Hello friends, how’s the weather where you’re at? Lately, it’s been a bit gloomy over my house, which is the perfect mood to watch a comedy and rug up under one thousand blankets. And so, I decided to watch Scary Movie again for the first time in years. I remember it being funny af and totally ridiculous, but fuck has it aged terribly. And not in a charming way.
Released in 2000, Scary Movie was the first spoof movie in a franchise of comedies (Epic Movie, Disaster Movie) that makes fun of movie tropes and common stereotypes seen in film genres. The humour was crass, the characters were intentionally stupid and archetypal, and the plot was ridiculous as hell.
Think of an iconic scene from Scary Movie (if you’ve seen it) and it will probably involve the characters Cindy (Anna Farris) or Brenda (Regina Hall). Many scenes have become gifs, funny YouTube clips or memes, but I’m telling you now, there’s a reason that we only share nostalgia over these scenes, while forgetting how fucked up the rest of the movie was.
Take this scene from the first movie of the franchise, for example. Our main group of friends are just having a conversation, when the stereotypical jock character Greg (Lochlyn Munro), hears Cindy say something stupid – as is part of her character. He then proceeds to beat her up. That’s the joke. He just continuously beats her up, and we’re supposed to laugh.
Upon rewatching this movie, I forgot this scene was even in here, and I was shocked that it passed as comedy, even of the outrageous kind. The punchline here is quite literally resting on how surprising it is that Cindy takes so many hits without ever looking affected afterwards. Think about that for a second. It’s absolutely disgusting.
You don’t have to watch the below clip, but if you don’t remember the scene from the movie, here it is. The title speaks for itself.
And here’s another scene in which the same character inflicts random violence upon Cindy by choking her, and we’re supposed to laugh??
Apparently, in the 2000s, hitting women was hilarious. Say it was a different time if you want, but surely in all timelines, there were far better jokes than blatant abuse masked as comedy, right?
Miss Man
My other problem with the movie lies in the character Miss Man. Yes, that’s the character’s name. Miss Man.
I’m actually not even going to link the scene, because I think it’s so goddamn awful, and it’s also very NSFW while we’re at it.
If you really want to refresh your memory, you can go and look it up online yourself.
The whole joke here revolves around Miss Man, the girls’ high school sports coach, being a trans woman. It’s implied here that there are treacherous intentions involved with this (spying on girls), and there is also a scene in which Miss Man’s genitalia are completely exposed while she is sitting, because ha-ha trans people are some kind of funny joke to gawk at?
The boyfriend and I couldn’t believe this scene even made it into the movie. Scenes like this perpetuate such a negative and gross stereotype about trans people, that it’s hard to believe we were encouraged to laugh at such a thing when the movie first came out.
For obvious reasons, this scene hasn’t aged well at all, and is actually extremely painful to watch. It’s even worse when you consider the fact trans people growing up would have also had to watch this scene – which is smack-bang in the middle of a film that’s often heralded as a comedy classic – and deal with what it signifies for them and their identity in society.
To put it quite plainly, nobody wants to watch their identity mocked in a humiliating and downright offensive manner. Scenes like this can tell young kids who aren’t trans that trans folks are people to point and laugh at, with sinister motives, and they can simultaneously tell trans individuals that who they are isn’t anything more than a joke. It’s downright awful.
LGBTQ+ people face enough violence as it is, especially trans people, and it’s movie scenes like this that allow people to view trans individuals as props for a comedy. It’s not fkn okay, and it’s a scene that absolutely dismantled my respect for the film upon viewing it.
What’s worse is it’s a scene that bears no relevance to plot, it’s just a joke the directors clearly wanted to leave in, for whatever ungodly reason.
Doofy
The other offensive character is Doofy (Dave Sheridan). I mean, even the name is a lot to handle.
And look, I’m not going through the movie and just pointing at things I find offensive and yelling about them, I’m telling you, very plainly, that Doofy as a character has not aged well at all. Just by existing, I feel like the character takes so many negative characteristics of folks with mental illness or developmental issues just to create the ‘idiot’ character.
He does some dumb fkn things throughout the film, but none are ever really funny. The only reason you’d laugh these days is in pure shock that this was acceptable to include in films less than 20 years ago.
There are so many smarter ways to create a character who is a bit goofy and brainless without having to scrunch up their face, make them waddle around everywhere and spit while talking.
Anyway, here he is. If you remember what happens at the end of the movie with this character, then you’d realise that everything about the character is kind of worse in context. You see, it’s all an act so nobody suspects him as the murderer. Take that how you will, really.
And you know what, I’m not even gonna get started on the fact that the two villains of the movie are gay for the sole purpose of a punchline. Although the movie dips into many a gay stereotype, it doesn’t often veer into offensive territory, which is a sigh of relief I guess.
It doesn’t at all change the fact that the movie goes incredibly far into areas that at the time I’m sure the writers found hilarious. Doesn’t help that the film was written by a bunch of straight dudes, which explains a lot.
Anyway, that’s my overly lengthy spiel about why I think the original Scary Movie has aged terribly. I think I’m going to stick to watching the online snippets with Cindy and Brenda that are actually well-written and hilarious. Peace.
