Thursday 19 December 2013

Top 5 Movie Douchebags


Ramzee says:

You’ve met them at parties.  You work with them. That cousin you avoid at family gatherings or the girlfriend/boyfriend of the person you have a crush on. THE DOUCHEBAG.

Urban Dictionary’s definition of “Douchebag” is as follows:
Though the common douchebag thinks he is accepted by the people around him, most of his peers dislike him. He has an inflated sense of self-worth, compounded by a lack of social grace and self-awareness. He behaves inappropriately in public, yet is completely ignorant to how pathetic he appears to others.
He often talks about how cool, successful, and popular he is, yet never catches on to the fact that he comes across as a total loser. Nevertheless, he firmly believes that he is the smartest, most desirable, and most charming person in the room.
To everyone else, he is an annoying and arrogant phony who comes across as a wannabe overcompensating for his insecurities. He tries to appear like the centre of whatever group will tolerate him, but in reality, he is just a tag-along who mooches drinks, women, contacts, social standing, and other benefits from the group... while contributing nothing.
*Ramzee & The Jillybean Disclaimer – Women can be douchebags too!


Now that we’ve come to an agreement on what a douchebag is, we can all sit back and enjoy the douchebags that we love to hate.  We love them because we get to laugh, guilt free, at their misfortune.  They are memorable and you can just tell that the actors had fun playing them.
So, without further ado, my Top 5 Movie Douchebags:



5. Percy Wetmore – The Green Mile



 It needs to be noted that this role could not have been more perfect in its douchebagerry (that’s a word, right?), had it not been for the acting of Doug Hutchison. He is pathetic, whiney, bratty, entitled and sadistic all in one facial expression. 

Best Line:
*As an inmate is about to be executed, the inmate mumbles to himself about the beautiful place his pet mouse is going to go to when he dies, to which Percy replies -
 “There's no such place. It's just a fairytale these guys told you to keep you quiet. Just thought you should know, faggot.”



4. Biff Tannen – Back To The Future



Throughout the Back To The Future trilogy, Biff’s family carries the douchebag gene.  He is dumber than you but it doesn’t matter because you’ll do his homework or he’ll kick your ass. He’ll force his way on the girl you have a crush on and if you intervene, he’ll kick your ass. Biff makes my list because I knew a guy like him in high school and yes, that guy kicked my ass.

Best Line:
“Since you're new here, I'm gonna cut you a break today. So, why don't you make like a tree and get outta here?”



3. Mike Dexter – Can’t Hardly Wait



Mike Dexter is the most hilarious teen douchebag I’ve seen.  He competes with Stiffler from American Pie and Joey Donner from 10 Things I Hate About You, but beats them all because you know immediately what a complete idiotic prick he is from the very first moment he steps through the door.  He embraces the douchebag within and loves every moment of it, hanging out with his douchebag posse. He breaks up with his beautiful girlfriend, Amanda, on the last day of high school because he needs to free himself up for the copious amounts of tail he’ll be getting at college.  Best part of it is that he sincerely believes that this is a legitimate reason for dumping Amanda. Later on in the movie, we start to see his insecurities surface...mostly after a conversation he has with the previous year’s senior douchebag, played to perfection by Jerry O’ Connell. In the end, there’s a little part of you that thinks, “Aaw, Mike Dexter’s not such a bad guy.”

Best Line:
“I'm a loser. I broke up with the hottest girl in school, my friends all sold me out... and somebody in there just called me a fag!”




2. Cal Hockley – Titanic



No need to go into too much detail here. Everyone knows who Cal Hockley is. You just wanted that ship to sink so you could watch him drown. He doesn’t go down with the ship and he certainly doesn’t follow the ‘women and children first’ rule when a ship is sinking.  Why should he?  He’s Cal Hockley. Like all vermin, Cal is a survivor and he doesn’t make any excuses for who he is.  He survives, he gets what he wants, no matter the cost.

Best Line:
*The Titanic is sinking.  The men are trying to get the women and children in the life boats first so that they can survive.  We see a father saying goodbye and telling his child that everything’s going to be ok and that ‘this boat is for the mummies and children, there’ll be a boat for the daddys later’. Cal rushes past everyone, picks up a random kid, forces his way onto the life raft and says,
“Please! I have a child!”



