On the 10th Anniversary of “Step Brothers” (2008)

Why does every culture-related interview have to inject Trumphitler? What is amazing is how insular their world is, so insular and monolithic in political opinion that journalistic interviewers, when interviewing A-listers and whatnot, have full confidence that their Trump insults (or Trump-is-Hitler references) will be fully agreed with by the interviewee.

A Variety interview with Adam McKay, on the 10th anniversary of the now-cult comedy Step Brothers (2008), ends with this:

Given the state of the world today, do you think “Step Brothers” would look different if it was made in 2018?

Oh god, yes. The dilemma at the center of the movie is, “Why do I want to grow up when adults look this way?” [laughs] They look a lot worse right now. It wasn’t great back then either, but the world that Dale and Brennan would be stepping into would be more tumultuous and frightening. You’d have the same structure, but it would be hard not to mention Trump. All the stuff that’s going on would have to be an element in it. The second act you’d have Dale and Brennan as big Trump supporters and go hard core right wing. It’s funny to talk about movies in different times. It’s almost impossible to do because that movie is such a product of when it was made. I can’t imagine we wouldn’t have jokes about the insanity that’s going on right now with the political system. That would have to pop up in at least one of them. Dale or Brennan being a die hard “Make America Great Again” guy would be too hard to resist.

So instead of a sequel, maybe just reboot the movie in the Trump era?

That’s actually not a bad idea. It’s a clever way to do a sequel. Just do a remake, but let the times wash over it. Can you do a comedy about this time? At one point, I’ve got to try. Is there a way to laugh at this? We will see. The whole comedy world is reorienting itself right now, trying to figure out how to deal with this insanity that we’re living in.

A Trump-centric project might be more of something you have to look back at and laugh?

In other words, you have to have gotten through it to look back and laugh. That would be my preference. That all of this ends and later we can laugh about it.

This entry was posted in Film, Hollywood. Bookmark the permalink.