Media Meditation # 2

Would it Hurt You to Try a Little Bit Vince Vaughn?



I went to see Where The Wild Things are during its opening weekend, when I got there it was sold out. In an act of desperation we decided to see Vince Vaughn’s Couples retreat. The story is about four troubled couples, whose marriages are on the wrong path. After being deceived by one of the couples to go to an island resort for couples counseling all sorts of pseudo comedic shenanigans occur; somebody must of thought it was a good idea.

The film is great example of the studio system used to make movies since the 1920s. Applying an “assembly-line process for moviemaking: actors, directors, editors, writers all working under exclusive contracts for the major studios” (Campbell, 219). Many of the actors in this movie are commonly seen throughout sub par comedies and usually can be seen working together. It is safe to say this film’s only purpose was to make money relying on familiar faces to sell it.

However this film uses common techniques to attract audiences, primarily beautiful people and plain folk. It takes some of the most attractive 30 something actors and actresses and makes them deal with common marital problems. All the characters are pretty generic and to a certain extent stereotypes. Jon Favreau, who is commonly seen alongside Vince Vaughn is the High School football star, hung up on his glory days. Faizon Love is the one protagonist of color, but his problems have to be different because he is African American. His wife having left him Faizon takes his much younger girlfriend who looks much like a girl out of a 50 cent music video (the race card). Even Vince Vaughn’s character is a video game store owner who loves guitar hero. Everyone must be saying “he likes guitar hero, no way, I like guitar hero!”

This film takes stereotypical problems that couples face after the novelty of marriage wears off and portrays them with familiar actors. Painfully uninspired, with cheap appeals to traditional American values, this film displays the flaws that come with the money motivated studio system in Hollywood.