Nerdy Evan (Michael Cera) woos the girl (Martha MacIsaac) in Superbad.
There’s a reason guys prefer to see comedies like Superbad (opening this week), and it has nothing to do with jokes about bodily fluids, gratuitous nudity and really awkward sexual situations.
Okay, well, maybe a little bit.
No, the main reason that guys love films like this is because they love to see the geeky guy end up with the hot chick at the end. You know, those
final frames when the ugly, uncouth, and usually unemployable underdog embraces the preposterously attractive object of his affection and sails off into the sunset, hopefully with a beer in his hand. (Women appear to like them too, especially when the female lead is able to help transform the loser into a lovable guy.)
Superbad producer Judd Apatow calls it ‘the goofy guy and gorgeous girl phenomenon’, a formula he honed on his TV series Freaks and Geeks. Apatow has been spinning box office gold from it over the last few years with movies like The 40 Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights and Knocked Up.
The phenomenon isn’t really that new. Watch any Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or Jerry Lewis classic, and pay close attention to a revolving door of young, attractive female co-stars who fall hard for the good-hearted goofballs who make them laugh.
But the trend’s come back with a vengeance. This summer has been a windfall for goofy guys and gorgeous girls in all movies, not just comedies. For example:
- Shia LaBeouf as a fumbling high school nerd (whose eBay user handle is
“LadiesMan124”) gets some serious face time with smoking-hot Megan Fox in
Transformers.
- Chubby Seth Rogen charms the pants off of the delectable Katherine Heigl and makes her his baby-mama in Knocked Up.
- King of all Goofs Adam Sandler fakes a gay marriage to Kevin James (who knows a bit about the phenomenon from his TV days and the movie Hitch) while feeling up the scrumptious Jessica Biel in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
- Hapless stuntman wannabe Andy Samberg woos red-headed firecracker-next-door Isla Fisher in Hot Rod.
- And rising stars Jonah Hill(Accepted), Michael Cera (TV’s Arrested Development) and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (as “McLovin’”) pursue their high school hotties on graduation day in Superbad.
Why now? Perhaps it’s just because of a recent slew of ungainly but talented comedic actors like Will Ferrell, Jack Black, Seth Rogen, Steve Carell and Jon Heder, who show that you don’t have to be traditionally handsome and sexy like Cary Grant to pull off leading man status AND entertain moviegoers. Witness the laughs Ferrell gets when he shows off his doughy physique in Anchorman, Talladega and Blades of Glory – not to mention empathy from some of us guys.
The truth is that audiences no longer need their characters to be hip, cool and “above it all” like the guys Eddie Murphy and Chevy Chase used to play in the 1980s. As mainstream movies are more and more “out there,” people seem willing to accept that their heroes have followed suit.
Will the trend flame out? Probably not. There will always be a burgeoning crop of ungainly males who are willing to humiliate themselves on screen in the name of a good laugh, a good time, and a happily forever after with the hottie next door....and that's a good thing for the rest of us guys.
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