Zoolander

Zoolander – After a freak ‘gasoline-fight incident’ and an interview that reveals his less than honed intelligence, male model Derek Zoolander is at a loss. With his career winding down and young upstart model, Hansel, being so hot right now, Derek’s attempts to find his way mean he accidentally stumbles on a shocking secret within the fashion industry. When investigative journalist Matilda Jeffries warns him his life may be in danger, they must team up with his rival, Hansel and try to expose the corruption. But has his dim-witted mind already been hijacked for a darker purpose? 

Zoolander (2001) – Director: Ben Stiller

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=982136

Rating: 12

Running Length: 90 mins

Starring: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Christine Taylor

Genre: Comedy

REVIEW: ‘ZOOLANDER’

There are some movies where the stars align and whilst the base elements may not seem to amount to much, a combination of good writing, great performances, and snappy direction can elevate a premise to something that hits all the marks. Zoolander focuses on the tale of a shallow and dim-witted male model who accidentally exposes a centuries old racket where the fashion industry is used as a recruiting ground for political assassins. Directed, co-written, and starring Ben Stiller at arguably the height of his fame (coming off the back of ‘There’s Something About Mary’ and ‘Meet The Parents’), ‘Zoolander’ is a hilarious movie with such good performances from Stiller and Owen Wilson (the latter as surfer dude bad boy, Hansel) that, what in lesser hands could have descended into pure low-brow snark, instead shines out with every confused pout and ‘cogs whirring’ pause for thought.

What makes ‘Zoolander’ work so well is it understands where its appeal lies. Yes, there is fun to be had at poking at the vacuous fashion industry and yes, it’s funny when the characters’ stupidity leads to some misunderstanding or mispronunciation, but crucially the silliness is anchored by genuinely lovable performances from the endlessly perplexed Ben Stiller. He genuinely wants to do the best, goes on an honest soul-searching mission, and deals with the very real dread of what will happen once his modelling career comes to an end. When paired with Wilson their comedy experience is self-evident in the facial twitches and crafted pauses that get the most guffaw out of any scripted gag.

The glue that holds them together is the exasperated Matilda (Christine Taylor). One reason why ‘Zoolander 2’ missed the mark was that the chemistry of Taylor’s ‘straight woman’ to Stiller and Wilson’s daftness is key. Also, Will Ferrell’s over-the-top mogul Mugatu is thankfully used in small doses. Enough to be funny and mix-up the catwalk, but not so much as to take over or distract from the core cast. Again, this is where ‘Zoolander 2’ fell flat. So ‘Zoolander’ shines all the more for knowing that it’s a bubbling mix of elements that came out of the oven just right when it could so easily have turned into a hideous faux pas.

This is one of those movies that, if we catch it on TV, then we will stop and watch the rest no matter how far in it is because there is always extra fun to be had by watching comedy stars at the top of their game bring the best out of every moment. He may not be able to turn left, but Derek Zoolander got everything right in this winner of a movie.

CONTENT: IS ‘ZOOLANDER’ SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN?

The introduction to the movie has a montage showing lots of flashing photography which could be triggering for people who have epilepsy. This lasts around 10 seconds.

In the first few scenes the words ‘crap’ and ‘ass’ are used.

During a song montage of ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ by Wham, several friends of Derek Zoolander get into a playful water fight at a gas station. None of the characters are very clever, and this soon descends into spraying each other with petrol. No-one realises the danger they are in and when one character uses a lighter, the entire station explodes. The fireball is shown very briefly to consume Derek’s friends and he shouts out to them before being thrown backwards. The scene then cuts to a funeral.

Whilst talking at the funeral Derek says his friends were his brothers with the word being ‘like how Black people use it’.

When Derek is walking with his manager, Maury Ballstein, Maury yells “tushy squeeze!” and grabs the bottom of a passing female employee. There is no chastisement for this and it is presumably a common occurrence.

A young female model is wearing a dress which Mugatu is altering by sticking pins in. She yelps in pain and he shouts at her, blaming her, and demands that she “lose 5 pounds immediately”. The woman runs off, crying.

When Maury is talking to someone on the phone about how Derek wants to create a school to help children read, he describes it as, “tutoring underprivileged retards or some sh*t”.

Maury is shown standing at a urinal from behind, struggling to pee due to a prostate illness. When someone says ‘capisce?’ he replies, “if only I could ca-piss”. There is then the sound of one drop, which delights him.

