God Bless America, or: When a film's message matters more than anything else

God Bless America (2011)

Directed by Bobcat Goldthwait

***SPOILERS***

The most frustrating aspects of God Bless America lie in anything and everything other than the actual film. Users on IMDB and Twitter have flooded the Internet praising God Bless America for its audacity, its tenacity, its elasticity. “It’s a movie for us!” cries the lonely American who believes he or she is alone in thinking American Idol, Fox News pundits, the cast members of Glee, “God Hates Fags” banner-wavers, Monster energy drink chuggers, frat boys, sorority girls, the entire Kardashian family, loud theater attendees, jocks, twihards, Punk Rock lovers, disc jockeys, Nascar fans, Sweet Sixteen, Diablo Cody, and every show on MTV that represents the downfall of American culture. Such lifeless material constantly floods our televisions and radios and movie theaters, thus we are led to believe we are in the minority for hating it. So when God Bless America came along, for many it felt like a triumphant trumpet blare, declaring and confirming that being an American has nothing to do with loving Nascar or reality television shows. And if God Bless America exists to help people find such comfort, then fine—more power to ‘em. It’s just too bad that they’re completely missing the point of God Bless America, coming out of the experience looking just as arrogant, incompetent, and gratingly boisterous as the cast members of Jersey Shore. And despite his gumption to produce something different, director and writer Bobcat Goldthwait has to carry some of the blame here. Not for being irresponsible (which he isn’t) or sympathetic (which he never is), but for making his giant glaring message the sole redeeming factor of the entire film.

I’m incredibly disappointed and baffled by Nick Schager’s review of God Bless America for Slant Magazine, claiming Goldthwait sympathizes with Frank (Joel Murray) and Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), thus giving adherence to their killing spree and such a narrow-minded way of addressing pop culture. But really, Goldthwait isn’t so irresponsible. Schager goes on in his own review to contradict himself and give Goldthwait a pass, noting that Frank and Roxy “often behave in the very manner they disapprove of.” That’s it! Right there: this is the point of God Bless America. It’s quite adept of Goldthwait to dedicate an entire script toward building Frank and Roxy up as holier-than-thou individuals, only to constantly strip them down as they mindlessly berate anyone who doesn’t share their sophisticated tastes. In this sense, Goldthwait never once sympathizes with his characters—which, contrary to what Schager believes, is sort of the entire fucking problem with God Bless America.

Let’s hear the premise of God Bless America for a second:

“A man, jobless and fed up with American pop culture dumbifying our nation, goes on a shooting spree with his sixteen-year-old accomplice Roxy, lighting up every bit of America that fuels the stupidity radiating from our televisions each and everyday.”

Now come on: if you heard that premise without any prior knowledge of the film's intentions, you’d be understandably wary (or enraged) about God Bless America. So how would you make this premise work? Let's see here...

• Use Frank and Roxy as parallels to American consumerism and mindless pop culture, displaying that anger and antagonism makes us no better than the people perpetuating such an encompassing system, thus pulling us together instead of pushing America further apart.

Whoa, that’s it? That’s all you have to do to change God Bless America from an irresponsible masturbatory daydream into a relevant piece of symbolism? We see Goldthwait doing this constantly, as seen with Frank, who speaks of nothing but hatred towards pedophiles, but finds himself fighting off temptations he owns towards Roxy. And Roxy hates on Diablo Cody for her fake witty dialogue, but often speaks in such a manner herself, even directly after an incessant rant on Cody. It’s a simple enough solution, and Goldthwait pulls it off with flying colors. Thanks! Now we can all go home and have a drink…oh wait, what’s this? It’s another list…how can we make this premise shine?

• Along with using Frank and Roxy as parallels, dissect their psyches and legitimize their murderous plight, but never adhering such behavior.

