Adam Sandler’s filmography shouldn’t be dumbed down to crude humor and fart jokes. His best work is deeply humanizing and reflective of societal issues that many are too quick to ignore.
Everyone knows Sandler as an icon in the comedic space. As a winner of the 2023 prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, he is a household staple — well, at least in my household. When watching his comedies, dramas or action films, I am often left thinking, “wait, Adam Sandler actually might be the smartest writer in Hollywood.”
Before you dismiss this as the ramblings of someone who has numbed their brain after too many rewatches of Grown Ups, hear me out.
Sandler has built his success on a specific type of comedy: immature, ‘dumb’ at times and often downright unhinged. There are characters, bits and voices that seem to have been created by someone who took a script and asked, “how can we make this even more absurd?”
But underneath all the laughs and crazy moments is social commentary that, if paid attention to, is relevant and deeply human.
Take, for example, his role in acting and producing the 2006 movie Click. On the surface, it is a ridiculous movie about a man who receives a magical remote that allows him to fast-forward through his life. There are crude jokes and an inflatable dog, but this movie actually says something important.
Sandler’s character, Michael Newman, is driven by his career and money but wishes he could skip through the inconvenient parts of his life. As he uses his remote to fast-forward the boring or uncomfortable parts of life, the remote calibrates his use. It starts to automatically skip through the mundane moments with his family, leaving him helpless as he realizes he missed out on his own life.
For a movie largely remembered for its fart jokes, Click contains a bleak warning about workaholism, consumerism and the way in which we treat time. It shows the regret and loss that comes from letting our minds obsess over the future and forgetting that the little ‘boring’ moments day-to-day are what make up our life.
Comedy movies like Click are not singular in having a message. Additionally, showcasing this message is I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, a personal favorite.
When watching, it is clear that I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry is a textbook Sandler movie: starring two very different firefighters who pretend to be a married gay couple so that Larry’s children can receive medical insurance.
While moments in the movie make you wonder who could have ever approved the script, it is really a look into homophobia, class and discrimination.
Chuck, who initially is packed full of homophobic jokes, begrudgingly agrees to the situation under deep secrecy and embarrassment, and gradually starts to see how his earlier remarks actually affect the community he has now found himself within. He slowly becomes protective of not only Larry, but all members of the community as he is exposed to the treatment they endure.
The movie cleverly uses the absurdity of two men posing as a gay couple to foil the absurd treatment that the LGBTQIA+ community often experience.
This is actually Sandler’s greatest strength in the film space: he knows his audience. Instead of giving a 90-minute TED Talk on the danger of prejudice and what constitutes a funny or hurtful joke, he ties this message into a comedic viewing experience. Many come for the juvenile humor, but all have left watching two men be confronted with the reality of their own prejudices.
These are only a few examples of the many I could name where Sandler’s filmography stands apart. This is not only shown in his comedic films, but he displays this range in his deeper dramas or action films.
This range is present in his lesser-known film Spaceman, which is deliberately designed to make people ask, “why is Adam Sandler talking to a giant spider?”
In reality, the film is displaying Sandler isolated millions of kilometers from Earth, confronted with the relationship he neglected. The film is a meditation on loneliness and the importance of valuing human connection while you still have the chance.
It is in this range that his genius shines; the same producer from Happy Gilmore can turn around and make a movie about taking things for granted when they are in your life, something that is unfortunately inevitably a human trait.
I think people tend to assume that Sandler makes “dumb comedy,” therefore, he himself must, on some level, have only the capacity for stupidity. But as comedians could attest, having success in the industry requires a deep understanding of people. What makes people laugh, cry, feel uncomfortable and which societal expectations can be bent.
Sandler can make a movie about morality, family, prejudice loneliness or simply the human experience, and within the movie he can also add the most outrageous, inappropriate joke he can think of. And somehow, it works.
Adam Sandler has mastered the aspect of comedy as something unexpected. His movies remind us that sometimes the easiest way to get people to think about an idea is to hook them on absurdity first.