Written by Aniruddh Nambudiri

Yesterday, I sat down to watch a film, but I don’t really know what it was about that night. Maybe it’s because I just saw a full baseball game or maybe I was just some degree of tired. Another main thing was that I do not pay for any streaming services. Streaming services on a struggling, broke college student budget? Let’s just say there are better things to spend on. This obviously makes you turn to the free streaming services which have a whole minefield of completely wild options for you to choose from.

After a scroll, I chose a film from 2001 called Shallow Hal and my roommate joined because it looked completely ridiculous. Within 15 minutes, we called a third and from here commences a masterpiece in bad movies. A film that would never be greenlit today. Rightfully so. This film basically checks all the boxes of misogyny, ableism, pushing completely insane beauty standards on top of the whole film being driven by advice from Tony Robbins who, let’s just say has had a fair share of controversy come his way in recent years. Of course it was awful. The editing was all over the place, the soundtrack had a comically bad song in one of the climaxes of the film and the lead is a massive creep. With so much wrong with this film, this is one of the worst things I have ever seen but I had a lot of fun watching this film with friends as we just could not believe what we were seeing.

I just keep thinking about the film the day after in a way where I just cannot believe what I have watched. I keep thinking about the haircut they gave Jason Alexander. I would never get that in a good film. It made me think about how the most fun I have had with films has been when watching just the worst films with friends. I realized this when going through my Letterboxd account and I realized that practically all of the worst ratings for films I had given were films I watched with friends. The wonders of Battleship with its Avengers Assemble-esque scene, the final needle drop of Gangnam Style in The Nut Job and on that line of needle drops, hearing Linger during Click was also quite a highlight. It was realizing that the best films to watch with people are right in this genre. Really bad films that you know are going to be bad going in. This one is different though.

Now let me say this right off the bat. I am not saying just ignore everything offensive for the purpose of a bad film. Film criticism and analysis is all important work and I really do not like people who say that you need to ‘have a light heart’ or ‘learn to take a joke’. More often than not, this all just applies to films that rely on some really offensive stuff and they can be drags to watch. It absolutely applies to this film. There is actually a great article by The Atlantic on the film that I would recommend seeking out if you want a serious breakdown of the film.  Here is why this is not a serious criticism of the film. I am not the person to make that criticism. I would much rather hear the take of people who were around in that time and people who would have a better understanding of the cultural context.

Who am I then? I guess I am the person who chooses to laugh and make myself the joke in the face of a bully. I laugh at how bad something is because I think it makes it more embarrassing for the creator. I guess I think that the worst thing someone can do when I make something is laugh at how bad it is. The worst thing something can make me do is make me laugh at how much they whiffed. That is what this did. I laughed at, ironically, how shallow the whole thing is. I laughed at how the creators almost definitely think this film is smarter than it is yet completely fails at being commentary. That is where this is different.

Despite how bad Battleship and The Nut Job were, they were not films where you could make genuine criticisms that bring it into societal commentary. Sure, Battleship is pretty blatant military propaganda but ultimately, part of a whole sea of such things. This is unique in how front and center a lot of its offensive material is. Weirdly enough, it reminds me a lot of why The Wolf of Wall Street is one of my least favorite films. Both do not really have a care for the cultural impact they might have. In this case though, this is a 2000s comedy. Not a Martin Scorsese movie. I hold this to a low standard, and it somehow burrows way lower than I thought it could. That is why it’s funny to me.

I guess the point I am trying to get to even with myself is how to approach watching films like this. I have not fully thought of an answer if I am being honest, but I guess I would start with being honest with what you are watching. Be disgusted if something is bad, be offended when something is offensive. Despite laughing at it, call a spade a spade. Next, go crazy and do whatever you do with your friends when you watch something bad. That is basically where I have ended up at the end of all this.

Yeah, so this is how a Jack Black film from the 2000s made me rethink how I watch films whilst writing an article. I need to maybe go for a walk after this.