Dude, it was an epiphany!
Source: Toronto Star
'Dumb & Stoned' satire brings dad's conversion to Backstreet culture
By John Karastamatis
Special to the Star
If a book, play, movie or piece of music is created for the consumption of young people, most adults run the other way.
As a father, I've had much experience in this race away from the entertainment my children enjoy.
My daughter is 16 and not unlike other teenagers in her idolization of music groups such as the Backstreet Boys and 'Nsync.
My son is 8 and he, too, has the taste common to his age group - currently anything to do with Pokemon, Digimon, and their ilk.
I have been able to avoid enduring all this stuff by leaving it to my wife. Over the years, it is Marie who has been stuck with taking the kids to their movies, concerts and other events.
I've often wondered how she bears these excursions to the multiplex or concert hall.
The answer came recently when Marcus, my 8-year-old, introduced me to a satirical minor gem of modern cinema.
On a free afternoon, I set out to take him to Ang Lee's mystical martial-arts opus, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Having already enjoyed the film once, I was looking forward to seeing it again and wanted him to experience it, too.
I got him as far as the ticket window, but the attendant scared him off when he asked if we knew the film was subtitled.
Marcus wouldn't budge and, since I had failed to choose a film appropriate for both of us, he said it was his turn to pick a movie.
I agreed and he chose "Dude, Where's My Car?"
Slouched in my seat, I was prepared for a puerile, vulgar, and offensive bore - a formula film for teenage males (and these days, teenage means ages 6 to 20) filled with unfunny jokes about passing gas and other such pastimes.
Well, I'm here to tell you that Dude is brilliant - a subversive romp destined to become a cult classic.
Of course, the critics treated it as I orginally approached it - exploitive junk for the empty-headed. But they are wrong and is it ever sweet!
(If you don't believe me, check it out on video, available in stores on Wednesday. If you don't like it, you can always turn off the VCR, but I think you will play Dude a second time.)
To be fair, if you are looking for sophisticated storytelling, rich characterization and witty repartee, you won't find them here.
Instead, you'll get a cheerfully clumsy satire of the sub-genre known as the "Dumb-and-Stoned" flick.
You know the movies, running from "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" and "Wayne's World" to "Dumb & Dumber", with many others in between.
Those films spoke to a generation, destined an era, coined many phrases. They were a form of rebellion cobbled together from the fare that generation grew up with on television.
At their best, they presented a pair of youths (usually male) trying to make sense of the knuckle-headed world of their parents - and having a lot of fun in the process.
The charm of Dude is that it borrows from this sub-genre but does so at a dream-like pace and with great satirical aplomb (and a dollop of homoeroticism that is as unexpected in in a teenage flick as vintage wine at the popcorn stand).
It shocks me that no one has noticed this or reported on it.
I can see now that I had been choosing movies - or not choosing them, which would have been the case with Dude, had my son not been involved - based on strong preconceptions.
I couldn't see beyond my prejudices. I assumed that a film smacking of crass commericialism would be dull and stupid.
In the past, when art succeeded at reaching a mass audience, it was revered. From Sophocies to Shakespeare, Moliere to Dickens, artists appealed to the lowest common denominator to secure a large following. But that never meant having to create inferior art.
Nowadays, when a book, film, play or musical form reaches a high level of popularity, it is automatically a suspect. And this attitude is even more pronounced for works pitched to a young crowd.
But some of these works are artistically dazzling.
Pop music - jazz, r'n'b, rock, hip hop - has always been aimed at a mass, youthful audience. And all the great pop practitioners were originally scorned by adults.
Similarly, today's boy bands and girl groups that draw massive crowds of screaming teenage fans are treated with contempt by most grown-ups.
If you had asked me before my Dude epiphany, I would have denied any knowledge of these groups.
Now I'll tell you my favourite ditties include "Spice Up Your Life" and "Too Much" by the Spice Girls; "I Want It That Way" and "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)" by the Backstreet Boys; and 'Nsync's "Bye, Bye, Bye."
I'll even admit that I'm taking my kids to the Backstreet Boys' concert next month at Air Canada Centre.
All this is not to say that every entertainment aimed at anyone from to 6 to 16 is worthy of an adult's time and attention. But we should not dismiss a work just because it doesn't star Dame Judi Dench or make reference to Jane Austen.
We should remember that worthwhile entertainment does not have to conform to our preconceived notions. Sometimes - most of the time, in fact - it doesn't.
I was wrong not to have considered "Dude, Where's My Car?" a good choice for an afternoon at the movies.
The next time I'm looking for an unconventional contemporary masterpiece, I'll consult my 8-year-old son.
John Karastamatis is communications director for Mirvish Productions.
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