As a media analyst, exposure to the underbelly of what sometimes passes for entertainment comes with the territory. But teen icon and MTV comedian Tom Green has created a new underbelly for the underbelly. Nothing about his new ultra-gross-out flick, Freddy Got Fingered, warrants even a wan smile, much less a laugh. I walked out of the theater when it was over feeling physically drained to the point of illness. “I don’t think there’s anything in this movie that is mean,” Green told newspapers. I beg to differ. There’s nothing in this movie that isn’t mean.
Am I being a bit too narrow-minded? Judgmental even? A host of mainstream critics don’t think so—and most of them are not known for their “conservative” bents. “Freddy Got Fingered is the worst movie ever made,” wrote Warren Epstein for the Colorado Springs Gazette. “Only my strong desire to inform the public kept me from walking out of this horribly offensive festival of the grotesque.” The Denver Post’s Steven Rosen put it this way: “Tom Green has made a movie so unrelentingly gross, disgusting and imbecilic that one mourns for the state of humanity while watching it.” Elsewhere, Roger Ebert blasts the film, calling it a “vomitorium consisting of 93 minutes of Tom Green doing things that a geek in a carnival sideshow would turn down.” Lou Lumenick of the New York Post laments, “I’m not easily offended, but [Freddy’s] nonstop assault of crude and sub-cretinous humor moved me to annoyance.” Enough said.
It’s way too kind to call it a plot, but the story line used to connect the twisted gross-out antics of Tom Green’s Freddy Got Fingered go like this: Gord is an animator. His dad thinks he’s a slacker and pressures him to find a job. So Gord goes to Hollywood to land a job. He fails. He returns home. Eventually, he tries again and lands a big contract. Brilliant, isn’t it?
positive elements: None whatsoever.
sexual content: Most of Freddy’s scenes are so far off the charts they can’t even be referenced here. Bestial acts of masturbation. Jokes about sodomy. Incest. Child abuse. Innumerable sexual remarks and gestures. Searing debauchery and depravity. Gord’s girlfriend, Betty, aggressively seeks to perform fellatio on Gord in two scenes (and does so offscreen on their first “date”). Shaquille O’Neal plays himself as a philandering home wrecker who sleeps with Gord’s mother. Gord encourages his mom to leave her no-good husband and have sex with star athletes. Gord also rubs his crotch against the pants of a man he doesn’t know.
violent content: As with its sexual content, much of Freddy’s violent content is so bizarre and repugnant the words needed to describe it cannot be printed here. Sexualized violence (inexplicably presented for laughs) takes center stage in Gord and Betty’s relationship. It’s excused in the movie because Betty, who is confined to a wheelchair, becomes aroused when Gord repeatedly canes her across the legs. Gord’s dad angrily pushes a woman into some plastic barrels. He then pushes his son. Gord slices into a dead moose (entrails ooze out of the carcass) and dons the bloody skin. He’s then run down by a semi (he’s not hurt). He licks an open, bloody wound on a friend’s leg. When a Hollywood mogul shows no interest in his work, Gord puts a gun into his own mouth threatening suicide. The would-be boss gives Gord this advice: “If it doesn’t work out then blow your brains out.” Jim spanks his adult son. A boy collides with a car door and comes up bleeding. Later, he gets beaned by a baseball.
crude or profane language: Between 60 and 70 f-words and about 20 s-words are only the beginning. Freddy doesn’t merely contain crudities, it is fundamentally crude. It’s especially disturbing to hear a father and son angrily cuss each other out as if that were perfectly normal and expected. Mom, meanwhile, doesn’t even blink an eye at the pair’s language. To top it all off, there’s at least 15 abuses of the Lord’s name.
drug and alcohol content: Whisky, wine and beer flow. Drunkenness gets played for laughs. Gord smokes a cigarette.
other negative elements: Freddy Got Fingered’s most serious perversion is its mocking references to child molestation. Gord accuses his father of abusing his brother Freddy (hence the film’s disturbing title). His accusations prove groundless, but the “comedic” damage is done. Freddy, age 25, gets sent to the Institute for Sexually Molested Children, which is full of absurdly happy, carefree kids. And then there’s the dreadful birthing scene. Blood drips down his face as Gord chews through a newborn’s umbilical cord. Even worse, he then whips the baby around by the cord, soaking everyone in the room with blood.
conclusion: No one said a practical joke can’t be funny. But absolutely nothing in this movie is either practical or a joke. It’s bitter, gross, mean-spirited and disgusting. How this movie ever got made is beyond me. How it got an R rating from the MPAA is even more of a mystery.
