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Neil Drumming on Hollywood's fascination with man-children | 16035__breakupnews_l
MAN KIND Vaughn seeks solace with his boys after ''The Break-Up''
The Break Up: Melissa Moseley

You know that scene in The Break-Up where Jennifer Aniston's character comes home and there's a pool table in the dining room? In she walks, radiant yet heartsick, hoping to repair a perforated relationship with her non-dishwashing, Madden Football-playing man, and there's Vince Vaughn's character, shooting stick and throwing back beers with his buddies like this was a dorm. Like most adults, you probably thought, ''How spiteful. How childish.'' But there were undoubtedly a few men in the audience thinking, ''True… but a pool table would be pretty sweet.''

Gut-proud and Playstation-savvy perma-dudes like Gary are dribbling brewskis and loafing all over the big screen these days, men long out of their 20s but not-so-valiantly pushing back against encroaching adulthood. There's Old School's beer-swilling Frank ''The Tank,'' who sacrifices his marriage to live out Animal House -like fantasies with his pals; the trash-talking minimum wagers in The 40 Year-Old Virgin; and the champagne-soused commitment-phobes in Wedding Crashers. This summer, director Kevin Smith revisits the twenty-something slackers of his 1994 indie Clerks, only to find them still on their asses at 33, and Owen Wilson makes yet another play for the Most Lovable Ne'er-Do-Well, this time as a charmingly pathetic, chronically unemployed moocher in You, Me, And Dupree.

Face it: Whether they take off at the box office, like Crashers and Failure to Launch, or tank, like the Adam Sandler-produced, ganja-and-gaming opus Grandma's Boy, the image of the 30-something man-child is striking a chord. ''It's all the rage now,'' says director Todd Phillips, who made Old School when he was 31. ''[These movies are] about that time in life when you choose between responsibility and irresponsibility. And that happens in your mid-thirties nowadays.''

There have always been movies about men being boys. Bill Murray was a pioneer with Caddyshack and Stripes. Adam Sandler really pushed the envelope with his brain-addled Billy Madison persona. But most of the films like Porky's, Animal House, and Bachelor Party that influenced the 30-something filmmakers of today are about much younger men. There's a big difference between toga-clad undergrads Otter and Pinto whooping it up in Delta Chi house and Old School's married, paunchy Vaughn talking about starting a fraternity with a newborn baby papoose-strapped to his chest.

''Everything is later,'' says Ivan Reitman, the veteran filmmaker who produced both movies as well as Stripes, Ghostbusters, and others. ''Men in their 30s want to keep acting like when they hit their mid-20s because those are traditionally the most fun years of a man's life. It used to be unpopular and irresponsible not to settle down by your late 20s. Now there's a sense that it's okay and, frankly, desirable.''

They get it from mom and dad. ''Their parents came of age right after World War II,'' says Neil Howe, co-author of 13th Gen, a book chronicling the generation born between 1961 and 1981. ''They got married very young. They started their careers at a very young age. They all went to work for big corporations.'' They also watched their divorce rate skyrocket, popularized the phrase ''midlife crisis,'' and scared their children, the Gen X-ers, away from all ties that bind. Raising them in the economically-tumultous '80s didn't help either. ''There's a sense in Generation X that all options are open,'' says Howe. ''Planning doesn't make any difference. Life is about free agency.''

Films about Gen-X males reflect this tendency toward detachment. At the beginning of Old School, Vince Vaughn violently advises Will Ferrell to back out of his wedding with the bride already on her way down the aisle. In You, Me, and Dupree, Matt Dillon defends his own impending nuptials thus: ''I'm not dying. I'm just getting married.'' And flicks from Office Space to this June's Click will tell you: Climbing the corporate ladder is way more of a dead end than in the '80s when Melanie Griffith and Michael J. Fox were desperate for a leg up.

''[For] guys in their 30s,'' says Scott Stuber, a producer of both Dupree and The Break-up, ''there's a version of growing up which comes with a job and responsibility, and I think a lot of people just don't want to completely give themselves over to it.''

In case you're wondering where women fit into all this, yes, they've inherited these fears as well, and the average marrying age of Gen X-ers is up regardless of gender. So they're stalling too. However, biological imperative trumps slacking. A woman can only put off having children for so long before it's no longer an option.

And although they wait and waffle much longer than generations before them, plenty of Gen-X men eventually settle down. Not surprisingly, so do their onscreen counterparts. ''It's like the 'grow up' part, the part that has to conclude the tale,'' says Kevin Smith, ''is where the audience identifies more because that's where they are: a world of responsibility.''

But at the end of You, Me, and Dupree, Owen Wilson doesn't just get off his best friend's couch because it's the responsible thing to do. He discovers his calling. His ''mothership'' speaks to him. And Kevin Smith's clerks Randal and Dante find a way to be successful doing exactly what they love no matter how trivial it may seem to others. That is ultimately the goal of the Gen-X man -- the all-grown-up Lloyd Dobler. The dream is not to be idle, but to be fulfilled.

''My old man worked for the post office,'' says Smith, ''late shift from 11 o'clock until 7 in the morning. The lesson [he] imparted to me all his life was, 'Get a f---ing job that you don't mind being at. Get a job that doesn't feel like a job.''' And if that means hanging back, drinking some beers, and shooting some pool until the right opportunity comes along, well, rack 'em up.

Crack open a brew and peruse our gallery of our favorite movie man-children, and post the ones we forgot below.


Posted Jul 21, 2006 | Order Article Reprints
 

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