At Least We Can All Agree Dane Cook Sucks, Right?
I’ve been using the Dane Cook trailer recently as an example of all that is evil in Hollywood and the world. But Tara disagrees; I thought her comment was worth pulling out and talking about.
I thought it was pretty funny. Hold on, let me explain. For one, from what little I saw from it, the movie seems to make fun more of what a tool the main character is than of any of the female characters. Secondly, I’m not sure about everyone else, but I don’t know any women, large or small who eat like that. When I was bigger, I didn’t shovel food in my mouth that way, particularly when I was on a date! My point is this; I thought the trailer was funny, and thinking so doesn’t make me less body positive or size accepting. Yes, the leading woman is thin and yes the best friend is chubby. I can’t/won’t argue either of those points, and I too would like to see the love interest be in the form of a bigger girl. I believe that two gorgeous guys CAN be best friends. However, I don’t want to be told to boycott something just because the majority finds it offensive. In my opinion (again, just my opinion) if we truly love and accept ourselves enough to laugh at the images in movies like Norbit and Good Luck Chuck, we disarm those same images that bother us so much.
Personally, I find the trailer both offensive and unfunny. The only woman in the trailer who isn’t thin and gorgeous is an obese woman portrayed as a repulsive, grotesque, I-am-sloppily-eating-something sterotype. I don’t think we’re disarming anything if we laugh at those images. I don’t think if I loved myself more, I would find it funny for fat people (or a fat woman, or any woman for that matter) to be portrayed in this manner. In fact, by going to see this movie, I think we would be enabling some truly disgusting prejudice and misogyny. (I also hate this poster and the one of Dane Cook humping Jessica Alba.)
But, I think Tara is coming from an interesting place, and maybe some of you agree with her. After all, a lot of people went to see Norbit. So what do you think?
Posted by mo pie
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I have to agree with Ally’s comment. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. Yes, this is a vehicle for Dane Cook. However, he just acted in the film. This film was a job for him. He did what he was paid to do. The only time I would blame him for this is if he were somebody like Johnny Depp who is now royalty in the acting world and can clearly pick and choose through the scripts sent his way. I don’t think Dane Cook has that level of success quite yet. As a matter of fact I believe the last movie he did was Employee of the Month.
OK, totally being out of the loop on this whole “Dane Cook Phenomonon” (still can’t spell that word for shit), I took the liberty of looking him up on Wikipedia, and learned that actually, he is pretty huge. HE has his own HBO series and all (I don’t have HBO, I have Showtime instead) and has quite a career. While no Johnny Depp (on oh so many levels…), he DOES have the power to say “No, this movie/plot sucks and I’m not doing it” without facing career retailatation.
Hopeful, though, is the existence and popularity of http://www.danecooksucks.com and that the thrust of his suckdom apparently is that he is quite unoriginal, and has been accused of what amounts to plagurism (I’m a spelling brontosaurus this morning, eh?), while he is known to be fairly litigious (OK, I should install a spell check) when anybody references his material.
So I stand under the title of this thread: Dane Cook sucks. He didn’t just “act” in this movie, it was written with him in mind and he embraced it. Oh, and I saw the poster for it, and I’m sure Leibovitz, Ono, and Lennon are respecively throwing up, screeching in pain, and spinning in grave over it. Then again, from the buzz I hear, it’s not like Cook could have come up with anything artistically striking on his own.
Tomato….well you know the rest.
Is it Dane Cook’s fault that the script was written with him in mind? I’m confused. I will stand by my point of him doing what he was paid to do. These are the only kinds of film roles (silly comedies) he can get at the moment. Not defending him, just a theory. I don’t know much about that other stuff about him being unoriginal (since I don’t follow his career or anything), because I’m not that big a fan of his.
Wait!
He was in another movie with Kevin Costner. It was called Mr. Brooks. Strike my previous point about him only getting silly comedy movie roles! My bad.
Honestly, I don’t care if it’s a vehicle for Dane Cook or not — until just now, when I looked him up on the imdb site, I wouldn’t have known who he was if I bumped into him on the street.
I still think the movie sounds boring, lazy, and offensive, and personally, I plunk the blame on the producers and writers. That said, I don’t think a comedian would stand behind a script he really thought was horrible, since that would affect his future career. So while the other stars may just be collecting a paycheck, I tend to think the headliners (Cook AND Alba) do hold some responsibility for their choice of films, and we can make judgements of their relative intelligence/integrity based on this. It’s not like either of these stars are “starving artists” desperate for work.
Eddie Murphy, I’m looking at you, too.
I dont think you can say Dane Cook is blameless for this movie. the other people who made this movie possible would not have been able to do so without a person like Dane Cook to not only legitimize what is happening in this movie and to affirm what society is trying to make us believe is true. what i am trying to say is gender norms and size acceptance are closely connected and a movie like this is evidence of that.
Now the question of whether Dane Cook is starring in this movie because its what people want, or people want it because that what media is shoving down their throat is another matter…