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Reports on Comedies
Script Readers don’t assess a script by whether it’s something they would personally enjoy. The challenge is to evaluate how successful a script is within its kind. Here’s a sample about Dumb and Dumber and Dodgeball.
Some of my examples are from films I would never choose to watch, and with a reviewer’s hat on I would give a different response.
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Whether Dumb And Dumber and Dodgeball are comedy classics or puerile insults to the medium of film is not my concern.
They are meant to entertain, particularly by laughter. They aren’t analysed by most viewers – it’s meant to be fun. I’d expect different things of the characters in these than a very emotion driven drama, or a complex sci fi.
I also feel that too much analysis of a script in this genre is wasted: the audience wants simply to laugh. As long as they are, structure and narrative are not important.
The script only flies with the performances, and in both cases, well known actors use their comedic gifts which cannot be fully written on the page.
Dramatic and Thematic Conflicts:
What do the characters want or need? What’s the message of the movie?
Dodgeball
White wants to win the Dodgeball contest, buy out the inferior gym and preferably take the girl – and humiliate Peter and his team as much as possible in the process.
Peter wants to retain his gym and his staff, and needs to win the Dodgeball contest to obtain the money. He’d also like to date his lawyer
Central to both dramatic and thematic conflict are the ethos behind both teams and their gyms:
Average Joe’s is the antithesis to the poser ridden exclusive and belittling health club run by White. It does not say that people should look a certain way to be happy or accepted. The final advert for the gym says it all – you don’t need to change, but if you’d like to keep fit and make some friends, then come along. Peter’s team cares about fair play and each other. White’s team also shows working together well, but he likes to stamp on people (e.g. grabbing the kid’s icecream when he loses). White wants to cheat, to hurt people, to make money, to have power over others.
Thematic Messages
The team of losers wins
Quotes that embody the messages:
“you’re perfect as you are”
“Dodgeball doesn’t make character, it reveals it.”
I query White’s comeuppance of getting fat. It contradicts the messages of Average Joe’s and its team of unfit people.
Another message that’s not acceptable was the lesbian for male titillation. Christine Taylor’s character is suspected of being gay because of stereotypical characteristics. She kisses a female for the male viewer’s amusement, then rushes over to Peter so that he has happy closure. She dumps her girl for the benefit of our man. That’s pretty insulting and lesbian/bi women will be incensed by being yet again a draw and a joke for men.
But the pacing and interest is kept up well. Rather than just heats of Dodgeball games, the story is interspersed with team members’ struggles. Although we presume that Average Joe’s will score a victory and retain their gym, this is not final until after the game. Even after winning, there’s the issue of Peter having accepted a bribe from White to be resolved.
Despite the above and a definite niche humour, the structure is good and there is an attempt at themes of acceptance, courage, fair play and teamwork, and a kind of arc for some of the characters. The excitement is there even if one is not a sport fan.
Dumb and Dumber’s harder to assess because it purely relies on gags and sharing its humour, which goes further into juvenile and gross than Dodgeball. The messages and themes are harder to spot here, but perhaps these are not important to the viewer. There is a theme of enduring friendship. When two oddballs loose their jobs, they are given opportunities to do something new with their lives. Their unique personalities allow them to innocently become embroiled with a kidnapping and be instrumental in stopping it.
There are two things that struck me that went too far with the humour here: the dead parakeet being sold to a blind boy, and the title. To call stupidity after those who can’t talk is surely way beyond its sell by date of acceptability.
From a packaging point of view, Dumb and Dumber has what many mainstream movies are made of: the road movie, the buddy movie, the comedy, and the suitcase of cash. There’s some love interest. There’s an inciting incident – the suitcase at the airport left by attractive Mary; and the finale when the friendships are tested and the kidnapper takes Dumb Dumber and Mary by gunpoint. It seems that what happens in the middle really doesn’t matter if you are engaged by the film.
