The Slacker Narratives of Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio

Screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio have defined the American teen cinematic experience of the 90s and 2000s. Their extremely popular films grant insight into the mindset of the newly emerging iGeneration audience, of which I am (born in 1992) a proud member. The success of their films is guaranteed by catering to slacker, teen males, who they seem to have all (but) figured out.

The male protagonist, with whom we are supposed to identify, is a young, poor, filthy, dirty man who competes with an evil father for the attainment of marriage to a youthful daughter. The evil father is either corporate or royal with a classy, sexy, clean princess daughter who is hopelessly attracted to the scruffy male lead. The male lead is disgusted by the evil father’s pursuit of wealth. He never plays for the prize but only for the sheer game of it all. No wonder, then, that each film comes in with a tie-in video game where you play the male protagonist but the goal is never to “beat the game” but rather, to play indefinitely…or at least until boredom sets in.

In the following blog-post, I perform a pseudo-Lacanian analysis of their first success (Little Monsters), their first mega-hit (Aladdin), their franchises (Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek), and their stinker (The Road to El Dorado). 

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Little Monsters (1989)

Lonely Brian (Fred Savage) is the kind of isolated, semi-marginalized youth who would nowadays seek escape in online porn, cyber communities, or FaceBook stalking. But as this is 1989, so he must use his “imagination” and conjure up a pretend friend: a little monster/penis named Maurice (played by Howie Mandel in blueface), who he can play with all through the night.

Maurice is a punk-rock Peter Pan (perpetual-penis), who will never become a father, and lives in a Never Land that bears resemblance to the grimiest elements of Six Flags on Halloween, Chucky Cheese, and St. Mark’s Place. But there’s a catch: when struck by sunlight or the gaze of parental authorities, Maurice deflates into a flaccid shell. But at least until morning, manic Maurice can take Brian on an adventure ride down into the Pizza Hut side of the American cultural unconscious, and up into the rooms of classmates.

A premonition of the FaceBookStalkJerkOff, Maurice takes Brian to his girl crush’s bedroom. But manic Maurice’s right hand (“man’s best friend”), which has turned into a dog head, gets hungry and devours her homework. In a typical case of post-masturbation guilt, Brian worries that his little monster/penis has gotten carried away. Brian discovers that while puberty has its plusses (now he wears dark glasses and gets attention from girls), his little monster has spun out of control! 

Maurice wants to turn Brian into a penis/monster like himself but Brian has the desire to become an adult. In anger, a cruel monster named Snik kidnaps Brian’s younger brother Eric, who is the flipside of Brian’s raging boner Maurice: an innocent prepubescent flaccid penis. In order to save Eric, Brian must “team up” (have sexual intercourse) with other boys and girls from his school and go into the underworld. Right before the climax of this adventure, the children confront the phallus-King (the Wizard of Oz) who is named Boy. 

In an explosive climax, the children work together to destroy the phallus-King (using no less than cum-laden fireworks). The death of the perpetually erect phallus-King allows the flaccid-Eric to emerge. Alas, the kids must leave and Brian says goodbye to Maurice. As a parting gift, Maurice gives Brian a bomber jacket, so that Brian can go to school and proudly proclaim: “I fucked a chick until my boner turned flaccid and lived to tell the tale.”

To look at it another way: Maurice is the sperm that can be played with all night but refuses to come out, until the “teaming up” of sex is followed by an explosion that defeats the boner that rules over Maurice and finally frees up the sperm/Maurice, who is no longer a prisoner!

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Aladdin (1992)

An “evil father” named Jafar attempts to get his hands on a youthful-boner (magic lamp), which, when rubbed, unleashes a genie, Robin Williams in blueface (Maurice’s twin brother, no doubt!). Only the young, sly street urchin Aladdin can attain this youthful-boner (magic lamp) and he does so, in a quest that parallels youthful Jack Sparrow’s quest for the Fountain of Youth.

The evil father ends up snatching the youthful-boner (magic lamp) and makes the wish to become the semen (genie) it produces, not realizing that this makes him forever a prisoner of the youthful-boner (magic lamp). Aladdin, on the other hand, more skillfully uses his youthful boner and attains his “happy ending,” in which he can have a legitimized marriage to a princess and his semen (genie) is freed from the confines of the boner (magic lamp), so that he can freely impregnate the princess. With the evil father dead, the good father (the sultan) can gives his blessings for the wedding. Happily, the street urchin (dirty penis) does not have to turn into the Royal Man (who is always the dreaded enemy of such pirate-Peter-Pan’s). 

The film ends with the Genie shooting up into the sky and turning into a fireworks explosion, with Aladdin and his bride freely flying up to the moon. A direct copy of the fireworks explosion at the end of Little Monster that destroys the evil-father authority, who is stands in for Brian’s cruel dad and frees Maurice (just like Aladdin’s Genie) from the domination of phallic authority.

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The Road to El Dorado (2000) 

       Con-artists Tulio and Miguel cheat their way to a map to El Dorado in yet another quest for an idyllic place of youth that can only be found by illegitimate, cons, balls, boobs, losers, impersonators, street urchins, or pirates. Hernan Cortes (the “evil father”) competes with the young protagonists for the glory of youth and its many riches. As usual, the youth who can actually attain this wealth do not want it but instead choose to fly on to another adventure…but not without sealing off El Dorado from the “evil father.” For the young realize that it is not the “gold” or the everlasting semen that we fuck for but only the chase and joy of romance.
       The pair bare resemblance to the screenwriting duo: with their eternal ability to tap into the youthful markets, to work for play/fun not for cash/gold, but to work always for the great corporate powers (floating between Disney and DreamWorks), living the American dream: wanted by all by chained down by none—“always question authority.”

