic riffs hinge on the protagonist's flaws. His ineptitude at doing something as simple as losing his virginity. His doofy attempts to be a father despite the fact that a paternal role is something he discounted as part of the male experience until that point. And with Adam Sandler in Funny People, Apatow creates (or at least showcases) his most complex anti-hero yet. A comedian version of Citizen Kane. A funny man locked away in his Xanadu spending sleepless nights wondering why being funny doesn't make him or anyone happy anymore.
That's an amazing concept. One that when Apatow follows it through to the end, even haphazardly, he and Sandler deliver an impressive and thoughtful and, yes, entertaining journey.
But has there EVER been a female character like that? When have feminine character flaws been exploited for a comedic and sympathetic story? Never. The Reese Witherspoons and the Sandra Bullocks and the Amy Adams of the film world may be wet blankets, Type-A over-acheivers or ugly ducklings but they are NEVER not WOMEN. Female flaws in modern film have been so polarized and made so unthreatening to the heroine's femininity that who can punish poor Apatow for not being adept at exploiting them for narrative or humorous purposes.

Female archetypes in comic studio films have only one central problem. They don't have the right penis to stick in their souls or they are unnecessarily unhappy with the right penis to stick in their souls. Once they get past their timidity or their over-worked professionalism or their bad hairstyle, they meet up with said penis at the airport or altar and everything is fucking fine. Even worse was when, in the name of feminism, "penis" could become synonymous with "career". Thank you, Capitalism! No wonder men embrace the "slacker" cinematic archetype. Women have got that other shit covered.
So don't fucking BLAME Judd Apatow for not being able to get a grip on it.
Imagine an Apatow movie about a woman who can't lose her virginity. (Studio/Society: "Good! She's saving herself for the RIGHT penis! Tom Hanks!"). Or a fat stoner chick who has an unprotected one night stand with a hot dude. (Studio/Society: "Either A. the movie's over on page 20 because she found the right penis who will get her thin or B. she's a slut. Let's not make this movie.") Ok. This analogy isn't very fair. Let's expound.
I've been in meetings as a writer where the producers have asked me: "What is the female equivalent of a Judd Apatow movie?" My answer: "Depressing." His comedy is rooted in male pathos. Anything rooted in female pathos would be shot down in the development stages or revamped in a different genre. Why? Because female pathos is UGLY. It isn't funny to other women because other women don't want to admit they are capable of that type of behavior. Men raise their beer-bongs to the Apatowian lead because they can laugh at themselves and are always excused for such flawed and indecent behavior. In fact, they are lauded for it. Because they are men. Not only are women so competitive with each other and so self-loathing of themselves that they could never applaud an Apatowian onscreen counterpart... Let's just be honest here!! Ultimately men will not fantasize about sleeping with said counterparts. So why would women viewers (who are just looking for that right penis) applaud them? Who would go see the movie? Who would agree to be in it?

What about Sex and the City movie? You say. Indignantly. What about Sex and the City movie, Arden? Well let me start off by saying FUCK SEX AND THE CITY MOVIE. The show was brilliant for portraying a flawed and searching female protagonist but it was not rooted solely in this concept. The show is rooted in the glorification and sanctification of female FRIENDSHIP not female ANGST. That angst is peppered throughout the series along with the sexapades that ring of true life. But both are treated like throwaway jokes. As the show progressed and when the movie was written the nails of Consumerism and Materialism were all but slammed into the coffin. By the time it rolled into theaters it was little more that US WEEKLY: THE MOVIE. Porn for women.
Should you go see Funny People? Sure. Why the fuck not? I love giving Judd Apatow my money. I think he's rad. It's a flawed movie but he loves flawed people and he's one of them so let's raise our beer-bongs and spend the $12. Someday maybe a chick will be allowed to do what he's doing and if so I'll give her my $12 then. But until then please get off his back about the chick stuff and stop being such haters. I mean, John Hughes died and everyone was like "Curly Sue sucked!" Sure it did but you can't deny what the man accomplished as a taste-maker and as a trend-setting storyteller. And the same goes for Apatow. You'll get wistful when you see that decades from now he's turned into even more of an adjective and you'll complain to the passenger of your electric car/army tank that you were there. When it happened.