Derek goes to see his family who all work down the mines. Derek’s father is clearly very disappointed and embarrassed by his male model son. He shouts at him in a bar that Derek parades around with his “weiner out for everyone to see”. He says after, “You are dead to me, boy. You are more dead than your poor dead mother”.

Mugatu takes a sip of a coffee handed to him by his assistance and spits the hot liquid directly into the assistant’s face before shouting at him.

When arguing with Matilda, Maury counters by saying, “With a push up bra you could actually have a nice rack of lamb up there”.

When at a day spa Zoolander gets a massage from a rather odd-looking person. As part of this he gets spanked a little. When he turns over he has a sheet draped over him but it is clearly shown that he has an erection. There follows a rather odd comedy moment where whilst Derek and Matilda talk the masseuse tries to massage around Derek’s erection but it keeps moving suddenly to get in the way.

After the massage scene Derek is strapped into a seat. He is surrounded by ‘spa workers’ who are all young, attractive woman wearing stockings and are otherwise scantily clad. However they are only in the scene for a moment. A video of Mugatu plays as part of an effort to hypnotise Derek. It starts off gentle and soothing but quickly becomes trippy. Mugatu’s face suddenly turns red and fire blazes in his eyes whilst he shouts orders at Derek to kill. The head of another character is drawn onto a balloon which Derek rips off. The face then morphs into Mugatu with red flaming eyes who screams again.

Matilda and a colleague examine old headlines – one of which reads ‘Model crushed to death in tragic orgy’.

During a confrontation between Derek and Hansel about the new ‘Derelicte’ campaign, Hansel says that Derek can ‘Dere-lick my balls’, to which Derek replies that he can ‘Dere-lick his own balls’.

Derek and Matilda go to a cemetery where they see graves for male models who have died young. The gravestones have engravings to represent the models’ best parts and some marble buttocks are shown as well as a torso and penis. The latter is the same style as a classic sculpture.

In an emotional moment for Matilda she explains how she was the fat kid at school to which Derek responds with disgust. He apologies after. Her story explains how the impossible standards set by models led her to develop an eating disorder. Both Derek and Hansel laugh at her as they don’t consider this to be a problem and say they do the same to ‘lose pounds before a show’. However, later in the climax of the movie during a fashion show Derek does genuinely apologise that models made her become that way. After this revelation there follows some sexual dialogue where Matilda confesses to not having a sex life and Derek and Hansel ask personal and insensitive questions about how she copes.

Derek, Matilda and Hansel have all been drinking a tea which Hansel has described as soothing. He advises that Matilda ‘give in to the power of the tea’, and that they should all get naked. There follows a sex scene where several characters are seen naked from the shoulder up only. The camera rotates and it is implied that an orgy is taking place as Derek, Matilda, Hansel, and other incidental characters are shown. Whilst the tea is only ever described as relaxing it is possible to read into this scene an intention to drug to lower inhibitions which is questionable. However, the next morning everyone is happy with what went on. Hansel says he notices the attraction between Derek and Matilda whilst she was ‘sandwiched between to Finnish dwarves and the Maori tribesman’.

During the Derelicte show there is more flash photography and more appearances of the hallucinated Mugatu ‘devil face’.

Maury is teaching a school room full of children. His question is what to do when an agent has ‘your nuts in a vice’ to which they all chorus a reply of ‘screw him!’

CAN I SEE A CLIP?

VERDICT: IS ‘ZOOLANDER’ FOR KIDS?

Zoolander’s comedy bag of tricks is varied but the combination of linguistic jokes (such as mispronouncing ‘eulogy’) and the constant level of sexual based humour shows that the movie is geared towards an audience from teenage and above. There is daftness on display that children will likely enjoy but, frankly, the subject matter of most of the humour means that Zoolander is likely inappropriate for children under 12.

• Violence: 1/5
• Emotional Distress: 1/5 (Matilda’s description of her eating disorder could be upsetting, especially for those with body image issues)
• Fear Factor: 1/5
• Sexual Content: 3/5 (sexual based humour throughout and one ‘comedy’ sex scene)
• Bad Language: 2/5 (constant but mild bad language)
• Dialogue: 2/5 (insults aimed at intelligence or looks are frequent)
• Other Notes: Deals with themes of being manipulated, political assassination, body image, eating disorders, narcissism, issues caused by the fashion industry, sweatshop labour, and the disposability of models.

Word by Mike Record

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