The Benchwarmers (2006) - Shipwreck 0

What was I thinking?  Bad movie.  You can actually have a few good laughs out of Jon Heder's performance.  He pretty much plays his character from Napoleon Dynamite, which I thought was one of the best comedies in years.  I hope he gets good mileage out of that role because it'll get old.  While I'm at it, can someone please give Rob Schneider a mirror?  He is hideous and he was trying to be all sexy in the movie.  That did not work.  You know what else didn't work, his bulges in the the first scenes of the movie.  I almost barfed my lunch.  Repulsive.  And I am a friend of the bulges, trust me.

Here, Jon Heder is a nerd who never talked to a girl, never touched a ball.  David Spade is in the same boat.  Rob Schneider is a nerd who was more successful later in life, with balls and girls.  They decide to team up and avenge all nerds.  A billionaire friend, whose kid is a nerd too, helps.  The billionaire has a robot butler that will provide you with a few of the tackiest moments in cinema.

Now to our gay movie review.  The gay content was awful.  Truly awful.  I almost gave the movie a Shipwreck 1 though, instead of a Zero, because it had two minor facts that could perhaps be construed positively, but a lot of effort would be required for that.  I'll start with those two minor issues and then give you the real bad news. 

Early on, we see that David Spade is a DVD store clerk and had recommended a movie with Lesbian scenes to a female client.  The client hated the movie because of the lesbian scenes.  She found the scenes repulsive, but David Spade is clearly into those scenes.  David Spade liking lesbian scenes could be positive, but I'm not that sure anymore if it's really a good thing to have straight guys so into lesbians.  I suspect that the good that could do to lesbians is countered by the push for more female objectification, after all, in those cases, it's all about women pleasing men, not the lesbian part.  Well, I could be wrong, but I won't give that benefit to the movie.

The other possibly positive fact is that one of the bullies turns out to be gay.  You learn that early in the movie.  I would actually not mind so much a movie with a gay bully pushing people around for a change, it could actually teach people a lesson (after all, isn't that what this site is all about?  bullying movies into being more acceptable of the gays?).  But in The Benchwarmers, it's really all done just to have a laugh at the gays.  All done negatively.

In the movie, bullies and nerds are homophobes.  That's not a surprise in the case of the bullies (I'm not surprised by the homophobic gay bully even, internalized homophobia is common in that species).  If just the bullies were homophobes, the movie could actually possibly throw a positive light on us.  But the nerdy Benchwarmers also offer homophobia.  Sad.

In one scene, Craig Kilborn (the only mildly hot guy in the movie) is giving Rob Schneider, David Spade and Jon Heder a hard time and Rob Schneider calls him Jerry, the Fairy.  For the last time, I love fairies and fairies are good for the gays.  But it's bad to have a nice word, fairy, used as a slur.  I don't think fairy was used as a slur in Lucky Number Slevin.  But it was used as a slur in The Benchwarmers.

Later on, the bully who turns out to be gay calls the benchwarmers "she-men."  Nice, I'm not even done with the review and the movie was already able to offend pretty much the whole spectrum of the gays: lesbians, gay men, and trannies.  Real nice, only bisexuals were left out.  The bully returns again to call the benchwarmers "the three musketqueers."  Again, growing up hearing that to be gay is a bad thing is tough, we have all been there, and it makes it hard not to have internalized homophobia, but positive depictions can help, and it would be nice to see those depictions in comedies.  The Benchwarmers just added to the existing hatred.

When we find out the bully is gay I just wanted to purple nipple Adam Sandler, the producer (well, I got to take it with someone, right?).  The bully has a boyfriend that spends all of his scenes in tight and tacky speedos.  Everything was wrong with his scenes and he was used just as the butt of jokes.

I have no doubt that, if you are a teenager -- and there were lots of them in the theater I went to -- and you saw this movie, and if you are gay, you are going to try to hide it.  You do not want to be gay if you see this movie.  That all makes the nice portrayal of queens, like the little kid in Yours, Mine and Ours (just to stick to bad movies) even more important.

Homophobia was peppered throughout the movie.  Really, it was present in a quite large part of the plot. 

Date Movie is a good recent example of a comedy where homophobia could have prevailed, but didn't.

Shame on everybody involved with this ginormous piece of crap and I hope they enjoy their company at Shipwreck Zero.  Shame on Allen Covert and Nick Swardson, the writers, for writing a bad, homophobic movie.  And there's so much PPL you'll think you're reading the Queer Beacon.

In summary, the message once again (see Inside Man) is: everybody is avenged, but not the gays, screw the gays.  I am foaming at the mouth.

Comments

[Queer Beacon]

Dan and Greg, I am still mad at the depiction of gays in The Benchwarmers. Nice that I was able to keep you even further away from that piece of crap.

[Greg]

Dang it! Know I'll have to put that $6.50 (matinee) back in my wallet. Not that I had any plans on seeing the movie in the first place, but if it's as anti-gay as "Boat Trip," then I will definitely pass.

[Dan]

Thanks for the heads up. I can't believe (ok maybe I can) that a movie would rely so heavily on gay bashing humor in 2006.

I probably wouldn't have seen this movie anyway because it has Rob Schneider who is hard to look at, so I appreciate your keeping us up to date on what is acceptable main stream teenage enterntainment today--unfortunately it hasn't made much progress, it seems.