[For this year’s
April
Fool’s series, I decided to AmericanStudy a handful of classic 1980s comic films. I know you’ll have responses and
nominations of your own for this series, so share ‘em for a high-larious
weekend post, please!]
On the interesting, and definitely American, layers underlying one of our
silliest holiday classics.
As much as I believe in the power of AmericanStudies analyzing, I’m still not
gonna try to make the case that the stunning and perennial popularity of Home Alone (1990) has been due
to complex national themes. No, the John Hughes-scripted, Chris
Columbus-directed, Macaulay Culkin-starring mega-hit was and remains popular,
first and foremost, because of the spider on Daniel Stern’s
face, the flying metal bucket to Joe Pesci’s head, Culkin’s reaction to using
aftershave for the first time, the pizza guy who thinks the gangster film
is reality, and the movie’s many other silly and funny moments. As a lifelong
devotee of the Zucker
Brothers, I would never judge anyone’s enjoyment of silly and slapstick
humor, and for much of its second half Home
Alone is a masterclass in those styles. I’ve seen the enduring appeal of
those elements first-hand as my sons have become big fans of the film and
series (we even watched the non-Culkin-starring Part 3!).
Yet just because
a movie is entertaingly silly doesn’t mean we can’t find and analyze other
elements and layers to it; if anything, Home
Alone’s popularity means that any and all details and themes within it have
likely been viewed and engaged with by many millions of Americans (and
audiences around the world), and so are doubly worth our attention. For
example, there’s the secondary but ultimately crucial plotline involving “Old Man Marley,” Kevin’s
(Culkin) scary neighbor; Marley is rumored to have killed his family, but
eventually Kevin learns that he is simply lonely and estranged from them, and
the two help each other: Marley saves Kevin from the burglars, Kevin helps
Marley reconnect with his son and granddaughter. The character and plotline
strongly echo Boo Radley
from To Kill a Mockingbird,
suggesting some of the same themes: the need to move beyond communal gossip and
myths and learn about the truths of an individual’s identity and life; the ways
in which such connections can ultimately save and sustain our own lives and
homes. Both Kevin and Marley, after all, spend much of the film “home alone,”
and both find their way back to full houses thanks to each other’s efforts.
This is more of
a stretch—or an extrapolation, let’s say—but I would also connect Kevin’s arc
in the film to defining American narratives of individualism and the
self-made man. Kevin isn’t exactly a Horatio
Alger protagonist, but for most of the film he’s pretty close: like Ragged Dick
and all his peers, Kevin finds himself separated from his parents (and
particularly his beloved Mom), and is forced to depend on his own wits and
strengths to survive and prosper. Yet while Alger’s orphans have forever lost
their childhood homes, Kevin is temporarily orphaned within his home, and that crucial detail, coupled with the film’s
parallel plotline of his Mom’s frenzied efforts to get back to Kevin, significantly
complicates the film’s engagement with these national narratives. Like the
Marley plotline, that is, these details both suggest the importance of
individual identity and actions and yet reflect the way our lives and homes
ultimately depend on community, on the presence of those influential others who
help make our homes what they ideally are. There’s some definite value to
spending time home alone and to the self-making for which such an experience
allows, Kevin’s story argues, but at the end of the day it takes a village to
make that home what it is.
Last comedy
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? 80s comedies (or other comic films) you’d highlight?
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