BEFORE: I know the snow season's almost over (I hope) but I ran out of ice melt about a week ago, and I need to melt the mountain of ice that's blocking our driveway, so last night I carried home two 25-lb. bags of de-icing salt. I gave one bag to our neighbors this morning, to repay them for all the times that they shoveled our part of the walk this winter when I was late getting up. I'm not sure if they completely understood its value, or the fact that the salt is really only helpful when the temperature is at freezing or just below, because I don't speak Chinese, but I think they got the drift of my gesture.
Linking from "Hitch", Kevin James carries over. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy.
THE PLOT: Two straight, single Brooklyn firefighters pretend to be a gay couple in order to receive domestic partner benefits.
AFTER: Last year I set aside one day out of the romance chain to celebrate diversity by watching "Brokeback Mountain", but any attempt to do so this year with this film was just ill-advised. I think this movie actually sets gay rights and acceptance back, despite whatever intentions it might have had. The main problem is, it just fundamentally does not work, in that it does not accomplish what it set out to do.
Let's start with the premise: a widower firefighter has a brush with injury, and realizes there is a problem with his benefits, namely that they are in his dead wife's name, and his kids are not named. Supposedly there is a one-year limit on making this clerical change, a window he missed, presumably because he is a busy firefighter, or just plain too lazy to open his mail or read his policy. But right off the bat, I can't buy this premise because if you're having trouble with a city clerk, you should ask to speak to her manager. A dead person cannot receive benefits, so a simple submission of his wife's death certificate would negate her status as a beneficiary, allowing him to make the change. And even if that failed, if he were to die on the job, the worst case scenario would be that his estate would go to his wife, and with her being dead, it would go to HER beneficiaries, which would be the kids. Problem solved, or rather, there wasn't really a problem to begin with. Even if he didn't have a will, his estate would be settled by the state - it might take a little longer, but the children would be taken care of, in one form or another.
The plot then alleges that the only way to make this correction is if there is a change in his marital status. So the firefighter panics, concerned with the fact that he could die on the job tomorrow, and rather than talk calmly to a benefits manager and explain the situation, he gets it in his head that his best friend should pose as his husband, and with the new laws extending benefits to domestic partners, this would change his marital status, allowing him to refile the beneficiary paperwork. OK, fine, but then a week later after filing that paperwork, there should be some way to file to dissolve the domestic partnership, and with the kids now named as beneficiaries, problem solved once again.
But no, the two men get it in their heads that they have to live together for appearance's sake, which puts them on the hook for insurance fraud, makes them social outcasts (except in gay circles) and puts their squad commander and their entire squad at risk as co-conspirators. All because someone couldn't file a damn form? Give me a break. I got my ex-wife's name taken off our mortgage without refinancing the loan, which wasn't easy - but I visited a good lawyer BEFORE I did something illegal.
Even this accusation of so-called "insurance fraud" is clunky - they are accused of ripping off the system, but how exactly? They're both receiving similar benefits and pensions as firemen, so where's the fraud? Two men and two kids were receiving benefits before the fake marriage, and two men and two kids are receiving benefits after, so where's the added fraud? If either or both had fake-married non-firemen, and those people were added to their policies as additional covered parties, that would be costly fraud. But in this case, it seems like the city would be SAVING money by having them both covered on the same policy, and each receiving the other's benefits in case of death. So clearly there is a fundamental lack of understanding here regarding how insurance policies work - and if you don't understand a process, I suggest maybe writing a screenplay about something else.
Some good does come out of the wacky mix-up - stereotypes are challenged (but unfortunately, just as many seem to get reinforced) and their co-workers are forced to confront their latent homophobia, and a couple are even encouraged to face their own identities and self-hatred and come out. But honestly this is a long way to go for a small payoff.
The main problem here seems to be a tendency to deal in absolutes, which as I mentioned a few days ago, is always a tricky thing. A character is either 100% gay, or 100% straight - when in fact most people in a free society may fall somewhere in between. Why does nobody identify as bisexual? Experience shows us that people can identify as one thing, and then years later, perhaps after meeting the right partner, they can swing the other way - so aren't they bisexual over time? Why can't a guy who was once married but now (apparently) with a man call himself bi- or omni-sexual? Because he doesn't want to appear indecisive? This is ridiculous and short-sighted. And if his fake partner is uncomfortable being thought of as the "woman" in the relationship, wouldn't calling himself bisexual sort of soften that blow? When the world sees evidence that he's been known to have sex with women, why isn't he thought of as bisexual? Why is the explanation that he's a self-hating gay a more believable option? Again, ridiculous and short-sighted.
I realize that this film is 7 years old, and much has changed even in that short span of time, but somebody, somewhere, should have known better and realized that this was not an accurate portrayal of events in the gay community, or anywhere really. The fact that a prominent college football player recently outed himself, and what effect this apparently will have on his draft choices, coupled with reactions from current NFL coaches and players, just shows how far some people still have to go - but a film like this is not how we're going to get there. You either acknowledge that humans have some basic rights to be who they want to be, or you don't - and if you do, you don't belittle their choices.
And I haven't even covered the repugnance of Rob Schneider playing an Asian wedding officiant - whatever I said about Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's", just double that. Just when you think we've made progress, something like this just knocks us back into the racist Stone Age. If you want to have an Asian character, you simply must hire an Asian - yes, casting should be race-blind, but this is not what people have in mind when they say that. This is just despicable.
Also starring Adam Sandler (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania"), Jessica Biel (last seen in "New Year's Eve"), Dan Aykroyd (last seen in "The Campaign"), Ving Rhames (last seen in "Casualties of War"), Steve Buscemi (also last heard in "Hotel Transylvania"), Nicholas Turturro (last seen in "Here Comes the Boom"), Gary Valentine (ditto), Nick Swardson (last seen in "Just Go With It"), Rob Schneider (last seen in "Muppets From Space"), Mary Pat Gleason, with cameos from Richard Chamberlain, David Spade (also last heard in "Hotel Transylvania"), Rachel Dratch, Blake Clark, Lance Bass, Dave Matthews, Dan Patrick, Robert Smigel, Rob Corddry, Tila Tequila, Matt Winston (last seen in "Zodiac"), Adam Herschman.
RATING: 3 out of 10 porno mags
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