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Let us consider the case of Jack Black, for the case of Jack Black is instructive. His name may not yet be familiar to some of you, though if you saw High Fidelity, you'll definitely remember his face: he played Barry, the stout, manic store clerk who tore through the movie like the Tasmanian Devil, hijacking every scene in his path. Black's octane-fueled cameo brought him to the attention of both the moviegoing public at large and a cabal of Hollywood casting agents; before long, Jack Black had what is referred to in industry parlance as "heat." Now he finds himself as a genuine, name-above-the-title, tedious-press-junket-participating comedy star, in the touted new Farrelly Brothers film, Shallow Hal.
Now, devotees of cult phenomena (whether guerrilla comedians, underground comic books, or a treasured noise-rock garage band) are notoriously protective of their secret passions - as though, like a vampire exposed to the light of day, their obsession will wither and die under the glare of widespread popularity. (If only devotees of religious cults clung to the same belief.) So it's natural to feel a little apprehensive - in a nerdy obsessive fan kind of way - about the ascendance of Mr. Jack Black. Because in Shallow Hal, Black tackles his first major leading role, as the Hal of the title, a superficial ladies' man who is hypnotized by Tony Robbins (in the most self-serving, unironic cameo in recent memory) to see only a woman's inner beauty, and who then falls in love with a three-hundred-pound woman played by Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit. (The joke - insofar as this can be described as a "joke" - is that Hal sees Gwyneth Paltrow, while the rest of the world sees the three-hundred-pound woman.)
Black, while hardly the runaway train he was in High Fidelity, acquits himself well as the movie's leading man. And since Shallow Hal's directors are the same duo that unleashed There's Something About Mary, expectations for the movie are high. If it turns out to be a hit, it should vault Black into the ranks of such comedy-franchise players as Adam Sandler and Martin Lawrence. You might think all of this is good news for Mr. Jack Black, and for fans of Jack Black. You would be wrong.
First, some background: Black is a product of the same Los Angeles alternative-comedy scene that produced Ben Stiller, Janeane Garafolo, and David Cross and Bob Odenkirk (the last two of whom are the creators of HBO's lauded sketch show, Mr. Show). Black has built up a small but dedicated following - some hooked by his cameos on Mr. Show, more still by his work as one half of the mock-rock duo Tenacious D (who had its own stint on HBO, and who proclaim themselves to be, simply, "the greatest band in the world"). The D, as they are known, unfurl hilariously self-serious anthems about demons, the ass-kicking properties of karate, and the various usages of "rock" as a verb. (To give you a sense of Tenacious D's wide-ranging and perverse brilliance: in the album-ending ballad, JB and KG -- Black and partner Kyle Gass -- start a riot to bring down "the bastards at City Hall," which results in civilization being destroyed, which results in Tenacious D emerging from their underground bunker and ruling over the world as two kings, which results in the proclamation that, henceforth, everyone will abandon their cars and travel in pneumatic tubes. Then they poison each other. All this in six minutes and forty-one seconds.)
You don't need to see or hear or smell much of Jack Black to realize that he is just about the most nuclear comedic talent out there. Imagine your most sardonic friend suddenly possessed by Satan, and you start to get a picture of Jack Black at full tilt. He's a comic dervish, hissing and spitting like a boiler in the last shaky moments before it explodes. And unlike, say, Jim Carrey, who careens off the scenery like a live-action Tigger - and is about as threatening - Black seethes with an intelligent malevolence. He's like Dennis the Menace with the brain of Lex Luthor. At times, he seems to have so much volatile comic energy at his command that you suspect he could fell a building with a cock of his eyebrow.
Which is why it's so painful to watch Black in Shallow Hal. He's like Rasputin on Quaaludes. He's been completely neutered, as restrained as a hyperactive boy in a church pew told to sit still and behave. This is because Black is playing the Romantic Lead, a role which calls for very little antic careening around the set, eyes ablaze, but lots of affability and charm. And he is as affable and charming as required. But watching him, you're reminded that while Hollywood warms its hands on young comedians with "heat," it simultaneously strives to snuff out the source of the fire.
