You’re probably way too young to remember this, but back in 1938, when Americans went to the movies to see Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in “Bringing Up Baby,” they knew before the lights went down who would play the baby. Hepburn.
Yes, we know, Baby was actually the name of Hepburn’s pet leopard, the troublesome cat who loved the song “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby.”
But everyone in that 1938 audience knew that the true baby of the story was Hepburn as madcap heiress Susan Vance.
They knew this because the girl in screwball comedies was almost always a baby or child at heart. She was a zany trust-fund baby, a spoiled brat, a runaway society bride, a maddening, irresponsible, snobby but somehow still lovable daddy’s girl.
In those movies, nobody put Baby in a corner. Still, the romantic-comedy plots followed “The Taming of the Shrew”: They required someone to come along, take Baby in hand and make her become a responsible woman. (Which usually meant married.) And who did the teaching? Cary Grant did the job in countless movies; in other, Robert Montgomery, Fred MacMurray and Clark Gable.
Wait a sec. Did you catch that whiff of pipe tobacco and Brylcreem in those names? Did a vision of tweeds and starched collars appear? A deep, confident voice? Yes? Hang on to those sensations a minute, while we flash forward seven decades or so.
To the multiplex, Batman! In theater one, we have “Failure to Launch,” with Matthew McConaughey playing Tripp, who is 35 and still lives with his parents. Sarah Jessica Parker is Paula, hired by said parents to make their big baby grow up.
Next door, we have “The Break-Up,” with Vince Vaughn as a 30ish guy who might as well live with his mom; he leaves all the housework to his frustrated girlfriend, Jennifer Aniston, while he drinks beer and plays video games.
Next up: “You, Me and Dupree,” with Owen Wilson refusing to grow up and almost taking his best friend down with him.
Then there’s “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,” with Will Ferrell playing Ricky Bobby, baby-faced, baby-named NASCAR driver. Sample quote from trailer: Ricky Bobby yelling, “Momma, I’m going fast!”
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a trend on our hands. Actually, we have a trend within a trend within a trend %26#8212; a metatrend, if you will.
First, let’s examine the outer ring of our metatrend, a ring that already has had its share of attention. It has many names: Old-school trendspotters call it the Peter Pan syndrome, which has since been updated to Peter Pandemonium. In England, they like “kidults.” In doctoral theses, it’s “adultescence.” In his new book, Christopher Noxon brands it “Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up.”
They all mean the same thing: Americans of a certain generation (hint: No one calls them “the greatest”) don’t want to grow up, get old or start paying attention to Depends commercials.
Moving on, to the second ring of our trend: the many movies about these Peter Pan rejuveniles (and, let’s not forget, their precious bodily fluids and gases). These movies have been around a long time, but the Farrelly brothers gave them new life in the ’90s. The various titles say it all: “Meet the Parents,” “Old School,” “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “School of Rock,” “Big Daddy” and our favorite, “About a Boy.”
As for the stars of these movies, let’s coin a phrase ourselves and call them man-boyz. There’s Ferrell, 39, who has played a man-boy elf, a man-boy frat brother, and a man-boy wedding crasher who lives with his mom. Vaughn, age 36, has played man-boyz in “The Break-Up,” “Wedding Crashers,” “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “Dodgeball,” “Old School,” “Swingers” and %26#8212; the ultimate mama’s boy %26#8212; Norman Bates in the remake of “Psycho.”
Similarly for Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Mike Myers, Steve Carell, Jack Black, Adam Sandler, Luke Wilson and the entire Wayans family.
Don’t get us wrong: We love them all. They’ve brought hours of enjoyment. But think about it: Would you want to live with them? The man-boy thing gets old, fast.
This brings us to the third ring of this metatrend: gender switching.
Let’s go back to “Bringing Up Baby.” What happened between 1938 and now? Why did men become mama’s boys, and %26#8212; more painfully %26#8212; why did women stop being madcap heiresses and turn into humorless scolds? In short: Why did Lucy trade places with Ricky?
Anyone? Yes, you in the back. Feminism? OK. Good answer. But let’s dig deeper, people. The counterculture, populated by the aptly named flower children and baby boomers? Yes, that, too.
But what about the post-World War II economy and the growth of the middle class, which allowed men more time off work and gave them more money, and thus more toys.
Somewhere in there, we have to include the more recent emergence of the Youth Culture and the Beauty-Industrial Complex (an adjunct of consumerism), which added fear and loathing to all birthdays after 21. After that, no American wants to look %26#8212; or act %26#8212; his or her age.
Then there’s the paradoxical advent of the Hurried Child. We know that children are growing up faster than ever before. What once were forbidden but eagerly awaited adult pleasures %26#8212; owning a car or television, having a disposable income, sex, drinking, smoking, independence %26#8212; are now enjoyed by teenagers.
This quick-start adulthood may seem contradictory to the man-boyz trend, but it actually makes sense: When Americans get to be 30ish, they look back and realize they missed the pleasures of childhood. They also don’t really want to get … old. Bam! Instant regression.
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