GRUMPY OLD MEN
A film review by James Hursey
Copyright 1994 James Hursey
The film GRUMPY OLD MEN has been around a while but I have deliberately avoided seeing it. I suspected that it would simply be another two-hour long, boring-after-the-first-five-minutes joke at the expense of not just men, but of older men, and, for that matter, in this case, of older men who happen not to have permanently sunny dispositions.
However, the video is now available and at my wife's insistence we rented it, and I can say, after watching the film, that my worst expectations were confirmed.
But what was worse than being proven right was that apparently the film was not simply meant to be funny, but was deliberately and calculatingly meant to be derogatory and insulting to the title group.
Now I like a joke as well as anyone and we can say that it was all in fun, just a comedy to give us a few laughs in this generally not very funny world. And it may also be true that producers don't have a lot of groups they can laugh at anymore so old men, particularly grumpy ones, may be the only people left.
Political correctness demands that we not make light of women, ethnic groups, children (unless they are disgustingly precocious brats), animals or spotted owls; that we respect the sensibilities of those who are different, unfortunate or simply scarce. Yet somehow it is still okay to make fun of old men who, often, are all three. With the success of GOM, can we expect a spate of films on this subject until such time as older males raise their voices, start protesting, and picket a few theatres?
Now obviously all humor, by definition, is at someone or something's expense. We cannot have jokes unless there is something to joke about. Not only old men but sex, too, is another of the few things left that everybody still seems to think is funny. So combine them and you have the running joke throughout the film, which might have been somewhat humorous the first time but got stale rather quickly, about older men's supposed impotence.
It is all simply a further demonstration of the age-as-decline mystique that is the topic of Betty Friedan's book The Fountain of Age: the mistaken perception that old people are necessarily in mental and physical decline, old people can't have sex, old people are irascible, idle and by implication useless. This, at bottom, is the theme of the film.
Why do you suppose the sport of fishing, among the many possibilities, was chosen as the two retired protagonists' principle time-filling activity? It was done with due thought and deliberation because they wanted to show that these men were basically incapable of doing anything other than fish or fight. Walter Matthau's character, when asked what he does, responds, rather gruffly, "I fish." That's all. No explanation, no hint of joy, not even a rationalization of the pleasures that fishing can, for many, give. Fishing is really the only thing we ever see them doing other than fighting with each other.
Now I hope all those serious fishermen out there will not get too upset, but I think most will have to admit that aside from a long difficult struggle reeling in a swordfish in deep ocean water, or spending a day casting flies in a remote mountain stream, neither of which many fishermen get a chance to do, the vast majority of fishing consists of sitting in a boat or on the shore (or, as in the movie, an ice fishing shack), with a cooler of beer, a can of bait and simply waiting for the bobber to jump. Occasionally the line is pulled in, re-baited, dropped back in the water and the fisherman sits back with another cold one. Not by any stretch of the imagination, a physically or mentally challenging pursuit.
Done this way, fishing is an activity with little other purpose than to fill empty time, which, if that is one's purpose, it does admirably, akin to sitting on a park bench feeding the squirrels and pigeons. Now, fishermen, vent your wrath at the producers who exploited your sport in such a negative way, not at me. I have dropped a line myself occasionally and admit it can be a pleasant and relaxing recreation. But one of the points of the film was that these old men (and we see a whole lake full of them just to make sure we get the point) are clearly not enjoying it; they just sit there glumly, drinking, bickering, staring into space as if the lake were just one big frozen nursing home for the hopelessly senile. Other than when the younger woman catches the big fish, we see no one taking joy in the sport.
I submit that a similar film called GROUCHY OLD LADIES could never be made or at least would never be as successful or considered as funny as this one was because women would now allow it. Feminists are much more successful and united in protecting the image of their sex than men are. The very idea of "masculinists" is ridiculous.
There would be nothing very funny about older women portrayed as aged, half-decrepit, totally idle, with nothing to do but bicker, fight, and, the equivalent of fishing, gossiping over a game of bridge. If such are shown in films they have never been, at least recently, to my knowledge, since the age of liberation, as the butt of an on-going, two-hour long joke.
We get a bit of a sop at the end, of course, with the Jack Lemmon character marrying the sexy neighbor. But note how the scene was rather abruptly and gratuitously thrown in. They had milked the stale joke as long as they could and figured they had better have an upbeat ending or people might begin to see what they were really up to. And, anyway, the upbeat part amounted to about two minutes of the entire film. This is a further insult since it assumes the viewer would know no better.
I suppose one might start a movement, something on the order of "old men of the world, unite!" but I don't think it would work. OMOTWU! Nah, just doesn't have a ring to it. Guess I'm just getting old and grumpy. Think I'll go fishing.
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