There's Something About Mary: The Farrelly Brothers genius
This is the peak of the Farrelly Brothers power and genius! The Farrelly brothers were both raised in Cumberland Rhode Island. When they finished highschool they both decided to go to college with the dream to become film writers and Directors. The two hilarious Directors made the movie There's Something about Mary which is the third movie out of the first four classic they made. I call their first four movies the gospels of comedy! This film was their next stab at making people laugh and they did not disappoint the film grossed over 370 million!
In the first four films the Fareelly brothers made including There's something About Mary they all share common themes. The first is they all start in a road trip specifically in Providence except for Kingpin. If you play close attention their films as well always show intelligent able bodied people in their films as stupid, while the people with disabilities will seem very intelligent or inspirational. In general the Farrelly brothers use people with mental or physical disabilities in their movies all the time especially this one. For example in There's something about Mary you seeintelligent people like Ted and Pat the private investigator always making a fool of themselves or looking stupid, and you can't help but dislike them at times and pity them. While Mary's brother Warren while mentally disabled is such a lovable character. The film focuses on his strengths instead of his faults such as solving the rubix cube in less than a minute in the beginning of the movie. This was something I appreciate the most about the Farrelly brothers which is their willingness to have people play mentally disabled people and actually have mentally disabled people in their movies without doing so in a over the top offensive way but at the same time making it still be funny. When seeing their movies one could be caught off guard at first, because a person will think "ok am I suppose to find this funny or not?". I believe since the Directors show these characters in strong roles they do not receive so much backlash as people would expect.
So as you can see in this interview with W. Earl Brown the Farrelly brothers were always willing to stretch that political correctness barrier. To be honest they are able to get away with a lot with what they do because it's just funny. If it wasn't funny they would receive a lot more negative feedback. The farrelly brothers were known to introduce ideas and scenes in their movies for their actors to do that would make even the actors feel uncomfortable at first. In There's Something About Mary when they told Cameron Diaz about the "hair gel scene" she thought it was a terrible idea and that the audience would be disgusted at the idea that the "gel" in her hair was being acted as semen. When they showed the scene to a small audience to test it they all found it hilarious and they went with it.
Obscene? Inappropriate maybe? Most people would answer no way! The Farrelly brothers movies have always been successful and especially in this films case. There's something about Mary was only fourth in gross income in sales that year. So obviously people really enjoy the crude, and slapstick humor. The Farrelly brothers however know when the joke needs to end. They were asked to do a sequel to the movie but declined becasue they felt a sequel just wouldn't make sense. They still continue to make movies and make people laugh. There's Something About Mary happens to be their best
No comments:
Post a Comment