"Why aren't I enjoying this?" my friend puzzled last night in what seemed like the fifth hour of the Showtime movie adaptation of the off-Broadway musical Reefer Madness. "It seems like something I should enjoy."
I was in the throes of the same dilemma; I had seen and enjoyed the off-Broadway production a few years ago and had been eagerly awaiting the release of Showtime's film version. Much of the winning stage cast reprise their roles in the movie, including the able and handsome Christian Campbell in the lead (looking a bit long in the tooth to be playing a 16 year old, but his winning, guileless smile is so perfect for this part that I won't quibble too much). John Kassir (of Cryptkeeper fame) and Robert Torti also follow from the New York production.
The cast is further bolstered by Steven Weber (of the sitcom Wings) and Ana Gasteyer (of SNL). Campbell's sister Neve even makes an appearance. And then there's the formidable Alan Cumming. There are plenty of elaborate, fun dance numbers, and it's clear that Showtime spared little expense - most everything in this movie seems to have been done with thought and care.
So why does it fail so miserably? The score is the first problem - while there are some numbers that are good enough to get your toe tapping in the moment, there's hardly a melody you'll remember thirty seconds after it's ended, much less be humming the next day. The orchestrations are outright terrible, like a bad karaoke accompaniment track. The lyrics, while occasionally very funny, are often clever for the sake of cleverness, signifying nothing much. Ultimately, the songs feel a hollow. As a rule, each song goes on at least one verse too long (with the exception of the number that ends the first act, which seems to go on for half of the movie. I began to wonder if it would ever actually end, and had a small existential crisis fearing that the rest of my life would be spent watching them reprise this showtune.)
I've got very little to say about the politics of the film. Presumably the target audience is hip enough to have at least a passing familiarity with the original 1936 film that it parodies. The politics are totally over the top - while it scores a few valid (and funny) blows, it's not liable to convert anyone who's against marijuana to see the folly of the drug war. Most of the factual references - even the lies spread by the Hearst media empire, which are explicitly mentioned several times - are liable to go over the head of anyone who isn't already familiar with the history of US drug legislation. It's a shame, really - even understanding that the film is meant to be pure entertainment, it seems like it misses some obvious teachable moments about the truly amazing history of lies and propaganda that caused marijuana to be demonized in the US. (For more on this, I recommend Jack Herer's remarkable book, the text of which is available in its entirely online, The Emperor Wears No Clothes).
Article comments
1 - Al Barger
Mr Poe, this was a good piece of writing, well thought out and explained.
Also, thanks for the recognition there.
Obviously I liked it better than you did. The songs qua songs weren't all that. They're not going to make you forget Rocky Horror. But still, they were halfway decent.
But mostly, it seems like you perhaps expected too much for a musical parody. It's not camp, which would be so bad it's good or something, but a satire of the old movie and the drug war. I think it did really well at that.
But you couldn't really expect the movie to be the starting place if someone just didn't know squat about the history of drug prohibition. Saying that it missed possible teaching moments is putting somewhat more of a burden on it than a movie musical could be expected to bear. Tell 'em to crack a danged book.
I mean, I didn't really learn a lot of hard facts about the historical conflict of cattlemen and ranchers from watching Oklahoma. Of course, that movie had the musical genius of "Poor Judd Is Dead."
I'll just say that I laughed MY ass off at this thing, and I wasn't even smoking.
2 - anna
hello :D
GOOD TEXT :)
i just wanna say that i would be fun to have the lyrics fore the songs on reefer medness.