and I should have added: barred from the good jobs because of their fuck up ways, which is where the anti-capitalism lives in Apatow's work. It's just that, in Apatow's work, what is implied is that the guy gets the perfect girl. Getting the girl stands in for, is a sign of, economic success, such that his fuckedupness is simply what becomes rewarded in the market, as its rewarded in the dating/marriage market.
It is my unarticulated argument in my blog commentary on Observe and Report that Jody Hill is making fun of Apatow's work, much to Apatow and Rogin's delight -- in that self-ironic hipster way that was supposed to have died in 1999.
Similarly also mocking Apatow's work in Eastbound and Down, though with less vengeance and with a character who reveals that his public persona is a cover for the fact that he feels like a complete failure fuckup underneath. That revelation redeems Kenny so that part of you likes him, even though he does some unrelentingly crazy, divorced-from-reality shit. In Observe and Report, Jody Hill refuses to allow Ronnie to have any redemptive qualities at all. I wrote this:
"In this case, jackass guy never redeems himself. In a way, I thought Hill was satirizing that brand of film these days: where idiot guy redeems himself and become lovable guy who seems to maybe really understand women after all.
Ronnie is at war with sanctioned, official, violent masculinity the cops as a kind of leader of outlaw, violent masculinity that claims itself as _superior_ to the cops, capable of doing the real job which the cops can't do.
what's the real job? Violently eliminating Ronnie's Doppelganger the flasher and offering his wounded body to the cops -- like a cat leaves a dead bird at your doorstep. An offering to power, not an attempt to take power."
shag
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)