Adam Sandler Versus "Taste"
Anniversary Edition
Acknowledge the staggering amount of work that Adam Sandler has produced in the last 30 years. Not only is the output remarkable, but it has remained relevant and lucrative. Here’s a career comparison of Sandler versus other blue-chip SNL alumni:
For further context, we should examine these Lorne Michael apprentices with some qualitative indicators and career trajectories:
These are 10 of SNL’s undisputed heavyweights, plus Kenan Thompson, who is excellent in his own right and a model for consistency (SNL's Cal Ripkin if you will). Sandler is on the same list as Eddie Murphy. Murphy was shot out of a charisma cannon and took over SNL at 19 years old (SNL's Willie Mays). Robert Downey (“But not Outie”) Junior, whose career comeback ranks among the most significant Hollywood stories ever, is also on the list. He is unquestionably one of the key figures in the last 30 years and is a critical figure in telling the story of Hollywood. While other figures on this list receive general critical genuflection, excepting bad boy Chevy Chase (SNL’s John Rocker), Sandler does not. But Sandler should. He is in rarefied air for box office performance, longevity, quality, and audience reception.
Below is near complete list of the films Sandler has appeared in, produced, or written for:
Here’s a visual representation of their reception:
The average disparity between what the audience thinks of Sandler movies and what the critics think averages 27%. For reference, The Last Jedi boasted a 37% delta and unlike Sandler movies, launched a thousand YouTube channels dedicated to that film's destruction. Shoutout to the true champ, Grandma’s Boy, for scorching this with a 70% delta. Before the algorithm, Sandler hacked the male algorithm. “What if we made a horny stoner video game comedy that was also about personal and professional growth?”
Speaking of the overeducated peanut gallery, let’s run some biased sentiment analysis on Reddit.
Punching Down: A Reddit Comment Thread
Reddit Guy 1: “I'm sure he's probably nice enough in real life, but I dislike the way he plays a halftard all the time.”
Centaur: Empirically wrong. He plays a halftard 20% of the time. Which if you’re good at math, yields a 10% tardigrade. Sandler presciently intuited RDJ’s sage advice: “Never go full retard.”
Reddit Guy 2: “I think it's really interesting to see him slumming it as far back as 1998 (The Waterboy). It's funny to see the difference between a movie where they write actual jokes and a movie where they just make fun of fat/gay/mentally challenged people.”
Centaur: FGRs are not a sacred cow. The jokes count whether or not you find them fashionable.
Reddit Guy 3: “His movies rely on cheap sexist/homophobic/slapstick potty humor that panders to the lowest common denominator. There are no real "jokes", just things and people to mock.”
Centaur: All jokes mock something. I’m guessing this commentator (like most Redditors) thinks he’s an atheist, but I’ll actually show that he and his ilk worship the God of Good Feelings, crippled by the anti-human affliction of humorlessness.
Suppose you disagree that the critical class and the vast majority of American tastemakers are ideologically captivated by the Left. In that case, I’ll adopt one of their plays and ask you to please get educated on your biases and check your privilege.
For this exercise, the assumption that I hold to be self-evident is that the Venn Diagram of Critics and the Evangelical Left are vastly mutually inclusive. The Mutually Inclusive Critics and Evangelical Left or (MInCELs), champions of the spectrum of oppressed classes, are flying under the most aesthetically hideous banner ever designed:
There's minimal real estate in this newly founded nation of Wokeanda to mock anyone, however gently. Some call it that paradox of tolerance, but militaristically-enforced "niceness" is a more apt descriptor. The only targets left for mockery? Punch up to the Oppressors: that's white men, the nuclear family, and the patriarchy. Strangely, the support for the war parade in Ukraine seems OK, but I guess that’s because it’s white males and their icky pasty children are dying on both sides.
