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I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Sixth-grade diversity day
2007
Review: August 10, 2007
Director: Dennis Dugan
Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Jessica Biel
Not necessary.
THE SETUP:
Two Brooklyn firemen pose as a gay couple to get benefits. I mean, like pension benefits, not like “friends with benefits” benefits.
DISCUSSION:
I saw the trailer for this way back with Blades of Glory [if you like gay-panic humor, you’ll love…], and thought I would be interested to see it and find out how it handles everything. Then it came out and got horrible reviews, saying it was 80 minutes of gay-bashing humor and then 10 minutes of message of tolerance, and then Nathan Lee of the Village Voice came out saying it was genius and more subversive than Brokeback Mountain! THEN he received a bunch of outraged letters that he could support such homophobic trash! So obviously I had to run to the theater and find out the truth!
We meet Chuck and Larry playing basketball outside their Brooklyn firehouse. Chuck, that’s Sandler, is such a ladies man that he slept with the twin sister of his girlfriend, and then they both fight over him. He is also Mr. February in the firefighters’ calendar, pictured with a hose between his legs. They then have to go to a fire so we see how well Chuck and Larry work together and what devoted buds they are.
We then meet Larry’s kids, a bright girl and a boy named Eric who dresses in a feminine way, loves musicals, wears a lacy apron and likes to bake. He finds out that he had a year to switch his wife’s pension to make himself the beneficiary, but he couldn’t deal with anything after her death. The woman at the insurance office tells him that he could get the pension if he gets married, and then she proposes that he marry her—whom he just met. Then both he and Chuck get injured in a fire, which really makes him think about that pension thing.
So he goes over to Chuck’s house late one night to propose the gay marriage, only to find that Chuck is in bed with five Asian Hooters employees, and the doctor who we earlier saw icily refusing his advances. All are running around in Victoria’s Secret-type underwear. Anyway, finally Chuck agrees.
They are soon visited by a city worker who needs to verify their relationship, now that they’ve “taken their relationship to the next level,” to which Larry replies “Oh yeah, we’re just having sex all the time. Hot gay sex. Man to man.” The worker doesn’t believe them, and is going to escalate their case.
This necessitates them meeting Jessica Biel [who has never looked better] as a lawyer who will represent their case. Chuck is very attracted to her, but of course he has to convince her that he’s gay. She suggests that they go to Canada to get married for real.
Once there, they get called “queers” by a cab driver, become outraged, and beat him up. They get married in this whole scene with Rob Schneider as a high-Asian-stereotype officiator, but refuse to kiss. When they return we see young Eric scream and run at the sight of a nude woman.
Then this investigator played by Steve Buschemi goes through their garbage, saying it isn’t very gay, which leads to a scene of them going through the store looking for things to throw out that are gay. I found this to be one of the more interesting aspects of the movie, as I’m fascinated by what products and non-sex-related things are considered “gay” and which ones are not. Throughout, they keep making jokes about how all they do is have sex.
SPOILERS, I GUESS > > > Meanwhile, Chuck and Jessica have been having “girl time” together, with him going shopping and hanging out with her while growing ever more smitten. Meanwhile the secretly-gay mailman comes in to Larry, making a bunch of mail-based double entendres about “delivering in the rear” and “handling big packages.” We also find out that Jessica has a gay brother, played by the obsessive gay fan from Blades of Glory.
She invites them to an AIDS fund-raising party that night, where Larry expresses fear of going to the bathroom, and we find that people consider Chuck to be “the woman” of the relationship. Outside they are accosted by religious protestors, causing Chuck to defend homosexuality. The lead protestor calls him a “Faggot,” and he punches the guy, making the front page of the paper.
So everyone thinks they’re gay, and Larry is asked not to help with Boy Scouts of coach Little League. Meanwhile Chuck is having another “girl’s day” with Jessica, wherein she is invited to touch her breasts to see if they’re real, after which he says he says “I’m a little nauseous there, touching them.” Then the firefighters refuse to play basketball with them, claiming they grab their asses, but Ving Rhames, who is on hand as a firefighter with a violent past, comes out to Chuck as secretly gay. His revelation instantly turns him into a preening femme, saying “Yes, girl!” and the like. Soon we have a scene in which the other firefighters are uncomfortable being in the shower with Chuck and Larry, and jokes are made about them dropping the soap. Then Rhames comes in and dances nude while singing “I’m Every Woman.”