1.    Prince Humperdinck – The Princess Bride



This is Douchebag Royalty!  All ye, kneel before the undisputed Prince Of Douchebags!
If you are one of the unfortunate humans who have not seen The Princess Bride, then stop whatever you are doing, download this film and watch it right now! Don’t even finish reading this! Just watch it!
For those of you who are acquainted with Prince Humperdinck; is there really anyone who embodies the word better? Douchebag.






The Jillybean says:


Not all douchebags are created equal, which is why my list deals with 5 distinct types of douchebags – from the least dangerous to the most despicable.


5. Joey Donner - 10 Things I Hate About You 



The Narcissistic Douchebag is arguably the funniest type of douchebag, for the simple reason that he is so easily made to look the fool. His narcissism is his Achilles heel, and it makes him less dangerous than other douchebags. Joey, Andrew Keegan’s character in 10 Things, is the quintessential Narcissistic Douchebag. His elevated opinion of his own good looks is the driving force behind his douchebaggery: it is why he pursues Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), the most popular girl in school – she is just another accessory to his own beauty.

Early on in the movie we’re already given a hint that his narcissism will be the key to his ultimate humiliation. Kat (Julia Stiles) tells Bianca that years ago, when Joey broke up with her because she didn’t want to have sex with him anymore, she kept him from exposing their relationship by threatening to tell the cheerleading squad that he has a small penis. This is the Narcissistic Douchebag’s worst nightmare – not even the opportunity to humiliate the girl who rejected him could move him to risk this type of situation. At the end of the movie, he is humiliated – not because a girl (Bianca) renders him helpless with a knee to the groin and two punches to the face, but because his only concern is the nose spray ad that he’s shooting the next day. Yeah, he’s that guy.




4. Glen Guglia - The Wedding Singer



The Narcissistic Douchebag might grow up to be this dude: the Domesticated Douchebag. He’ll always be the same prick he was in high school. He doesn’t really want to get married, but he’s too much of a coward to be single – he needs the cover of domesticity so that he can hide his true nature. He’s the one with the trophy wife and a harem of floozies on the side. He is only concerned with his own comfort, and thinks that money can pretty much buy him anything.

That’s Glen Guglia (Matthew Glave): a selfish bastard who takes the window seat for himself and doesn’t care that his fiancĂ© Julia (Drew Barrymore) gets banged in the elbow every time the drinks cart comes past. Like a typical douchebag, his propensity for bragging is his downfall in the end: if he hadn’t told Robbie Hart (Adam Sandler) about all the action that he was getting, his story might have had a different ending.

There’s not much else to say about this guy, except ladies, beware. Nobody wants to be Mrs Julia Guglia.  




3. Dean Sampson - She’s All That



Ugh, the Lazy Douchebag. This douchebag is comparatively harmless because, although he loves to see people squirm, he’s not invested enough to do the heavy lifting himself. He’d much rather wait for an opportunity to present itself and then pull a cheap, ill-considered stunt at the expense of whoever is caught in the crossfire. This impulsivity does, however, create the potential for massive destruction.

There are four things that make Paul Walker’s character in She’s All That a big stinky douchebag. Firstly, he is a coward. When his best friend Zach (Freddy Prinze, Jnr) bets him that he can turn any girl into the next prom queen, Dean Sampson takes a great deal of pleasure in selecting a candidate who (to his mind, at least) doesn’t have a shot in hell. He has no interest in a fair fight – he’d rather win by default. Secondly, his unmistakeable glee at the prospect of his friend’s defeat and Laney Boggs’ (Rachael Leigh Cook) impending humiliation makes him particularly despicable. Then, when he sees that he is about to lose the bet he exposes Zach (there’s that cowardice again) and swoops in to capitalize on Laney’s vulnerability. Lastly, his tendency to count his chickens before they are hatched is what derails his plan: too hungry for the admiration of lesser douchebags, he brags about his plan to take Laney to bed and is inevitably exposed for the slimeball he is.




2. Philip Stuckey - Pretty Woman



The Closet Douchebag is power-hungry but insecure. He wants his piece of the pie, but is afraid of humiliation. His cowardice makes him a dangerous predator because he only preys on the weak and the disenfranchised, which makes it easier for him to commit his douchebaggery without detection.

