I couldn't follow this story, what's with the chicken? I was born post 1975, and there really isn't a white-middle class america anymore, so the satire really didn't get me.
"And then I was being chased my an improperly filled in bubble screaming 'None of the above!' ".
It's certainly darker than Bad News Bears, which I also think is a better film, but this is superb.
The chicken was simply part of an initiation that the Andy character didn't want to conform with. "Secret societies" and other types of local clubs, such as Knights of Columbus and Rotary, were much more popular, although they still exist today. They usually involve themselves in various community-building activities, often via business and church.
The country used to promote more tradition as a vital part of good citizenry than now (this very notion isn't even taught anymore. It used to be explicit, however). There was certainly a seedy "adult" side to all this as well. Today, everything has been so sanitized. A lot of this had to do with the counterculture, which challenged every aspect of their parents' value systems. The director here, Michael Ritchie, certainly seems to be adopting this viewpoint with the goal of making traditional values - and the active promotion of them - appear superficial and disgusting.
Maybe you can tell, but I strongly disagree with this viewpoint. It is nonetheless explored to great effect here. "American Beauty" did much the same thing 25 years later. It's really a fairly common theme dating back to "Rebel without a Cause."
There is the issue that Michael Ritchie directed both "Smile" and "The Bad News Bears." In fact, the low-earning but cultish "Smile" GOT HIM "The Bad News Bears," and a bigger star than Bruce Dern to appear in it: Walter Matthau(plus recent child Oscar winner Tatum O'Neal.) So "The Bad News Bears" had a starrier cast -- and, perhaps, a more popular topic in Little League, which was played in so many American towns -- and became a much bigger hit than "Smile."
Also: "Smile" had a script by Jerry Belson; "The Bad News Bears" had a script by Burt Lancaster's son, Bill(based in part on "Beverly Hills Little League Teams" including one coached BY Burt Lancaster.) So, even with Michael Ritchie at the helm, "Smile" and "The Bad News Bears" had different stories to tell.
"Smile" is, for instance, really a much more nasty-in-spirit film than "Bears." "Smile" viciously mocks its leads (Bruce Dern and Barbara Feldon) and other characters, including not only Feldon's drunk husband(who is given the "hero-cynic" view of the pageant but is a repulsive human being), the pageant director, and some of the teenage girls in the pageant. "Bears" has Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal "to root for"(and saves its nastiness for its look at hyper-competitive macho man coach Vic Morrow, in a great performance.)
I think "Smile" and "Bad News Bears" are BOTH fine films, linked enough in theme and "look" to play as a double-bill, but different in tone and intention. And box office success.
And "Bad News Bears" was the much bigger hit...as its several lesser sequels shows.
"The goal of making traditional values - and the active promotion of them - appear superficial and disgusting".
Traditional values like a bunch of middle aged man getting sh-tfaced and kissing a chicken´s ass while wearing Ku Klux Klan style garb? Now that´s certainly a "value" that needs to be protected.
The same, of course, with the moronic contest itself. All hail everything that´s pointless and phoney.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
hey, that's heritage!
today's special: shrimp ceviche!
Belson and Ritchie weren't protecting the value of secret men's groups with pointless initiation rituals (chicken butt), or silly women's groups with their pointless rituals (which the pageant represents). The whole film was about questioning those rituals. Why were we as a society still having a beauty pageant? Why did we as a society still have men's groups where they had these rituals? What point did they serve; who benefitted from them; could they do harm; did they advance anything in our culture; did they make society better?
Bad News Bears was a lighter film, maybe because it needed to be more commercially acceptable to be marketable. It made a point, but wasn't as sarcastically pointed in doing so. Sometimes directors get to do the films they want the way they want, and sometimes they need money. As a director, writer, actor one is limited to always doing films with great personal meaning if the subject matter doesn't sell commercially to a broad audience. Once one has the money of Speilberg or Redford they can be more creative with message films.
Last, the Klan costumed men getting wasted and kissing chicken butts is carried on in moronic rituals today on college campuses across the country during pledge week. Young people are stupid when they get together away from mature authority and alcohol is involved. The ritual of pageants is carried on in bars and clubs each week on Ladies Free nights where women go to be judged by drunk men who have been together earlier kissing chicken butts while the ladies were home picking out their underwear of the week.
Yes the 70s values are partly pointless, but you aren't extrapolating the concepts that Belson and Ritchie were trying to make. There are always ritualistic values of social culture that are pointless. The question is will you take part or will you decide to walk away AND do so as a healthy and strong individual, something no one in this movie was able to do?