Freddy Got Fingered

[newbridge]

What do you make of this remarkable film? Is this the strangest movie ever made, factoring in the consideration that it was a major studio release? Was this a deliberate meta-satire of the genre of comedies popular in Hollywood in the late-90s and early-00s? Is this a groundbreaking work of anti-comedy presaging the Adult Swimification of popular culture many years later?

I was actually a big fan of Tom Green around the time this came out, but I never saw the movie until recently, inspired in part by the Red Letter Media review of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEn3wcpNsg8

That being said, I would recommend watching it first without seeing that review and without reading anything else in advance. It is truly unbelievable that this was green lit and released by a major studio.

Personally, I subscribe to the view that this was a deliberate act of cinematic sabotage, and that the few scenes in the movie that are undeniably meant to be funny were forcibly added by the studio. I think Tom Green took $14 million and consciously made his version of Duchamp's Fountain for our era.

[Kelvin]

I honestly and unironically love it. I actually think it might be one of my favourite comedy films. I'm knackered right now, though, so will write more about it tmw.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I was about 14 when I saw it and thought it was funny as fuck.

[Kelvin]

I don't agree that it's not meant to be funny, though. I think a lot of it is meant to be surreal, extreme and testing the limits of what he could get away with; all of which is legitimately and intentionally funny.

[St_Eddie]

"Dear Father, would you care to consume some processed meat in cylindrical containers?"

That's how that goes, right?

[Default to the negative]

I always liked it.

The weird thing about this film was that even though I was a teenager when it came out, it was actually my dad who rented Freddy Got Fingered as one of his picks for the weekend. Surely a reversal of the way things ought to be. He watched it on his own and recommended it, so the next day we sat and watched it together.

It's a strange film to watch with your dad. From the parts he laughed, I could tell that he probably related to Rip Torn's character — which made me slightly uncomfortable. Gord is a man on a mission to take the record for the World's Most Disappointing Son. 'I'm gonna make you so proud, daddy.'

I think the father-son stuff is the real substance of the film. It shows us three different types of son: there is Gord, the actively bad son; then Freddy, who tries his best to please but makes himself look weak in the process, losing his father's respect; and then there is the neighbour's little boy, who represents a kind of idealised childhood innocence. The film has no place for innocence and takes great pleasure in ruining things for that kid. 'Can I really have a piece of cake, daddy? Yaaay!' Then smash – a glass is thrown right into his face.

Freddy and the little boy are both brutally rejected as workable models for a son. Both of them are 'good' — certainly nicer human beings than Gord — but their goodness makes them irritating and pitiful. So they are out of the competition and it's down to a battle of wills between the 'number one son' Gord and his father. With hilarious results.

And it is funny, I can't agree with the critics on this one. All these reviews saying that Green has no talent, no sense of satire, no timing, etc. That he relies purely on outrageousness and spectacle. Did we even see the same film? I don't know how anyone could watch it and not laugh, and not see the construction of the jokes.

I think Tom Green might have done himself a favour if he had called the film something other than Freddy Got Fingered, and removed (or at least dialled down) the jokes about child molestation. Because that stuff does offend people. The critics don't want to seem uncool and they will say they aren't offended — 'I've seen it all before, nothing fazes me.' — but I suspect that they actually did take offence, and were unable to see the film's good qualities because of it.

[newbridge]

I don't agree that it's not meant to be funny, though. I think a lot of it is meant to be surreal, extreme and testing the limits of what he could get away with; all of which is legitimately and intentionally funny.

True, I should clarify that I mean it was not intended to be funny in a traditional way, but was still intended (and succeeds) as a sort of anti-comedy. I found myself laughing at scenes like the one on the hospital room because it is so gratuitously unfunny and bizarre. Laughing at the fact that this scene is in an actual professional movie.

