8. Dodgeball Calls American Audiences Stupid
Inserting a f**k you into a Frat Pack movie is a little like wearing trousers at an orgy you're clearly there for the wrong reasons, so you might as well leave now. Yet still, Ben Stiller committed whole-heartedly to this odd move, ending a movie often reliant on juvenile humour (nothing wrong with that by the way, Dwight Goodman is a great comic creation) with a strange little broadside against American audiences. I suppose the whole thing gets lost under Ben Stiller's and Rip Torn's awesome performances and the now-excruciating Lance Armstrong cameo retrospectively ruining that scene was a tragedy akin to defiling the Tour de France but if you stick around to the end and actually listen to what Goodman/Stiller is saying under the fat suit about you as the viewer, it's pretty damning stuff. Ostensibly, the character operates as the writer's mouthpiece, decrying the film's overly optimistic ending by saying that American audiences can't handle tragedy, so they make do with fart jokes and idealism. What's interesting is just how truthful the statement actually is, and it seems oddly fitting that the point gets lost under the milkshake man-boob dance.