The most poorly-aged comedy in cinema history, according to science
Societal attitudes naturally change with time, and so do the things we deem acceptable within movies.
Ask your nearest pensioner and they may exclaim that movies have dramatically changed in recent years, but the cultural shift that we’ve seen in the entertainment industry has been a slow process, though, and the lines between what is offensive and what is just dark or boundary-pushing humour will always inspire fiery debate.
Take the era of parody movies that plagued the 2000s, for example. While these films came decades after movements to advocate for civil rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights, they’re still loaded with offensive jokes. The thing is, though, these films, like Scary Movie and Epic Movie, were incredibly popular – even if, on a technical level, they weren’t good. Made in bad taste and full of plenty of jokes fit to make a 12-year-old wet themselves with laughter – the cruder the better – you might argue that these films are the epitome of ‘ageing badly’, but were they ever good to begin with?
When we say a movie has aged badly, what do we really mean? To say The Birth of a Nation aged badly is to suggest that there was a time when it was alright, and I think it’s pretty safe to say that even in 1915, enough people would’ve been outraged by the glorification of the KKK on screen. The saddest thing is, though, that probably just as many crazy right-wingers will agree with the white supremacist message of the film as those who existed back then.
Really, it’s not hard to tell if a film is going to age badly – if it contains any offensive stereotypes, then that’s your sign. Still, certain things were just able to fly with less criticism compared to today because people’s attitudes and sense of humour were different. As the years progress, these naturally shift. Imagine Queen Victoria watching an episode of Brass Eye. I bet she’d be too confused to even be offended (not just because she didn’t know what television was). In her day, that kind of thing would be nonsensical, and the kind of stuff she found funny was probably not that humorous to a modern audience.
Times change, and with that we can look back at certain movies and decide what’s no longer funny, what’s no longer acceptable, and whether it holds up to a modern audience.
According to a study carried out by Stat Significant, the comedy that has aged the most poorly, judging by “films that have seen the greatest decline in average online movie rating” is an Eddie Murphy classic. Well, everyone knows it, you’ve probably seen it, but is it good? Not exactly.
It’s The Nutty Professor, of course – that dreadful relic of 90s comedy from when Murphy was at his peak. The actor donned various costumes to play seven different characters, including an obese man, his thinner alter-ego, and even his grandmother. While the movie is actually an Academy Award winner (it won ‘Best Makeup’), the film isn’t good, and in a post-body positivity world, storylines about turning yourself slim to impress a woman aren’t exactly what sells anymore.
Humour has changed a lot since then, and the slapstick, physical humour that defines The Nutty Professor – childish and crass – feels very rooted in a time that we’ve moved on from. These days, comedy is, for the most part, better than the likes of The Nutty Professor, which certainly wouldn’t find as much success today.
