Will Ben Stiller Ever Be Funny Again?

Ben Stiller sucks. But he didn't used to.

I used to lump Ben Stiller in with all the other prominent cases of comic arrested development: Adam Sandler, Jack Black, and Will Ferrell. Four "actors" whose acting repertoire at this point in their careers consists of only one character, the same character: an emotionally stunted man-child whose petulant rage, repression, and cluelessness is played for laughs. All four come out of a sketch comedy background, so if you dig out the DVDs you can see that they all had much greater versatility at one point in their lives. Now they're all stuck in permanent repeat.

But Ben started out with (and squandered) more talent than the rest of them combined. As a writer, director, and sketch comedian, he was one of the brighter lights in an early-'90s artistic renaissance that gave him plenty of competition, the brief moment of Generation X's cultural ascendancy prior to being relegated to VH1 "I Love The" specials. His downward spiral hasn't been as precipitous and jaw-dropping as Mike Meyers' horrifying freefall; it's just been steady, and infuriating.

After a cup of coffee with Saturday Night Live in the late '80s, he starred in, cowrote and produced one of the great lost sketch comedy shows, the legendary Ben Stiller Show, on the air for just one season in 1992. On its cast and writing staff were Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick, Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, and a 24-year old Judd Apatow. Stiller's then-girlfriend Jeanne Tripplehorn frequently cameoed on the show. Dick and Garofalo have become two more casualties of the Gen-X early peak syndrome, but back then they were absolutely hilarious. Stiller was front and center in most sketches, his face often caked in mounds of prosthetics and makeup as he did cult classic impressions of Oliver Stone, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Cruise. The show's interstitials mostly featured Ben and the cast making fun of their likelihood of getting canceled, which of course they did. The best sketches, like "Oliver Stone Land" and "The Grungies," stand the test of time, and are well worth Youtubing.

Released two years later, Stiller's directorial debut, Reality Bites, is a bit dated in places -- particularly its idolization of then-queen Winona Ryder -- but it somehow holds up nonetheless. It has a terrific cast, including Garofalo, in her screen debut, and is a quintessential movie of its times. (There's even a cameo by Evan Dando.) The movie's also genuinely sweet. In a winning bit of humility, Stiller casts himself as the requisite unfunny sellout, a young guy who's a corporate executive, who looks for and provides nothing more than boring emotional stability. But his mature willingness to cede the spotlight seems to have disappeared as he's become a bigger star.

Around the middle of the decade it started to go south. In 1996, Stiller directed one of the decade's bigger bombs, the Jim Carrey disaster The Cable Guy, but rebounded two years later by starring in one of the most successful comedies of all time, the Farrelly Brothers' There's Something About Mary, which the American Film Institute named the 27th best comedy of all time. By that point, he wasn't just a star among disaffected twentysomethings -- he was becoming an above-the-marquee name, and the quality of his filmography began to dip. In the same year, he released a prestige piece, the heroin drama Permanent Midnight, which bombed utterly. So did the following year's critically panned superhero comedy Mystery Men, but Stiller's role in that movie was telling: he played a superhero named "Mr. Furious," whose super power was getting really, really angry, a trait that nearly all of his most recent starring roles have shared.

One of the more successful of these subsequent angry, repressed, one-note leading men was Chas Tenenbaum in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums. He took a break from angry to do clueless in the modestly funny Zoolander, and reprised his sweet, understanding turn in Reality Bites to do Edward Norton's little-seen Keeping the Faith. Otherwise, he's been cashing checks to play more or less the same character since the turn of the century in a new stinker every year: Envy, Along Came Polly (less angry, more repressed), The Heartbreak Kid, Duplex, Meet the Parents/Meet the Fockers, Dodgeball, and, for good measure, he's been in bad children's movies like Madagascar and A Night at the Museum. He's been prolific, but not at all discriminating, versatile, or interesting.

Now he's pushed his chips into Tropic Thunder, the Robert Downey-in-blackface comedy that Stiller is starring in and directing, which will either piggyback on Downey's Iron Man action-hero success, or bring back frightening memories of The Cable Guy. I want to believe that he can rediscover the effortless funny he was able to channel over early Judd Apatow jokes, even as he's been overtaken by more current Apatow it-boys like Steve Carell, Seth Rogen, and Jason Segel. I want to believe that it's possible to stay funny after the age of 40, despite the career paralysis of Stiller, Garofalo, Black, and Meyers, each of whom I adored at the turn of the century. I want to believe in Ben.

Can Ben bring back the magic? Am I a fool to hope?

Comments

[KnockedUpsuperbadvirgin]

Tropic Thunder's test reviews have been phenomenal.

[hartkid]

Question: Will Ben Stiller ever be funny again?

Answer: No.

[zbig]

I think Ben Stiller and others like Eddie Murphy lose their funniness when they become successful, comfortable, in their private lives. Stiller married a pretty girl, while Murphy became colossally rich--the source of their comedy, their angst, their getting dumped on, disappeared.

[lgreene]

Hey, Night at the Museum was a terrific family movie!!! The visuals were terrific, the story fun and even educational like non-cartoon Disney movies were when I was growing up. It's one of the few I don't feel like shooting myself when my kids make me sit down with them and watch it. (My favorite part is when he and the monkey are slapping each other's faces, fire extinguisher-foam-on-his-face flying, and Robin Williams' TR Roosevelt rides up and demands "Good God man, are you rabid?")

