Movie critic Christian Toto alerts us to what many of his readers see as a cheap shot at Sarah Palin in the upcoming movie, "Did You Hear About the Morgans?" I see it as more of a misfire — if not an (unintentional) tribute to the popular Hollywood pinata.
The plot of the romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker treads the well-worn "fish out of water" cliche. Two urbane, wealthy New Yorkers stumble into witnessing a murder. After barely escaping with their lives, they enter the witness protection program — and the government sends them to rural Wyoming, the reddest of Red State country.
They are entrusted to the protection of a sheriff and (apparently) his wife — who shocks Mrs. Morgan’s sensibilities by acting so comfortable with a firearm. Mrs. Morgan quips: "Oh my God. It’s Sarah Palin." (The joke comes in about 1:30 into the trailer below).
Toto writes:
Seems the industry isn’t done with Palin just yet even though she’s out of office and not currently running for anything (officially) besides vigorously Facebooker. … To be fair, the Palin joke isn’t mean spirited like something Letterman might say. It’s more tepid than anything else. …
What’s intriguing about the inclusion of the Palin reference is how it flies in the face of conventional movie marketing wisdom. Today’s films are thoroughly screened and analyzed for maximum profit potential, with material that might offend one group or another often scrubbed to avoid problems. It’s a savvy way to please as many consumers as possible.
But including a line about a current politician seems to work against that spirit. It’s potentially alienating – making the left chortle while instigating the right. Why annoy roughly half the movie going public if you don’t have to?
Many of Toto’s readers jumped into the comment area to express their displeasure at yet another in Hollywood’s long line of tiresome jokes at the expense of nonliberals. I’ve recently written about that phenomenon, but don’t really see this instance as being particularly offensive or alienating. As I wrote in Toto’s comments section, I think the preemptive backlash is a bit overblown. In fact, I thought the Palin line was kinda clever.
Mrs. Morgan is horrified that a Wyoming woman knows how to handle a gun — and she is threatened by her, like she is of Sarah Palin. But who’s the woman in possession of the more useful skills in the new environment? It ain’t Mrs. Morgan. What I was thinking: A woman comfortable and familiar with firearms is a more well-rounded woman than Mrs. Morgan, the high-maintenance whiny liberal. Whether the filmmakers intended that to be a compliment to Palin is largely irrelevant to how it comes off — kind of like the way Robert Duvall’s Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore in "Apocalypse Now" is supposed to be some kind of immoral villain, but is seen by many conservatives as a heroic character of moral clarity and bravery.
And my friend Christian and I largely agree about the foolishness of injecting contemporary politics into a film, but for slightly different reasons. I know Hollywood can’t help itself, but invoking the name of a contemporary politician — especially one with such a short time on the national scene — is idiotically short-sighted. It’s akin to inserting a Mike Dukakis joke in a movie released in 1989.
It’s one thing to invoke Reagan in movie dialogue, as his presidency came to define an entire decade of American life. Maybe you could even get away with a Clinton reference in a joke about reckless philandering, as Slick Willie has come to embody that trait. And, perhaps, Sarah Palin will endure as a cultural reference for a strong, non-nonsense, gun-totin’, independent woman. Not the worst thing in the world.
There are times when Hollywood’s insulting brand of leftist politics ruin (or almost ruin) an otherwise decent movie. And we should express our displeasure by withholding our movie-going money. At least judging by the trailer, "Did You Hear About the Morgans" does not seem to rise to that level.
Jim, I agree that this line of dialogue is realistic, in the sense that the person saying it would actually do so. I also agree that it’s dumb to inject politics into a nonpolitical movie, much less the trailer. But I don’t see the Palin reference as a political one but instead a social/cultural one; it points to her general character as a human being.
And in that regard I think it’s rather clever. Those who like Palin could very well read the line as a tribute (regardless of the filmmakers’ intent), and those who don’t like her can see it as another comic-scary moment in the film.
I think that the kind of nitpicking search for political slights this controversy represents is rather silly, since the real story is what these things actually say. And what you point out is that the dialogue line in question actually says some quite nice things about Ms. Palin.
Without the Palin joke, it is an effective trailer and looks like it could be an amusing fish-out-of-water film. With the Palin joke I’m reminded that everyone with creative pull on the film are Lefties who despise almost everything I care about, and some of whom, when they get chatting over beers, wish me dead.
Most people go to movies to get away from the world around them. This joke is idiotic because it throws the audience out of the world created on screen and back into the world that exists beyond the theater’s doors.
I suppose I could ignore that moment, though I would bet there are more to come, and try to enjoy the rest of the film. But why should I reward this film’s creators with my money when they are showing me in their trailer that they don’t understand why people go to the movies?
I stand corrected! A Dukakis joke can still be funny 20 years later.
A great Dukakis joke in a movie was in the first Police Squad movie where his picture was up on a wall of a bar whose theme was famous disasters.