why so funny?

Rating: 10/10 (13 July 2000)

Entertainers can EITHER be funny OR be Politically Correct. They cannot be both. The more a film acquiesces to bourgeois conventions, good taste and all that junk, the less amusing it is. It was the Farrely brothers flagrant disregard for political correctness that made this the funniest movie of the decade.In other words, what made this film so hilarious to some of us was precisely what made it so odious to others. Imagine how dull the film would have been if the makers had a more refined social conscience: no laughs at the expense of dogs, retards or nice guys. Just "Friends" jokes. "Friends" is a good example, come to think of it, of the sort of humor that offends no one: it makes you giggle a little, that's all. But for a joke to be rip-roaringly funny, it has to have a target. As an illustration: When Dillon and Diaz have their notorious "I-play-with-retards" dialogue, it is ten times funnier if there are Retard Awareness activists outside picketing the theater. This I know from experience.