The testing the limits aspect goes back to my original question though. I don't think he was simply testing the limits as a form of gross-out/shock comedy. I think he was deliberately saying fuck you to the audience and mocking the type of testing-the-limits comedy that was popular in movies of that era. (I would say "satire" but that word doesn't necessarily fit the anarchism of it all)

[Default to the negative]

The testing the limits aspect goes back to my original question though. I don't think he was simply testing the limits as a form of gross-out/shock comedy. I think he was deliberately saying fuck you to the audience and mocking the type of testing-the-limits comedy that was popular in movies of that era. (I would say "satire" but that word doesn't necessarily fit the anarchism of it all)

I don't know that it's a 'fuck you' but it does seem like he is boiling things down to their most basic elements.

If you think about the Farrelly brothers comedies, they have elaborate set-ups to their gross-out moments. In Kingpin, Roy goes to live with the Amish and there is a montage of him doing ignorant things in their community. In one scene he comes to the family with a bucket of cream in his hand and a milk moustache on his face.

'I milked your cow.'

'We don't have a cow... we have a bull.'

So this has been properly set up and contrived, in the way the critics like, for it to pass as a Proper Joke. But let's face it, the joke is wafer-thin and is just a flimsy pretext for them to show Woody Harrelson drinking spunk. That was the moment they wanted, and everything leading up to it is just an excuse.

What Tom Green did was to dispense with camouflage and cut right to the chase. And in doing so, he demonstrated how gratuitous these scenes truly are.

[Twed]

If finding it hilarious when Tom Green gently sings "you could put the cheese in your bum" to a confrontational customer is puerile, then I am proudly puerile. Tom Green's defiant childishness tickles me at my core.

[colacentral]

I'm a long time fan. How can anyone not find a line like "oh I see the problem: you have a little baby inside you!" funny?

Though my favourite is the altercation with the customer at the sandwich shop:

"Oh I'm sorry - a cheese sandwich without any cheese isn't a sandwich at all, it's just two pieces of bread!"

The delivery of that line along with the anger with which he slaps the pile of cheese on to the bread is perfect.

I also for some reason really find the part where he gets out of the helicopter and empties a bag of jewels into the girlfriend's hand hilarious. "I got you some jewels." It's just a wonderfully dumb subversion of a proposal scene.

The biggest disappointment is the final overdub of the child saying "I'm okay," despite clearly being eviscerated by the plane. It leaves a sour taste in your mouth that the studio have clearly interfered to get the rating they want or whatever the motive was. The original intention of the ending, ending on something so hilariously over the top bleak, would have been perfect - and it has this awful line ruining it.

[SavageHedgehog]

I first watched this when VHS was still a thing as a rather snobby teenager expecting, probably even wanting, to find it terrible. I was shocked at how much I laughed. Re-watching it a couple of weeks ago I still thought it was pretty damn funny; it drags a little in the second half I feel, but there are still enough solid gags and weird touches to keep you interested.

Never quite been able to get on board with the loftier subversive or intellectual aims ascribed to it, but having been cool enough to listen to Green's commentary (recorded before the film was somewhat reappraised) he mentions that he thinks critics missed that the film was parodying a lot of common romantic comedy etc tropes, so I guess there is something to it.

There are a couple of moments which hint at studio compromise beyond the final line; in particular, I'm thinking of the scene where Torn is destroying Green's drawings, it seems as if we're meant to suddenly find Green sympathetic despite it coming immediately after a scene of him doing something horrible; but then again, maybe that was part of the joke?

RE: the idea of a "Green Cut", I think he's conceded it wouldn't technically be possible any more, but the deleted scenes on the DVD aren't very good (one isn't available without commentary; presumably a production error), only notable bit is the end of one which is maybe making fun of Hollywood's casual homophobia of the period?

Watching YouTube Clips it seems I still don't find any of Tom Green's MTV/Canadian TV Stuff remotely funny, so this is a real anomaly for me. His Social Media presence and tour promotions seem to indicate he thinks this is what he's remembered for, even though it wasn't initially popular and his MTV stuff was. Perhaps an indication of the durability of film as a medium (though that may have changed with YouTube etc).

[AsparagusTrevor]

Tom Green came around at the exactly right time for me, mid to late teenage years when having Sky TV was a luxury, I'd stay over at my rich friend's house and we'd go into the living room late at night to catch the MTV show. Its subversive sketches and pre-Jackass pranks and stunts clicked with us and it seemed almost naughty to be watching it. By the time Freddy Got Fingered came out I'd be in my late teens/early adulthood and I'd discovered the wonders of excessive drink and marijuana, so it was a guaranteed blast to get steamed and watch FGF.

