7. North (1994, Dir. Rob Reiner)
What Was The Comedy?A family film starring Elijah Wood as North, a young boy who divorces his parents and travels the world in search of a new family.
Why Was It Appalling? While the overall concept is a good idea for a family film and allows for a lot of appearances by strong comedic actors as Norths potential parents, the way the film was written lets it down. Its main problem is that its thunderously racist. Every set of parents that North lives with are complete stereotypes like his adopted parents in Africa living in mud huts and wearing grass skirts, and his adopted Inuit parents queuing up to put their elderly relatives on ice floes and push them out to sea, as well as them being played by white actors in makeup. Also, some of the content is inappropriately adult like Norths adopted Hawaiian father saying that his wife is the only barren area on the island, and planning to use Norths fame to bring tourism to Hawaii with a moving billboard featuring an octopus pulling down his swimming trunks. Theres also a subplot of Norths friend planning to murder him, and Bruce Williss line about Miami: You ever been there in the summer? Your balls stick to your leg like Krazy Glue. And it uses the "It was all a dream" ending, a plot device that (unless you're very clever with how you use it) will lessen the quality of your film in an instant.
Who Should Have Known Better? Director Rob Reiner.
Why Should He Have Known Better? Reiner starred in the Til Death Us Do Part remake All In The Family as casual racist Archie Bunkers liberal Jewish son-in-law Michael Stivic. Given that racism was a frequent theme of that programme, starring in it should have made Reiner more attuned than most people to how the issue of race should be handled in comedy. But aside from that, a question that any director should ask himself when making a film is Could this offend anyone and cause a backlash? The script for North should have set alarm bells ringing on that front. Not to mention that adult content like some of the jokes in North belong in a more teenage-orientated film rather than a family comedy.