Zoolander
2001
D: Ben Stiller
*********
Pros: Funny, Creative, Well-Acted
Cons: Some Bad Jokes, TIME Servility, Bland Heroine, Not Much of a Message
I’ve observed that the funniness of a comedy is often inversely proportional to that it’s trailer. Zoolander is no exception here. Based on a sketch character, this has stood the test of time as one of the funniest movies of the Naughts. Unfortunately, it was criminally underrated when it came out. It was certainly ahead of the time, since a few years after Arrested Development, this brand of humor became accepted to the point of cliché.
This type of quirky comedy, based on absurd contrivances, is very high-risk-high-reward. It requires genuine creativity, but the price is that when the jokes are bad, they are really bad. Really bad levels of cringe. On the other hand, more down-to-earth comedies are rarely annoying because they’re at least grounded in human reality. Zoolander certainly has its share of cringe: the protagonists name is a lame pun, there’s a terrible boner gag (a cliché I hate) involving Andy Dick, and there’s the break dance fighting (“They’re break-dance fighting! one character helpfully points out).
The plot revolves around a politically significant conspiracy run by the fashion industry using male models as a weapon. When the Prime Minister of Malaysia (Woodrow Asai) commits to a child labor ban, the Industry desperately fast-tracks an assassination scheme coordinated by designer Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrell) in which moronic male model Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) is brainwashed into assassinating the politician. The plot is monitered by femme fatale model Katinka Ingabogovinana (Milla Jovovich, in arguably her best movie), and the brainwashing is done through an amusing video in which Derek is fed propaganda by Mugatu in the guise of a Buster Brownesque character named Little Cletus. With the help of TIME Magazine reporter Matilda Jeffries (Christine Taylor) and former rival model Hansel (Owen Wilson), Derek bumbles his way into escaping the plot. The conspiracy theorist who exposits the plan is former hand model JP Prewitt (David Duchovny), and it is very creative one. It turns out that the Fashion Industry's greed for cheap labor has been behind every major political assassination, including that of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth (James Marsden in a short non-speaking cameo that is oddly enough his best movie role). Male models are the perfect assassins due to their physical fitness, access to secure areas, and susceptibility to suggestion, and they’re groomed by modeling agents like Derek’s boss Maury Ballstein (Jerry Stiller). An absurd premise based on its own internal logic. If you don’t see the humor in that, I don’t know what to do for you. Apparently, this plot is suspiciously similar to that of a novel titled Glamorama, which I should probably check out sometime. There are lot of typical jokes about how stupid models are, but they are often cleverly done. They seemed to go out of their way to list Fabio as an exception, almost as if that was the price for having his cameo in the movie. Another strong point in comedy is the promo videos for Zoolander and Hansel.
I have to point out that Mugatu, despite being a comedy antagonist, is one of my favorite movie villains. Memorable character design, a charismatic performance, a good organizer of villainous plots, and a malicious motive: he’s got everything you need. He’s got a particularly funny backstory that actually puts a comedic entry on my list of greatest movie twists. It’s eventually discovered that he was originally Jacob Moogberg, a synth-guitarist for Frankie Goes to Hollywood until they fired him before they hit big. He became a fashion mogul when he invented the piano-key necktie in 1985. It’s of special significance that Mugatu chose “Relax” as the Pavlovian trigger for Zoolander’s sleeper agent programming. Will Ferrell is also brilliant in the role. I tend to believe that timing and delivery is at least as important to comedy as ideas. In one scene we have possibly the most lowbrow, terrible joke one can imagine: Mugatu spills latte on his assistant Todd (Nathan Lee Graham) and gets turned on because it looks like he’s covered in semen. The way the two actors sell this turns it into gold.
The movie serves its purpose as a comedy by being very funny, but the risk of eliciting a sideye from the ghost of Tom Wolfe, I’m not sure if I can credit it for any theory. In contrast, Stiller's also-criminally-underrated Cable Guy has many insightful and prescient themes about the influence of entertainment media and the desperation of the socially awkward people in produces. Zoolander’s only serious messages are that models are dumb, and maybe it’s a statement about how absurd conspiracy theories are. The latter doesn’t work (or perhaps it does), though, because the Fashion Industry's plot makes far more sense than most actual conspiracy theories. Even one silliest of premises of such theories, that the secret villains can’t help but put self-incriminating clues in plain sight, is more logical in this comedy; Mugatu has a very obvious petty reason to sully “Relax” in the eye of the public.
Funny thing is that comedies like this actually explain how comedians are so terrible at political satire; they are only capable of coming up with blatantly disingenuous strawmen when serious issues are addressed. These comedians excel in absurdism, things that are funny because they’re not true. This works when combined with the agreement between creator and audience that this is the case. However, these comedians abuse this exact same method to comment on politics, while removing that honest acknowledgement between themselves and the viewer, passing it off as “insight” or “truth-telling.” Saturday Night Live’s cowbell sketch is a perfect example of this, an example of a benign strawman.
Another problem related to this complaint is that that the movie displays a pathetically servile attitude toward the news media, let alone TIME Magazine. Their reporter is depicted as a heroine who solves all the problems, and Derek is even implied to be an idiot just for not reading that publication in particular. He even, rather realistically, calls out “investigatory reporters” for not caring whom they hurt as long as they can make a juicy scoop. Matilda responds by blatantly gaslighting him about her smear article by blaming her editor for the headline (she later admits she smeared him tue to a personal vendetta against models for driving her to Bulimia). Sounds pretty familiar nowadays, huh? If anything the movie is an accidental indictment of an institution that apparently has nothing better to do than write articles about a male model’s embarrassing faux pas at an awards show.
Matilda herself is a typical blandly idealized female comedy protagonist. She’s always the sane person in the room, only without the witty quips. Despite her supposed talent as a reporter, her primary method of journalism involves running up to Mugatui in public, asking him antagonistic loaded questions, and acting surprised that he’s “harder to get to than the president.” She loses points by impulsively participating in an uncalled-for model orgy with Derek and Hansel. Most of her work is done by her intern Archie (Matt Levin), but she does end up making the connection that “Relax” is the trigger song.
Even the aforementioned issues with this movie could still be interpreted as ironic statements, enhancing it as a classic comedy. The cast also includes Jon Voight, Vince Vaughn, and Juda Friedlander as Derek’s family, Alexander Skarsgard, Justin Theroux, Patton Oswalt, Billy Zane, Donald Trump, and a rather large number of celebrities as themselves. The soundtrack features a few 80’s classics.