I recently watched Tom Green's stand up. It's an odd one, the last third degenerates into Tom reciting old catchphrases.

[Default to the negative]

I recently watched Tom Green's stand up. It's an odd one, the last third degenerates into Tom reciting old catchphrases.

This is his best bit of standup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAanrkLn6bI

[SavageHedgehog]

OK, that's the first bit of his TV work I've found funny (or at least amusing)

[up_the_hampipe]

I have a soft spot for Tom Green. I love this film and the stupid immature pranks he used to do.

[bgmnts]

It's just stupid shit. You either like stupid shit or you dont.

Nothing deep here.

[Kelvin]

It's just stupid shit. You either like stupid shit or you dont.

Nothing deep here.

No-one thinks the film is profound, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that Green is testing how far he can push the studio and the audience at times, or that the plot is intended as a parody of, or at least extreme variation on, traditional Hollywood plots and themes.

It's not layered or subtle, and it doesn't make it 'deep', but there's a degree of self-awareness that some people don't realise is there.

[itsfredtitmus]

its practically dennis potter

[Sebastian Cobb]

It's just stupid shit. You either like stupid shit or you dont.

Nothing deep here.

Somewhat relevant:
https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/8dxvjz/what_sort_of_people_find_harry_hill_funny/?st=jgasxip6&sh=527810a8

[Sgt. Duckie]

"This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels."


Taken from Roger Ebert's zero star review, which is always worth a revisit:
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/freddy-got-fingered-2001


I remember Ebert deservedly cutting Green some slack, and slightly reconsidering his opinion with faint praise for the film many years later, but I cannot find it online. And I always wished Leslie Halliwell were around to have reviewed it.

[SavageHedgehog]

You may be thinking of his review for Stealing Harvard (Green's next film as an actor) where he said that Freddy was at least memorable and distinctive, as opposed to SH which was just bland.

[idunnosomename]

I actually always was under the impression that this was essentially just a series of skits, wanking horses, and that it had no narrative. I enjoyed the RLM review a lot and it actually made me want to watch it.

"Please sir, this is a FANCY restaurant" made me laugh a lot.

[newbridge]

I don't know that it's a 'fuck you' but it does seem like he is boiling things down to their most basic elements.

If you think about the Farrelly brothers comedies, they have elaborate set-ups to their gross-out moments. In Kingpin, Roy goes to live with the Amish and there is a montage of him doing ignorant things in their community. In one scene he comes to the family with a bucket of cream in his hand and a milk moustache on his face.

'I milked your cow.'

'We don't have a cow... we have a bull.'

So this has been properly set up and contrived, in the way the critics like, for it to pass as a Proper Joke. But let's face it, the joke is wafer-thin and is just a flimsy pretext for them to show Woody Harrelson drinking spunk. That was the moment they wanted, and everything leading up to it is just an excuse.

What Tom Green did was to dispense with camouflage and cut right to the chase. And in doing so, he demonstrated how gratuitous these scenes truly are.

But the Kingpin scene is actually funny to me on its own terms, for all the ineffable reasons that things are funny (the surprise of expectations being reversed, the momentary thought of what Roy must have gotten up to off screen, the joke of Roy being ignorant). Barely any of the scenes in Freddy Got Fingered are actually funny on their own terms. They make no sense; the first gag is literally just "HORSE COCK!" But they are so bad and unfunny that they become funny.

[newbridge]

It's just stupid shit. You either like stupid shit or you dont.

Nothing deep here.

But the movie is stupidly shit in a way that the TV show never was. Even when he was doing gross-out stuff on TV show (which actually wasn't that often), there was some element of cleverness or genuine comedy.

Freddy Got Fingered is like a performance piece in deliberate anti-comedy.

[Sgt. Duckie]

You may be thinking of his review for Stealing Harvard (Green's next film as an actor) where he said that Freddy was at least memorable and distinctive, as opposed to SH which was just bland.

