 |
 |
Anchorman Angst
The sublimely ridiculous humor of Will Ferrell
by Ashley McNeil
The comedic genius of Will Ferrell rests in his ability to shun all temptation toward self-consciousness and, indeed, self-respect, in order to reach straight into his audience’s gut and repeatedly wrench out guffaws and belly laughs. As with Jim Carrey at his best, Ferrell is not only unafraid of looking ridiculous, he relishes it. His antics are often so over-the-top that, when watching him, you may find yourself suffering from a paradoxical comedic affliction: Your mind telling you that what you are viewing is simply too ridiculous to qualify as humor, yet your body is simultaneously convulsed in sidesplitting laughter. And so it is with Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
Co-written by Ferrell and former head writer of Saturday Night Live, Adam McKay (who also directed the movie), Anchorman recounts the exploits of a bumbling, all-male, ’70’s era San Diego television news team. Ferrell stars as Ron Burgundy, the city’s most popular, and most chauvinistic, news anchorman. His cohorts on the Channel 4 news team include: Champ Kind (David Koechner), a cowboy sports anchorman who harbors repressed homosexual feelings for Burgundy; the plaid-panted, multi-cologned, and self-professed, “stylish one of the group,” field reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd); and ultra dim-witted weatherman, Brick Tamland, played hilariously by Steve Carrell, best known for his work on The Daily Show with John Stewart.
In an era when, as the narrator of the movie claims, only “men read the news,” the Channel 4 news team is on top of the world, and on top of the ratings. The latter is a sticking point with the perennially number-two television news crew, Channel 9, headed by Wes Mantooth (Vince Vaughn). The movie’s sub-plot revolves around the rivalry between the two news teams and one of the film’s funniest, and most absurd, scenes is a Braveheart-lampooning battle waged between the boys of Channel 4, Channel 9, and the three other San Diego news crews led respectively by Tim Robbins, Luke Wilson and Ben Stiller.
While the sub-plot works throughout to exploit one of the movie’s main comedic themes, the characters’ preposterously juvenile machismo, the main plot works no less effectively to show the more vulnerable (read: intellectually challenged) side of the boys at Channel 4. When news producer Ed Harkin (Fred Willard) announces that the network wants more diversity in the top-rated news program, Ron Burgundy is not immediately threatened. That is, however, only until Harkin explains to him that diversity is not, as Burgundy had thought, “an old wooden ship.”
Much to Burgundy’s and the others’ consternation, diversity comes in the attractive, if altogether unacceptable, form of Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate). The prospect of a female reporter is unfathomable to the boys of Channel 4, and they waste no time voicing their displeasure to Harkin. However, due in large part to their blossoming romance, Burgundy is the first to come to terms with Corningstone’s presence. Teased by both his co-workers and his competitors at Channel 9 for embracing a woman into television news, Burgundy does not waver in his support of Corningstone, attempting instead to convince the others of the sincerity of his love for her. But, when fate intervenes, Burgundy is suddenly and irretrievably cast back to the side of the men in what devolves into Channel 4’s version of the War of the Roses.
The rest of the movie unfolds as Corningstone emerges first as Burgundy’s co-anchor and, ultimately, as his replacement. The circumstance is made more agonizing by the fact that it quickly becomes clear to all that Corningstone is the more talented anchor. Burgundy’s subsequent spiral into self-pity and self-loathing before his predictable redemption in the film’s closing frames is perhaps the movie’s weakest point, but there are enough moments of hilarity interspersed to keep the film from bogging down.
Perhaps a clue to Ferrell’s success as a comedian can be found in the movie’s outtakes which roll during the film’s final credits. In one scene, Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone sit in Burgundy’s car atop an inspiration point overlooking the lights of San Diego. Waxing poetic, Burgundy tries to convince her that San Diego is “German for a whale’s vagina.”
“Are you sure?” asks Corningstone dubiously. “Doesn’t it mean, Saint Diego?”
“No,” says Burgundy, assuredly. “It means a whale’s vagina.”
Simultaneously, both Ferrell and Applegate crack up. Finally, a teary-eyed Ferrell, out of character and out of breath, sums up the scene: “This is the most ridiculous thing ever.”
Fortunately for us, Ferrell doesn’t care.
July 22, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 30
© 2004 Metro Pulse
|
|
