My mother always thought it was hysterical in Gone With the Wind when Scarlett’s father, either from PTSD or Alzheimer’s or alcoholism or some combination of the three, tells her “We must ask Mrs. O’Hara about this” (when in fact Mrs. O’Hara is dead). My mother’s weird, but we probably all have movie moments we laugh at even though they’re technically not supposed to be funny.
Failed seriousness is of course the best kind of camp, whether the “Christina, BRING ME THE AAAAXXXXXXXXXXXXXEEEEEEEEE!”/“Because I’m not one of your faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaans!” earnestness of Mommie Dearest or a special episode of Family Matters in which you expect to see Grandma toss water in her eyes like Count Olav to make more convincing tears or Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd. talking about her investments in oil wells in Bakersfield (“PUMPING… PUMPING… PUMPING…”). But there are some films in which the acting works and still makes me laugh.
The other day I was watching SYBIL, the Sally Field breakthrough role based on the true story of “Sybil Dorsett” (real name Shirley Mason) who supposedly* had 16 distinct personalities (including an old woman, 2 boys, an infant, a flying nun, Gidget and Norma Rae). The movie really really pushed the envelope for 1970s TV, scaring the hell out of me and many of “my little friends” at the time in its terrifying re-creation of Sybil’s childhood with an abusive schizophrenic mother. But then and now when I see that mini-series the mother just makes me cackle.
She’s not a bad actress, in fact she deserved an Emmy, but… God she’s over-the-top. She’d have been divine (no pun intended) in a John Waters film. When she trips her little girl and says “Have a nice trip see you next fall!” with that demented smile on her face I lose it every damned time, and ditto when she goes through depressed to manic to furious to religiously rabid mood swings about once every 8 seconds it’s also hysterical. It’s the closest I’ll probably ever come to seeing Estelle Parsons or Grandma Walton on crack.
Of course bad acting in serious parts can also do it. When Shelley Long played a woman with more than 100 personalities in a later movie it was hysterical because the multiple personalities were basically The 103 Faces of Diane Chambers [All of them the Same]. Any time Jessica Lange (the living proof that Marisa Tomei isn’t the most undeserving Oscar winner) plays a psychotic character it’s also wonderful because whether it’s Blanche Dubois or her character from Blue Skies or a TV movie it’s always and invariably the same frigging performance- “she talks in a low monotone THEN QUICKLY TALKS LOUD AND FAST then in a low monotone against THEN RECYCLES TO FAST AND LOUD”.
The revelation at the end of Rosemary’s Baby always makes me laugh because of the casting of Hope Summers. I’m guessing Polanski never watched many The Andy Griffith Show episodes (though wouldn’t it have been interesting if he’d directed it? Otis’s DT’s would have been a lot more graphic anyway) but most of us have, and seeing Aunt Bea’s friend Clara raise her glass and shout with a smile “HAIL SATAN! THE YEAR IS ONE! GOD IS DEAD!” was just a wonderful addition to both that movie and her Griffith episodes (and answers just what’s in those award winning pickles- it’s Tannis root).
What are some things you laugh at that weren’t meant to be laughed at?
*I say supposedly because many psychiatrists believe she and most other “multiple personality” patients were misdiagnosed and were due largely to the power of suggestion on the part of both patients and pyschiatrists. One factoid they point to is that before The Three Faces of Eve there were fewer than a hundred cases, afterwards there were instantly thousands, and there were something like 40,000 diagnosed cases the year after Sybil became huge.
while she is frozen with horror :eek: .