Brief note before we start: This year we got together our sixth (!) class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. As is typical there will be films we watched five years ago which maybe deserve to be considered the merde de la merde of BMT delight. The previews and speeches will be released leading up to the ninth (eleventh?) Smaddies Baddies for the five films ultimately chosen. Some might say the purpose of watching all genres and sizes of movie is to find another Here On Earth, the perfect BMT film. Well guess what Here on Earth isn’t? A monster film. They look like monsters! Enjoy!
Hall of Fame Induction Speech for White Chicks
There are some moments within BMT whereby a film’s legacy is cemented for all of time. Perhaps Billy Zane randomly mentions that he really wants to go to fashion week. Perhaps a martian zombie screams BANANAS right into our delighted faces. Perhaps an off screen extra goes “He got a guuuuuuuuuun” in an Al Pacino laugh-a-minute thriller. But on one very rare occasion it wasn’t what someone said … it just is how they were. The Wayans brothers went into the makeup studio to meticulously prepare for their surely-to-be-a-smash-hit comedy, looked the artist directly in the eye and said “We aren’t going for any Oscars today … make us look like monsters.” And that is why White Chicks deserved consideration (although it is more like a coronation) for the BMT Hall of Fame.
It has been five years since we watched the film. We’ve watched many a Wayans productions, but this is still the creme de la creme. But what do I remember?
- They look like monsters! You can’t stop saying it throughout the film. They look like monsters! That’s the thing. Norbit this ain’t. Despite Norbit being a profoundly disturbing “comedy” it very much deserved its Oscar nomination for the abomination that is Rasputia. This? The makeup is ironic, right? They intentionally look like terrifying monsters … right?
- Characters within the film have met the two people that the Wayans are replacing and they are like “you know what … nailed it, carbon copy of the two people I remember meeting. Definitely not men dressed up as monster versions of those people.” The film manages to sit right in that sweet spot of irony. They get very close to the idea that they know that the makeup looks absurd, but that it is 100% identical versions of the people they are replacing. In a way it is a very Bad Movie Twins storyline. Does the irony lessen the appeal as a bad movie? Nope, because they look like monsters.
- I do vaguely remember there being a few good parts of the film, like Terry Crews is quite good. I remember he falls in love with one of the Wayans dressed as a monster … er, I mean as a young lady.
- I also remember there is also rape storylines and gay panic involved with his character as well, so we have that to look forward to I suppose …
So which do I think is the most important? Throughout BMT you can spot the moments where madmen were given free rein to do as they please. Sandler with Jack and Jill, Murphy with Norbit, Travolta with Battlefield Earth. The moments where the power of their stardom crosses with greedy lunatics, and they go one step too far and create a masterpiece. The film where things will wane for a bit and you’ll think that the fire is dead and then BOOM, Rasputia is intentionally trying to kill a dog, or Jill is getting foot long hot dogs sent to her by Al Pacino. So perhaps that is why we are inducting this film into the Hall of Fame of all the possible Wayans films …
Who am I kidding: THEY LOOK LIKE MONSTERS!
Boom! Much like any shoe-in Hall of Fame candidate it is all about the sound clip, babyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Uh … “Billy Zane just wants to go to fashion week”? That may have single handedly propelled The Roommate into the Hall of Fame, but “They Look Like Monsters” is like that on steroids. We couldn’t stop saying it. They look like monsters! THEY LOOK LIKE MONSTERS! The comedy would wane, and Terry Crews’s character would fart again, and you’d be like “alright maybe I’m tired of this.” And then blam! Monster face. And they reel you back in. Racist characters making me sad? Monster face! Storyline about rape resulting in gay panic? Monster face! Misogynistic harpy wife character? Monster face!! All of these terrible things just wick off of me in the face of monster face. Say it with me now: They look like Monsters!
How did the rewatch go? Fuggedaboutit, they still look like monsters!!
But first, let’s go through some of the things I forgot. I forgot that there is, somehow, a whole storyline involving one of the Wayans getting in and out of monster makeup to woo a reporter (?) who is on vacation in the Hamptons, and just so happens to have broken some story about the bad guys’ money laundering scheme (?) … I literally just totally forgot the B plot! I forgot the dance sequence!! You heard that right, there is a full blown dance sequence in a club. Why? Uh, I honestly don’t know, it seems like it is important to whatever is happening since I think it gets the Wayans into a fashion show (?) after they break dance (?!). And then I forgot there are two other FBI agents who just play a dumb “who would you rather have sex with” game and one of them is Lochlyn Munro.
But besides that I pretty much nailed it. Well … there was only one thing to nail. They look like monsters. While watching the film it becomes a compulsion. The camera will switch to a Wayans in makeup making a weird face and my fingers would unconsciously type THEY LOOK LIKE MONSTERS. I took three pages of notes (for a rewatch!) and a good third of them are just me writing THEY LOOK LIKE MONSTERS over and over. It is a coping mechanism, a way for my brain to reconcile the impossibility of six foot tall monsters in pancake white makeup becoming the bee’s knees of Hamptons high society. And that’s the key. A quintessential Wayan brothers comedy with the They Look Like Monsters meme is an immediate BMT Hall of Fame lock. We knew this was in the Hall of Fame the instant we watched it. I literally called the recap the “White Chicks Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.” The instant They Look Like Monsters was written into the recap the deal was sealed. Welcome to the Hall of Fame White Chicks. May god have mercy on our souls.
Bad Movie Twins 