#TeamFarley
Kind of a cautionary tale of art that harms.
On one side, the "Chippendales Audition" sketch with Patrick Swayze was physically funny as hell, and for Chris Farley, it was a turning point in his career, as he went from new guy to bona fide SNL star.
On the other side... the sketch was a cruel joke that didn't quite land, and defined Farley's sketch character development until his death.
The scenario: after countless auditions, it came down to two dancers to take the final spot on the Chippendales roster. To decide, they performed a dance-off. Swayze was technically perfect, and Farley was surprisingly agile, on top of being funny and sweet. The result? Swayze's character wins the audition, and Farley dances in desperation to prove the judges wrong.
Bob Odenkirk: I hated it and what it did to his psyche...Chris Rock: There's no comic twist; it was just mean. And Chris wanted so desperately to be liked.Tom Arnold: Chris called me and said, "Now everyone wants me to be the fat guy."Tom Davis: He would slap himself so hard that you could see the mark on his face, and that would get a laugh from those writers, but I would see the mark on his face, and I just saw disaster.
Even Chevy Chase warned him not to go out like John Belushi.
I agree with all of them. There was a tragedy in his character's rejection. The twist that would have been endearing would have been for Farley to win over the obvious beauhunk, as the judges would have fallen in love with his charm, humor, and the fact that some ladies love a full-figured guy.
While he was a comic genius, once he started to pratfall for laughs, he threw himself around the SNL set at an alarming rate. His eloquent, gentle giant characters, such as the Incredible Hulk giving a eulogy at Superman's funeral, gave way to more Matt Foley exploding coffee table disasters.
I dunno, many of his sketches were funny at first, and him breaking David Spade in a scene was always a goal. But the physical comedy that gave him his success also limited his growth as an artist and comedian. Tommy Boy got it right when he was the doofus who saved the day and got the girl.
I wish Farley had seen himself as the winner and not the fat guy.
No comments:
Post a Comment