That was it. Thanks

[Kelvin]

But the Kingpin scene is actually funny to me on its own terms, for all the ineffable reasons that things are funny (the surprise of expectations being reversed, the momentary thought of what Roy must have gotten up to off screen, the joke of Roy being ignorant). Barely any of the scenes in Freddy Got Fingered are actually funny on their own terms. They make no sense; the first gag is literally just "HORSE COCK!" But they are so bad and unfunny that they become funny.

You see, again, I don't think that's true of a lot of it. Yes, the horse scene feels like an attempt to test the studio/audiences, and is therefore only funny in a meta "I can't believe what I'm seeing" way, but other scenes like the backwards man, and the sausage pulleys are legitimately funny in the same way that Reeves and Mortimer's most surreal and stupid stuff is funny.

I just don't agree that a lot of the film is so bad it's funny, either intentionally or unintentionally. I think a lot of it is very surreal, willfully stupid and over the top; all of which are sources of legitimate, unironic humour, but alienating and unappealing to a huge amount of people.   

[Kelvin]

I mean, the scene of him in the shower; the reveal, the look on his face, the stupidity of it all, Rip Torn''s insane reaction, and before that, his utterly unnecessary kicking down of the door. To me, that is all legitimately funny. Not intentionally bad. Not unintentionally bad. Just very heightened and silly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfchQpxeGyo

[Default to the negative]

I mean, the scene of him in the shower; the reveal, the look on his face, the stupidity of it all, Rip Torn''s insane reaction, and before that, his utterly unnecessary kicking down of the door. To me, that is all legitimately funny. Not intentionally bad. Not unintentionally bad. Just very heightened and silly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfchQpxeGyo

That is Freddy's funniest scene.

'How much water is he gonna use?'

'Yeah how much is he gonna use, all of it? Should save some for the fish or sumtin', huh pop? Heh ha ha... heh ha... ehh he he.'

<disapproving father frown>

[newbridge]

I mean, the scene of him in the shower; the reveal, the look on his face, the stupidity of it all, Rip Torn''s insane reaction, and before that, his utterly unnecessary kicking down of the door. To me, that is all legitimately funny. Not intentionally bad. Not unintentionally bad. Just very heightened and silly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfchQpxeGyo

Yes, there are some conventionally absurd/funny gags (I also enjoy the absurdity of him barging into the restaurant dressed as an English bobby), but I respect Tom Green too much to believe that he intended the bulk of the movie (such as the horse cock, sandwich factory, dead deer, halfpipe injury, hospital room, handicapped girlfriend, sausage fingers, etc. scenes) to be anything other than a joke at the audience's expense.

Incidentally, the shower scene reminded me of the "Neptune 2000" episode of Chris Elliott's Get a Life, which was surely an influence on the movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Gm1lc0BmE

[Kelvin]

By hospital scene, do you mean the baby sequence? If so, I'd say that was definitely an example of intentional shock humour/surrealism; I don't know how you can view a man windmilling a baby around as anything but - it's pure Python. The sausage scene is no more intentionally crap than the work of Reeves and Mortimer. It's simply very, very silly and surreal. Even the handicapped girlfriend spanking scene starts of as a fairly crap, conventional bit of Farrelly style comedy, but then twists that into something far more extreme and bizarre, with his deranged OTT enthusiasm and gurning. These are all sequences where you're expected to laugh at how silly and OTT they are, rather than purely because they are so bad you can't believe he got away with it.   

Other scenes, like the deer and the horse, do feel more like he's pushing the boundaries and seeing what he can get away with, though, I agree. Sequences you are meant to view with disbelief, rather than the more conventional shock humour (where you are at least laughing at the events taking place, rather than the fact it is happening at all). 

Of course, it's also worth noting that, just because I believe scenes like the birth, the sausages and the backwards man are intentionally funny, that doesn't mean that he isn't also aware that these scenes will be very alienating to audiences, and unsettling for the studio. The scenes do not need to be intentionally bad to achieve that. As with Stewart Lee's more outre comedy, they simply need to be alienating enough that many people will be turned off by them - which is, of course, exactly what happened. At it's best, the film is so effective, precisely because it manages to be both genuinely funny on it's own terms, and also willfully obtuse and off-putting.