I finally saw Ted earlier this week, and in a lot of ways got exactly what I was expecting, and in some surprising ways got a lot more than I expected.
Based on the previews and prior knowledge of the work of Seth MacFarlane, I expected the humor to be of the type that could be offensive to some. Not me, but some. For anyone who has seen Family Guy, you should know that not only does MacFarlane push the envelope, but he smashes through it, tears it up, throws it on the ground, and stomps on it before lighting it on fire. In fact, there is a scene in Ted where he practically admits as much when Ted is first trying to attract the attention of Tami-Lynn, and it starts out with some playful flirting and ends with a graphic sexual simulation. It’s hilareous, but Ted himself says, “Oh I guess I went a little too far.”
Aside from that scene, there are a ton of gay jokes, jewish jokes, women jokes, jokes that make light of rape, and jokes that seem like they’re just trying to get away with something. Normally, we call that sophomoric, and it is.
For the most part it’s also damn funny.
That is what I expected from this film. I expected a film that was funny in a way that was almost trying to be offensive, and that’s what we have. We also have something else, however. We also have a film that, maybe if it doesn’t have a heart, certainly does have a soul. The soul comes through in the surprisingly strong thematic elements of the script. Now don’t get me wrong. There isn’t a great story connected to this script, and the storyline is just the space between jokes, but the over-riding theme is what keeps this story together in an effective way that gives this film something that goes beyond just the jokes.
Thematically, it’s about a guy who can’t let go of his youth. The John Bennett character, played by Mark Wahlberg, is a guy in his mid-30’s who is uneducated and working a dead end job that he hates. He’s been dating the same girl for 4 years, and is coming up with every excuse not to get engaged, but mostly says he’ll ask her to marry him once his life gets more settled. The problem is, he has no idea how to settle himself and doesn’t seem to have a clear desire to do that. Through all of this, John’s best friend is his childhood Teddy bear, Ted, who came to life when John, as a friendless child, wished his bear could come to life. The miracle occured and they’ve been friends ever since.
The problem is that as they’ve grown older, they haven’t grown up.
They still blow off work to get drunk and high. They are irresponsible and they’re favorite movie is still Flash Gordon. The problem for John is that his girlfriend Lori, played somewhat flatly by Mila Kunis, doesn’t want to be married to a boy, she wants to be married to a man. John tries to balance between Lori’s need for stability and his own need to have Ted in his life, but it becomes clear that he’s going to have to make a choice.
What struck me about this was how strongly MacFarlane, who wrote and directed the film, as well as providing the voice for Ted, was able to set up the conflict within John, as he knows that he has to grow up but doesn’t want to. John’s main character flaw is that he has a fear of growing up, and that fear manifests itself through a fear of thunder that he and Ted have had since they were kids. The two of them revert to a song that they made up as kids and still sing to send thunder away. In a similar way, everytime Lori just about has John in a place where he finally might be ready to grow up, Ted comes around and pulls him back into adolescense.
This is a thematic element that a lot of people can relate to.
The fear of growing up is the fear of getting old, and the fear of a more complex and complicated life that we might not be ready for. For all the rude and crude jokes that are on the surface of this film, underneath is a thoughtful theme that will actually allow a lot of people to relate to it. I suspect that this is one of the reasons that this film is doing so well at the box office. People walk out of it feeling good about seeing a very funny comedy, but they also got involved emotionally with a character that they could relate to, who is going through something that is acting as a metaphor for what they may be going through now, or have already gone through themselves.
That emotional involvment with the main character is what separates a film like Ted from other crude and sophomoric comedies where the audience couldn’t care less what happens to any of the characters. An emotional connection is what keeps that audience coming back for more, and that’s what Ted has, even if the audience doesn’t realize what’s happening to them at the time.
If you have a comedy that you’re working on, but you’re having a hard time finding the emotional connection between the main character and the audience, Monument Script Services can help. Check out the link below to see how Monument Script Services can help you make that connection through our reading service.