In the 2000s, American comedy had a rude awakening. While the preceding decade had been all attractive sophisticates bantering in big cities, the new millennium arrived in a miasma of crude, cartoonish buffoonery: Austin Powers, American Pie, Dude, Where’s My Car? These were, sadly, the sacred texts of a millennial adolescence.
In comparison, the work of the Frat Pack – a group of comic actors that included Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Seth Rogen and Luke and Owen Wilson, plus writer-director Judd Apatow – seemed almost highbrow. By the middle of the decade, this cohort had funnelled ribald irreverence into much better films, including Zoolander, Dodgeball and Anchorman. Eventually, though, the worm turned; as chin-stroking dramedy and nerdy Marvel wisecracking took hold of the zeitgeist, this PC-needling silliness fell out of fashion.
-copy-29e15046.jpeg?w=600)