Philip Stuckey (Jason Alexander) is this type of douchebag. His job is already an indication of the kind of douchebag he is: he is Edward Lewis’ (Richard Gere’s) lawyer and together the two of them make a profit by dismantling companies that have fallen on hard times. He feels inferior to Edward, because he isn’t handsome, charming or rich enough to get beautiful women into bed like Edward does. This keeps him under the radar because he knows he’ll just be shot down. But it also means that he has a lot of bottled up anger, which turns him into a dangerous, entitled arsehole. When he learns that Edward’s beautiful new companion, Vivian (Julia Roberts), is a prostitute he immediately tries his luck with her… and is rejected, to his great anger. He is made to feel even more impotent when Edward, under Vivian’s influence, robs him of a big money-making opportunity and takes away what little power he does have. He takes this anger out on Vivian and essentially tries to rape her. Yeah. MAJOR douchebag.




1. Robbie Gould - Dirty Dancing



The Educated Douchebag is the most dangerous, because he uses his education to justify his selfish pursuit of pleasure, money and power. He has convinced himself that he is superior to other people and therefore perfectly justified in treating them like shit. A true coward, he never takes responsibility for the repercussions of his actions. His philosophy is “every man for himself”. Robbie Gould (Max Canter) is a particularly unsavoury manifestation of this type of douchebag. When he gets poor penniless Penny (Cynthia Rhodes) pregnant, he refuses even to pay for the abortion – and when Baby (Jennifer Grey) confronts him about it, he tells her that “Some people count and some don’t”. He then offers to let her borrow his copy of Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel The Fountainhead, which is controversial, among other things, for its theme of social Darwinism and for seeming to imply that women enjoy being raped. Sounds a little like the Douchebag’s Guide to Good Living, doesn’t it? 

The extent of Robbie’s delusion becomes apparent at the end of the movie when he casually thanks Baby’s father for taking care “of the Penny situation”. He’s actually bragging a little: he is proud of what has happened, he feels like he’s been initiated into some kind of old boys’ club. That’s what makes him a dangerous fool. He won’t grow out of his douchebaggery like Joey or Dean might, it’s not the result of frustration as in Stuckey’s case, and he’s not just a womanizing arsehole like Glen. He has fully internalised the right to treat people like shit.

This guy might end up being an American president.


We couldn't find a short clip of Robbie in all his douchey glory, so check out the link below where you can watch the entire film free.  Check out the 87th minute.


 


If any of you can find your favourite Robbie Gould douchebag clip, then give us the link in the comments below.


That is all.

*Guest Jillybean – Sandra Visser. 
Follow Sandra on twitter @sandygrammar

Tuesday 3 December 2013

Remembering Our Wonder Years...



Many of the famous actors today started out as teen actors in those coming-of-age TV shows we all loved growing up. We never missed an episode.  We could relate to the characters.  We spoke about them at school and no matter what they do in their careers, successful or not, we will always refer to them by the names of their most famous TV character.

Katie Holmes married Tom Cruise, was best friends with the Beckhams and had a huge film career, but The Jillybean and I still refer to her as ‘Joey’.  Sarah Michelle Gellar has a new movie out? No, Buffy has a new movie out. The shows that made them famous and the characters they played are ingrained in our memories and it doesn’t matter what they do, we will forever remember them as the characters we could see ourselves being friends with in high school.

One of the most memorable things about these TV shows was the opening credits.  The ones we watched over and over at the exact same time every week.  The opening theme music and songs that we sang along with, word for word, and that evokes the greatest sense of nostalgia within us. 

Here are our Top 10 favourite Teen Series and the opening credits that we’ll continue to remember for years to come:



10.  One Tree Hill (2003 – 2012)






9.  Smallville (2001 – 2011)


 



8.  Felicity (1998 – 2002)









7.  The O.C. (2003 – 2007)









6.  Gilmore Girls (2000 – 2007)









5.  Freaks and Geeks (1999 – 2000)









4.  Roswell (1999 – 2002)








3.  The Wonder Years (1988 – 1993)









2.  Party Of Five (1994 – 2000)









1.  Dawson’s Creek (1998 – 2003)






That is all.