Dick: An Apologia

There are plenty of less-than-stellar contributions to contemporary culture that I get a lot of joy from and whose lowbrow qualities I will defend to my more effete friends. But I know how far to take my waxing lyrical about the (yes, I will admit it) debatable merits of, say, Twilight and “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” Then there are those few precious contributions that I truly believe merit inclusion in the pantheon of culturally important artifacts. The ones that I would take an pseudo-intellectual bullet for, like Clueless and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the TV series, not the movie). And then there’s Dick. 

If you have a sneaking suspicion that there's...something...missing from your life, it's probably because you haven't seen Dick. Yes, I'm serious. This under-appreciated gem of a movie is one of the very few that manages to properly balance intelligence with total goofiness. After all, we’re talking about a movie that - in case there’s still any doubt - milks Richard Millhouse Nixon’s nickname for all it’s worth and features pot-laced cookies (Hello Dollies!) as a major plot-point. But we’re also talking about a movie that, when it was released in 1999, was based on a quarter century-old political scandal that was foreign to the majority of its target audience (teenage girls). Yes, it starred teen queens Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams as fictional '70s ditzes Betsy Jobs and Arlene Lorenzo. But they're also fictional ditzes who, in writer/director Andrew Fleming's world, end up being "Deep Throat."

To understand how crushed I was when stupid W. Mark Felt, Sr. came out and ruined forever my secretly-held hope that Betsy and Arlene were, in fact, Deep Throat, you need to see the movie. I don't want to give too much away because it's a brilliant parody of Washington politics, the Watergate scandal and, of course, All the President's Men (Will Farrell and Bob McCullough's portrayal of Redford's Woodward and Hoffman's Bernstein as a bickering couple is priceless). It unfortunately gets written off as a silly teen comedy because so much of its humor is hidden in allusions and one-liners or in conversations that take place simultaneously ("If you have a problem with Vietnam, talk to Johnson!" "He's dead." ''Yeah, thank God." "Do we bomb or not bomb? Let's get this done with today.") 

Dick was hardly the ideal product for a profit-seeking studio: most teenagers would not understand the Watergate humor, while most adults would not enjoy the teen comedy. This leaves a narrow margin of people who know about Watergate but also appreciate clever and goofy comedy. I get the feeling, however, that the filmmakers and producers realized this and simply didn’t care. This movie was made not just with intelligence but with love, which resonates more strongly every time you watch it. 

And, believe you me, I've watched it A LOT. Come over sometime and we can have Dick party (get your mind out of the gutter!). I'll even make Hello Dollies. There's nothing like them in all the Soviet Union.