Using your definition of who sucks, everyone sucks when they stop being novel--to YOU.

[AlexRemington]

Not true. Pretty much all the Ramones' songs sound the same, give or take, and they're one of my favorite bands, not to mention one of the most important musical groups of the last century. Elmore Leonard wrote variations on pretty much the same novel for about twenty years, and I enjoy most of them.

However, for most people, a lack of innovation leads to stasis. Allow me to use another analogy. If the Grateful Dead play "Truckin'" for 20 minutes, then there are a number of Deadheads will be happy they're playing it that long. But if they extend the freakout noodle jam from 20 minutes to 18 hours, even the most hardcore stoners would probably start to get bored and want to hear a new song.

[OttoMann]

I disagree with your premise, that Stiller has not been funny in years. Stiller has still been very funny over the years in a lot of his smaller, cameo-type roles. Such as turns on Arrested Development, Anchorman, Extras, etc.

(I also think it's bogus of you to cite Permanent Midnight -- it was not a comedy, and Stiller was good in it. If it "bombed utterly," as you say, it doesn't mean he wasn't good; and besides, it has nothing to do with your premise of him losing his funny when it wasn't a comedy!)

[AlexRemington]

I don't mean to say that Permanent Midnight was evidence of his slide into terribleness. I do, however, mean to say that it was the greatest chance he had ever taken as an actor, and the fact that it bombed horribly may have influenced him to stop taking chances.

[Kundera]

and you're really contributing a lot. you decide to pick someone and then rip them apart. what did stiller ever do to you? nothing probably. what is your point? this was so important in your life that it had to be written? for what purpose?

[AlexRemington]

He gave me a lot of laughs. I'd love him to be funny again. I like what the guy used to do. I seriously doubt that my lamenting the fact that his recent movies suck in a column on the internet constitutes "ripping him apart." If Ben's reading this, Ben, you're really funny, please stop making horrible movies, branch out, and be funny again.

[LorinM]

Interesting. I agree Stiller is no longer funny, but I think you have his movies reversed. Zoolander was a hysterical farce. The Cable Guy flopped in theatres, but has since gained a cult following. There's Something About Mary, while a huge hit in theatres and initial DVD release, has not had the staying power of either of those two. And that AFI list is horrific. "Some Like It Hot"? That movie is not funny, unless you think the pinnacle of American comedy was mid 80s sticoms.

Stiller's value has always been his supporting cast. Zoolander had Ferrell and Owen Wilson. The highlight of Mary was Chris Elliott. Along Came Polly had Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

[AlexRemington]

I think you're confusing "Some Like it Hot" with "Bosom Buddies." "Some Like It Hot" had Marilyn Monroe at her peak, and greatest comedy of all time or no, it was pretty good. "Bosom Buddies" had Tom Hanks far prior to his peak, and it was not good. Both had dudes dressed as chicks, however, as did "Tootsie" (AFI's #2 comedy) and "Mrs. Doubtfire" (#67). On the other hand, "Victor/Victoria" (#76) was about a chick dressed as a dude. So, um, there's that.

The truly reprehensible movie on the list is #24, "Born Yesterday." That movie is wretchedly unfunny -- sexist, condescending, and free of just about anything resembling a joke. Watching that movie made me want to go rewatch "The Cable Guy."

[InternationalObserver]

Wow. The movie isn't even out yet and already you're bagging it in a backhanded way ("Can Ben bring back the magic? Am I a fool to hope?"). What's the problem - you didn't get invited to the premiere? You didn't get tickets to an 'advance screening'?

I'm happy to accept the thrust of what you say (Stiller isn't as funny now as when he was younger) but I get really annoyed when people write/make judgements about things that haven't happened yet. If Tropic is a bust you can say 'I told ya first' right? And if it's a hit you can say 'i told ya he needed to bring back the greatness'.

And as for the main thrust of your piece -- would you care to tell us who has continued to be as funny as the day they started? Expecting late 80s/early 90s comics to be as funny now as they were then is like expecting your favourite bands of that era to still be putting out hit albums.

[AlexRemington]

You seem to be arguing that everyone stops being funny after a certain age, with which I absolutely disagree. Larry David's still funny. Richard Lewis is still funny. Hell, Phyllis Diller's still funny. I don't think it's age that makes you lose your edge. I think it's success, and money, and fame, and all the things that make you forget to doubt yourself, to edit out the bad jokes and only keep the good jokes. When no one knows who you are, people won't give you a second of their time unless you're jaw-droppingly funny. When everyone knows who you are, they'll buy your crap no matter how bad it is. That doesn't mean you've completely lost your innate gift -- Pablo Picasso was a pretty good painter in his 80's, and William Trevor's still one of the best writers around -- it just means you've forgotten how to use the gift.

[caps]

the only disastrous thing about "the cable guy" was its box-office returns. the movie is and was a deeply funny dark comedy which explores television's pervasiveness in a way not seen since "being there". probably the most underrated film of the '90s. (and ben stiller's courtroom cameo delivers one of the funniest lines in the movie)

[AlexRemington]

Stiller and Garofalo were the funniest things about the movie, and Stiller had about 30 seconds of screen time, and Garofalo had about 5 minutes. Carrey was not good. The movie was not good.