To the uninitiated, Adam Sandler is a dick. He spent his youth making crank calls, he thinks accidentally dropping a window unit on a lady in a retirement home is funny, and he wears basketball shorts in public. Now he uses his clout to cast his friends in plot-light family comedies. Modern MInCEL Genitalia confusion notwithstanding, the following Shakespearean soliloquy from Gary the drunk in Team America comes to mind:
"See, there are three kinds of people: dicks, pussies and assholes. Pussies think
everyone can get along and dicks just want to fuck all the time without thinking it through.
But then you got your assholes. And all the assholes want is to shit all over everything.
So pussies may get mad at dicks once in a while because, pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes! And if they didn't fuck the assholes, you know what you'd get? You'd get your dick and your pussy all covered in shit!
To summarize for this piece: Dicks frequently make the best jokes, pussies aren’t funny, and there is a diminishing sphere of returns for relying on assholes for comedy (see also: David Cross).
Comedy is largely derived from 2 emotions:
Surprise
Superiority
From peekaboo to puns, Surprise is neat, but it's also plausible to categorize under Superiority. Surprise is the self-effacement and joy realized from having expectations subverted or exceeded. That aside, I have identified the spectrums of Superiority with receipts:
Sociopathy: American Psycho, The Cable Guy
Cruelty: Heathers, Mean Girls
Schadenfreude: Horrible Bosses, Falling Down
Smugness: Thank You for Smoking, Anchorman
Overt Indifference: Office Space, The Big Lebowski
Fremdschamen: There's Something About Mary, Meet the Parents (Ben Stiller is the Cringe GOAT)
Pandering: Talladega Nights, Tropic Thunder
Tolerance (AKA "Bless Your Heart" ): My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Teasing: Dazed and Confused, Knocked Up (“You know how I know you're gay?”)
Growing Pains: Rushmore, almost Every Sandler movie
Given the premise that Sandler is a Dick, Dickness permeates his comedy. In other words, things that heteronormative cis men who value family care about. Common Archetypes in the Sandler verse:
Being sweet to old ladies (see also: “Dip, Doodle”)
Striving for excellence in Athletic endeavor, the Arts, or Family
Growing Up & Emotional Self-Mastery
We can see now why these “rote” themes are uninteresting or unappealing to the hoi poloi of Hollywood tastemakers. The world view of the MInCEL is tied fundamentally that we live in a meaningless universe devoid of objective truth. Striving is a tragedy and success is an accident. We are random flotsam in an uncaring eddy. This is why The State is so attracted to promoting Critical Theory: it voids personal agency and divides people into special interest groups that must rely on The State as their sole benefactor. Ideas promoting individual achievement and sovereignty are anathema to the anti-philosophy of Wokeanda.
To illustrate: let's compare a recent family comedy that was met with critical acclaim versus a Sandler Family Comedy. I'm talking Saltburn versus That's My Boy. Saltburn was advertised as a black comedy where an emotionally dispossessed young man insinuates himself into a wealthy family to destroy it. That's My Boy was an actual comedy in which an emotionally dispossessed middle-aged man insinuates himself into a wealthy family to rebuild his own family.
Both films feature a semen gag. I argue that Sandler's was more tasteful (damn, what a great pun). Saltburn showcases the journey of a sympathetic (that is, a Simp who is Pathetic) protagonist who gradually reveals sinister intentions and ruins everything. That's My Boy is the journey of an unsympathetic deadbeat dad with ulterior motives whose earnest intentions still almost ruin everything until he saves the day. Saltburn is fundamentally nihilistic. That's My Boy is fundamentally redemptive.1
So, given what we know about the critic class and their overt ties to Fundamentalist and Evangelical Leftism, their support for Saltburn and opposition to Sandler writ large is evident. They want to burn it to the ground. Sandler wants to build. You must choose the artisan over the arsonist. Now it’s time to relax and reflect:
1 In the genre of forbidden student teacher romance, That's My Boy is also superior to May December. However, both are these are still not as funny as Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron’s relationship. It becomes exceptionally funny if the crazy theories are true and Brigitte Macron is revealed to be a biological man. Ideally by and International Man of Mystery: “That ain’t no woman, it’s a man, man.”