Think of Billy Crystal, Steve Martin, and Robin Williams. All started their careers as mesmerizing talents. (Yes, yes, pipe down, you young'uns. Even Robin Williams. His schtick is so prone to parody - and he's done so much to undermine his own comic legacy - that it's easy to forget how energizing he was when he first beamed down as Mork in a bit part on Happy Days.) All three wound up spending a good chunk of their careers playing befuddled but lovable leading men: Crystal in City Slickers and Forget Paris, Martin in Housesitter and Father of the Bride, Williams in Patch Adams and What Dreams May Come. Whatever the merits of these movies, they weren't showcases for original comic talent; if Martin, for example, had, while playing the dad in Parenthood, started throwing off the kind of comedic sparks for which he was known in the '70s, the whole movie would have caught fire and disintegrated.
More recently, Eddie Murphy and Jim Carrey - once comedic pilgrims of great promise - have been similarly mired in the Bog of Affability. Murphy's characters on SNL - creations like Gumby, Mr. Robinson, and James Brown in a hot tub - are seared into our memories. Once he jumped to movies, however, it wasn't long before he was simply playing Funny Everyguy - the likable rascal who lit up Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hours. From there, it's a short step to Funny Everyguy On Auto-Pilot, the not-quite-as-likable rascal on display in The Golden Child and Boomerang. Carrey, meanwhile, seems intent on reinventing himself as a twenty-first-century Jimmy Stewart - a transmutation that promises to deliver something about half as entertaining as the twentieth-century Jim Carrey.
Why does this happen to comedians? Because Hollywood prizes familiarity. From the recycling of familiar music in movie trailers to lookalike movie posters to the constant chorus of "From the creators of...," movies are foisted on the public like designer impostor perfumes: if you liked There's Something About Mary, you'll love Say It Isn't So!. The star system itself is built on predictability: you want to know what you're in for. When you go to see Julia Roberts, you go to see the Julia Roberts you liked so much in Pretty Woman, not Julia Roberts in a wig and funny fake teeth. (Don't forget: before she shocked everyone with her acting and her bosoms in Erin Brockovich, Roberts had to woo the public back with Runaway Bride, a retread that may as well have been titled Pretty Woman II: Wedding Day.)
Unfortunately, exciting comedians are usually the antithesis of knowing what you're in for. Bad comedians tell you jokes you've already laughed at before. ("Boy, those cops sure love donuts, don't they, folks?") Good ones, like Black, exhilarate you with the unexpected. No fan of Black would begrudge him the million-dollar payday and profile upgrade that comes with a lead in a big-budget Hollywood comedy like Shallow Hal. But no fan of Jack Black would actually want to watch him in a movie like Shallow Hal, either. You want him to tear movies like that apart with his teeth, spit out the pieces in Billy Crystal's face, then pick up a guitar and launch into "Fuck Her Gently."
It's disarmingly easy, though, to imagine a parallel universe in which Jack Black fills up his dance card playing likable guys in movies with titles like If At First and Twice Shy, in which he foolishly chases after a haughty ice queen before realizing, after a bout of amnesia or a serendipitous run-in with an alien played by George Carlin, that his best friend, Gina, is everything he always wanted in a woman - and she was right there next to him the whole time.
We, however, like to imagine that this will not be the case. We like to imagine a future for Jack Black in which he is allowed unfettered freedom to unleash his particular brand of comic mayhem on the land, damn the consequences and the birth defects it may cause. And if that means the occasional Farrelly Brothers-sponsored payday...well, so be it. After all, Black's former co-hort, Ben Stiller, has deftly parlayed his success as a romantic lead in There's Something About Mary and Meet the Parents into the clout needed to bring a funnier, more offbeat project like Zoolander to the screen. Maybe Black will follow suit. It's certainly easier to sit through Shallow Hal once you know that a Tenacious D movie is being readied for firing down the pneumatic tubes.
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