Soon after the firefighters have signed a petition that Chuck and Larry shouldn’t work on the same shifts. Larry upbraids them all for this turn, after all the times he and Chuck have saved their lives. By the way, all this time Chuck has been helping little Eric prepare for his big tap-dance routine to audition for ‘Pippin.’
So it’s time for the big courtroom showdown, where they are challenged by Buscemi to prove that they are gay. They get through it fine, and are about to kiss for the first time when their boss—for no reason—says that they are gay, and if they’re going to send them to jail, he should go with them. Then all the other firefighters offer their support, and Rhames comes out to everyone. Then they’re all packed off to jail, but the city offers them a deal, and Chuck ends up with Jessica and Larry meets a nice woman. Part of their deal with the city is that all the firefighters will pose scantily-clad in a gay-themed calendar, which we see being snapped up and devoured with relish by various gay people. The end. < < < SPOILERS END
When it was over I looked over to my friend and said “WHERE is the controversy? This is entirely pro-gay,” and he agreed, saying “This is what you show on sixth-grade diversity day.” Which is entirely true, because there is NO subtlety to the “gay is okay” message that is CLEARLY present throughout. I don’t understand what people are so upset about, although I suspect that many of them haven’t seen the film.
What the movie does right is have Chuck utter a few uses of “faggot” at the beginning [but I think only two], which is necessary to establish how he changes over the course of the movie. It’s also necessary to set the story amongst Brooklyn firemen, i.e. a traditionally hyper-macho population, so their arc toward acceptance can be show them overcoming the common straight male fear that gay men are going to come on to them. This is cutely tweaked at the end by having one of the firemen be tickled that gay men think he’s hot. The large number of jokes there that mock gays’ perceived characteristics [dress sense, constant sex, love of shopping, etc.] are necessary to show how the straight guys perceive them and to show how they change over the course of the movie. And it’s really all so painfully obvious it’s really alarming how many critics who have jobs with major publications didn’t get it.
A really good thing about the movie is the way Chuck and Larry react with outrage when they are called "faggot." Because they don't react with a "No! That is prejudice and prejudice is WRONG," but initially because they are viscerally offended that someone would treat them like that, and this easily transitions into an empathy for other gays who face that. Another thing the movie did well was establish early on that Chuck and Larry truly love each other in a platonic way, and to show that there is only a small nudge to one side that turns that kind of love into the love they would have if they were in a relationship. This may be the only subtlety to the movie, and to me is the most effective part.
My only problem with the movie is really a problem not so much with the movie but with what has become the sole version of gayness that has become widely accepted: that if you are a gay man you are a “girl.” You will have “girl’s days” and indulge in “girl talk.” It’s a little disappointing that the Ving Rhames character has to switch to femme the instant he comes out. The only gay man in the movie who remains traditionally masculine is the mailman, and it is implied that he is closeted. Once more, masculine gay men simply DO NOT EXIST. There are also other less-than-great aspects around, like the implication that gay men really like straight men, ANY straight man, or that gay men are disgusted by women's bodies, but these are no worse than in other movies, so I’m not going to quibble over them.
By the way, this movie is directed by Dennis Dugan, who played the hyper-effeminate Garson in Norman, Is That You?
I have to say I was hoping for a little more in terms of smart subversion, but what we ended up with was the aforementioned sixth grade [maybe even fourth grade]-level filmstrip on diversity. This displays nowhere near the ingenious deconstruction of gayness and masculinity in general that Blades of Glory did, but then again, you know what they say about Adam Sandler fans. Amiable and harmless, Chuck and Larry lobs a squishy wad of wet toilet paper for our side.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
If you’re interested in what it’s saying or not saying. I actually found it reasonably funny, too.
