R-Rated Mates

Sometimes there are just people that you group together in the film world – frequent collaborators. When I think of this, I immediately think of the comedies of the late 90s and early 2000s that dominated the screen. There were certain men that always took centre stage and solidified themselves as comedy legends. Even though the actors may not be as popular now, they still deserve a post for their service to comedy movies. A key group is the Frat Pack. The Frat Pack is a group of actors – Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Luke Wilson and Jack Black (thoughts vary on who is in it or not)-  that have collaborated on many comedy movies like ‘Wedding Crashers’, ‘Talladega Nights’, ‘Anchorman’, ‘Dodgeball’, ‘Old School’ etc. You may not be familiar with their names, but you have definitely seen them.  The Frat Pack name came from the word ‘fraternity’ as the men usually play fumbling child-like characters like frat boys. The Pack is known for its explicit and silly comedy films – you couldn’t go through 3 comedy films without seeing at least two of them together. A special shoutout should go Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, who are honorary members of the Pack in my opinion. This era of comedy was quite unique and has, like eras do, faded away.

There are other groups of actors that I have noticed as well. Since this is a safe space, I will share one that I have created – The Slack Pack™  – a group that I made up in my head of actors that play slackers and stoners in explicit films that just makes sense to me. Naturally, Seth Rogen takes centre stage. It consists of Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Michael Cera – mostly director, Judd Apatow’s collaborations.

There is also the Sandman Pack™, which comprises of people who work with Adam Sandler like Kevin James, Rob Schneider and David Spade. Basically almost the whole cast of ‘Grown Ups’. These 3 main groups gathered to shape almost 20 years of mainstream American comedy, naturally there has been overlap between all of them and as always there are exceptions, but these are the groups that I see in my mind. I’ve mentioned a lot of names, which can be a bit confusing, but I am not crazy, these groups make a lot of sense! If you search the people up, I am sure that you will see the trends too.

The fact the Packs are all white men is not lost on me. Things were can be quite segregated, with the non-white person being the weird side character. Not great. That issue needs a whole other blog post that I will do another time. The Packs used to create hit after hit with their crude humour, ’average joe’ energy and intelligently dumb stories with silly characters. I loved it. Couldn’t relate to ‘Anchorman’, have watched it several times. The Packs just had that charm and chemistry that seemed to appeal to the masses and had a bromance of men actually loving each other as friends unapologetically, which I think was quite refreshing. It just looked like they were having a good time; featuring in each others films in cameos, writing and collaborating as friends. 

Now things have changed and the Packs have changed course. ‘The Internship’ and other Pack films (comedy movies that has at least 2 of the members) do not do very well in the box office, so there hasn’t been much noise from any of them in the comedic genre. Members still collaborate from time to time but it is certainly not what it used to be. Why is this? There are a few technical reasons to do with money and movie studios in an article by the New York Times but I have a few theories outside of that:

1. The World Has Evolved 

In a recent Hot Ones interview, Vince Vaughn said that now, Hollywood overthinks these comedies. A simple premise of friends getting together and causing chaos seems to be too elementary. The IP has to be complex, or life changing. Most studios are focused on the innovative and groundbreaking, or building on already established and successful ideas rather than finding the comedy in the day to day. Director Todd Phillips has also said that comedies are often perishable because they are commenting on their current context, meaning that comedy had evolved. Maybe the current audience doesn’t want absurd stories with very immature men walking around in their underwear anymore.

2. A New Class

We do have those raunchier comedies, but they have different faces because nowadays, we need more diverse casts on screen. As I mentioned before, the Packs consist of middle-aged white men. There is new school of comedy who are younger and more diverse in terms or gender and race; any film that lacks diversity doesn’t bode well with audiences.

3. To Escape The Box

The classic Frat Pack film has a certain formula that could be putting typecasting the actors and putting them in an ‘acting box’ that they want to escape from. They might not want to chug kegs, and play the big-kid in films anymore, especially in their mid-50s – their bones are starting to creak!! Instead, the Pack members have gone on to work in TV shows and directing, with a lot of them moving to more dramatic and/or family friendly roles. Owen Wilson went from doing ‘Zoolander’ to ‘Marley and Me’, for example. Actors themselves may want to stretch themselves and try new things.

Some members are still trying to fight the good fight, and continue to create comedy films, but they are definitely not at the same level of success as they were 20 years prior. But in the interview, Vaughn says that these comedy films make a comeback “sooner than later”. I guess we will have to wait and see.