Guardian film critics Matt Sussman and Jason Shamai have a few things they wanna say about the new film I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Let’s listen in!
Matt Sussman’s review, as published in the Guardian: Despite passing marks from FireFLAG/EMS of the Fire Department of New York, “the nation’s oldest and largest LGBT firefighter organization,” and GLAAD assuring us that I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is not merely an excuse to trot out tired gay stereotypes and that beneath the disarming and broad humor is a strong message of tolerance, this sophomoric comedy starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James as straight firemen who pretend to be gay to gain domestic-partner benefits isn’t so much homophobic as baldly misogynistic and thoroughly unentertaining. Sure, dismissing a Sandler comedy as sophomoric is stating the obvious, but in films such as Punch-Drunk Love, he has proved that he can set aside the flatulence and fat jokes, sit at the adult comedians’ table, and still make us laugh. So let’s add regressive (along with racist, thanks to an extrapainful Rob Schneider) to our list of modifiers. While one could argue that the film sends up regular straight dudes as much as it milks laughs from the standard chain of gay signifiers, this failed reverse La Cage aux Folles doesn’t realize the extent to which it exposes the rickety scaffolding that precariously separates straight buddy love from flaming faggotry. Or maybe that’s the anxiety the film is really trying to allay by declaiming any homophobic culpability. Whatever — I’ve already spent too much brain power thinking over a frat house skit-night sketch that somehow became a film. Someone get me a cock.
Jason Shamai responds, after the jump.