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Shrek (2001)

       The “evil father” is Lord Farquaad and Shrek is the dirty, fat, slimy penis (we can’t help but love). As usual, they end up fighting over a love interest: Princess Fiona. Shrek may be grotesque but he is the young-penis, who knows the moves. Shrek, the street-urchin/pirate/freak is actually the very thing that attracts Fiona, who is more horrified by the “evil father” (Farquaad) than the slimy penis (Shrek). In fact, she is part-ogre herself, containing a secret clitoral-phallus, a little Shrek that only comes out at night. However, after the evil father is defeated, there can a legitimate marriage, in which Fiona’s green guy can be freed (he was blue in Aladdin and Little Monsters) and Fiona can be safely impregnated. We can believe in love again!

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Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) 

Ted Elliot: Jack kind of represents the ultimate free man—he really has no obligations to anybody, and, obviously, if you make an obligation to somebody, you’re limiting your own freedom.

Jack (off) Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is the sly, slippery phallus whose sexual maneuverings allow him to slide in and out of the most dangerous situations unnoticed and unscratched. He is the rock star who never grows old, although the film reminds us with a wink that he must via a cameo by Keith Richards, who plays his father.

Jack might not know his destination but he knows he enjoys the chase. He admits that he does not wish to live forever, for it is the threat of death that keeps him on edge. He does not pre-plan his missions because it is in improvisatory adaptation that he thrives. Like Maurice and Aladdin’s Genie, Jack is our childhood buddy: our penis who refuses to become an adult man, the old pervert who refuses to become a father, the idealized dream of director Judd Apatow’s perpetual adolescent. Man’s greatest buddy, Jack (off) Sparrow, is the captain of the ship who all man-children impersonate in the hopes of perhaps soliciting him. He is the cause of all men’s envy, even (and especially) that of the King, who requires pirate Jack’s aid in order to locate the gushing Fountain of Youth that only a young boner like Jack could possibly hold the map of (Jack touches the drop of youthful seamen). Unfortunately, Jack has lost the map, after all it is not the destination that excites him but only the improvised chase. As in any situation where he must make any commitment, when the King solicits his aid, he quickly escapes. And when he does, like a good phallus, he falls into the lap of a Dame (Judi Dench) and the breasts of a cartoon girl on a Pub’s sign.

Jack’s major rival is not the royal man or King who claims to be adult and father but Hector Barbossa, another rotten penis-pirate who has shockingly and disgustingly disguised himself as a royal privateer! Imagine if you will, the dreaming Apatowian man-child and you might find that Barbossa is the brownnosing slacker in the suit and tie.

His next greatest rival is Angelika (Penelope Cruz): the woman who can impersonates the phallus-named-Jack so very well that she is able to seduce him…and who could know better how to impersonate him than his own pupil!

Barbossa and Angelika function as Jack’s criminal brothers and as such, they perpetually frustrate him for they always run the risk of sucking up to the “Evil Father” (the authoritative lawgiver that inspires Jack’s criminal identity): Barbossa sucks up to King George and Angelika sucks up to Blackbeard. Though Jack stands alone, at any given moment he is liable to unite with his criminal brothers to take down the “Evil Father.” This can be seen when Jack unites with Barbossa against Blackbeard. However, he is never capable of truly trusting either brother for fear that they will suck up to the “Evil Father” or worse become one, thereby subjecting him to an intolerable external authority.

Both of the film’s Evil Fathers, King George and Blackbeard, attempt to use their respective pirate-penis to locate the Fountain of Youth. But they will need more than just the male-penis to achieve the climax they demand: the female-phallus must be employed in conjunction with the male-phallus. This is achieved by the attainment of clitoral secretions, in the form of mermaid tears, which can only be achieved through the violent capture then torture of the female-phallus/Mermaid.

Angelika is entirely loyal to young Jack and even lives through him but because of her daughterhood she is unable to break apart from the Evil Father as easily as Jack is. In this way, she is torn between her ties to the Evil Father and the boyish Jack. Angelika’s tie to the Evil Father attracts the independent Jack, who is strictly forbidden from openly adoring sexy, old Blackbeard and can vicariously experience this attraction only through his sympathy for her condition. In parallel form, Jack’s separation from Blackbeard attracts Angelika to Jack. This tension provokes an erotic cross-identifying affair, in which the two lovers often appear indistinguishable from one another. It also bars the consummation of their love: Angelika must always play hard-to-get in order to satisfy Blackbeard’s desire to own her and Jack must always play impossible-to-get in order to contradict Blackbeard’s desire to own him. Angelika even would rather choose to die before her father.

When Barbossa and Blackbeard have their climactic Oedipal battle, Jack ponders why there must be such a senselessly large fight with two huge teams when it is essentially a clash between only two people, a cruel father and his revengeful son. But of course, with a hint of irony, the huge battle ensues anyway. 

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Conclusion 

These contemporary videogame films seem to relativize the narrative to such an extent that it becomes arbitrary: numbing our relations to those bothersome conflicts they contain (be they Oedipal or existential). No doubt, these films carry out the same narratives over and over but to such a degree that they cease to matter, and we become lulled in by the distractions from the distractions that the virtual landscape supplies.

       No doubt, each subsequent CGI-laden film will enlist more and more soulless drones, filling up infinitely larger 3D spaces, and fighting the same Oedipal battle we have already seen. The soulless drones support the dull, but soulful, recognizable celebrity/actor playing the human-trapped-in-the-digital and serve as the surrogate for audience members who have become videogame players—Apatowian man-children, one and all—so withdrawn from the annoying game of life that all they can do is indefinitely, and abjectly, replay it as a monotonous cyber simulation in the hopes that one day there will be a final and permanent Game Over.