There’s an elongated intro to God Bless America that attempts to relate Frank’s troubles to the audience. He sits on his couch, watching countless hours of lame competition shows and angry sixteen-year-olds yelling at their parents for not buying the right car, and as the darkness rolls on and the bags under his eyes grow wider, we are supposed to begin buying into the fact: Frank is going crazy. OK…no, he’s not. This is something ALL Americans go through at some point in their lives, before realizing that, hey, let’s get off our asses and do something with our lives. But because Frank never does get up, he supposed to represent that repressed individual (inside all of us) that just allows the consumerism to overtake him and eventually fall over the edge. To accompany such an absurd idea, Goldthwait lazily ruins Frank’s life through extraneous methods: making his spoiled daughter loathe him for no reason, taking away his job through a faux sexual harassment claim, and pairing him alongside the most annoying neighbors of all time. Roxy receives absolutely no introduction, only strutting into the film and gleefully attaching herself to Frank for the most convenient reasons possible. It says nothing about her character, and without pathos, we're really left with nothing than an appropriate vessel for Frank's pedophile comments and another vehicle for Goldthwait to spew his pop culture hate.

• Give meaning to Frank and Roxy’s relationship outside of a shared hatred of American pop culture, sympathizing with them as human beings, but never sympathizing with their situation.

Goldthwait had good intentions with God Bless America, but, as seen with the previous point, there’s just never any poignancy in this film. For Roxy and Frank never share a meaningful conversation, but only converse in ways that are relevant to the alarmingly large piece of symbolism hanging over this entire film. Despite its irrelevancy in regards to God Bless America’s overall message, Roxy and Frank are essentially opportunities for Goldthwait to regurgitate all his hateful spouts that flooded his comedy acts for years. And Frank and Roxy wouldn’t seem so much like mouthpieces for Goldthwait if there was any bit of depth to these characters or their relationship, but in solely bolstering the overall message, Goldthwait makes each and every conversation more and more irrelevant and pointless, culminating in the closing moments where Frank directly addresses America, creating a tongue-in-cheek moment that winks at the audience about Frank's plight and becomes Goldthwait's final blow to America before the credits roll. There’s not even an attempt to build towards their random strew of hateful conversations, which ignite and fuel themselves at will, basically becoming comedic filler material instead of clever character enhancers. I mean, how can you enhance your characters…when you use them for one reason? You can’t build if there’s nothing to build on. What are Roxy and Frank’s emotional troubles outside of empty American pop culture? All of Frank’s personal troubles are directly related to these shallow media culprits, giving the previous point even less headway than it already has, and stripping God Bless America of anything significant or insightful. Roxy is utterly void of anything distressing, as she lies about her home life and then never receives the opportunity to defend herself, leaving her character as open-ended as the intentions of this film.

• To bolster the main message, create questions for the viewer. Challenge them to believe this is wrong. Make them ashamed for becoming a product of hate. Make them feel anything outside of sheer glee or anger towards the surface material of your fucked up film.

Easily the most important step, it’s crippled by a failure to impose the previous two, and altogether absent from God Bless America. The easiest way to enhance such an idea would be to challenge the reality of the film, suggesting that Frank never really goes on a shooting spree. It’s not essential, but wouldn’t it enhance Goldthwait’s message, allowing it to be more than just a one-note experience? If there is an attempt, I missed it. Other than displaying an acute eye for framing a shot, there’s nothing adventurous or suggestive about Goldthwait’s shot selection or writing, never once relating the absurdness of Frank and Roxy’s shooting spree outside of its…well, sheer absurdity. So because Goldthwait doesn’t use his never-ending and controlling powers as a filmmaker to dictate the action at hand, he lazily sits back and perpetuates the same message over and over. Because of this, we can only assume that this killing spree is legit. And without any bit of poignancy regarding Frank and Roxy, we’re left with a fully realized film that only makes one realization: we’re all fucked.

God Bless America.

Final thoughts:

I guess I might as well give some praise to this film. Joel Murray is incredibly underrated, as he was one of the best actors in Mad Men. But good God, if Tara Lynne Barr isn’t a ray of sunshine in this godforsaken film, I don’t know what is. She’s fiery, ecstatic, disciplined, and sure of herself. It’s a shame that she embodies an essentially barren and useless human being, but she’s easily the most enjoyable aspect of this movie. She sort of plays into one of the sole redeeming factors of God Bless America, which is its awareness. The conversations between Frank and Roxy, despite their irrelevancy, are always spot-on observations about American pop culture. Goldthwait’s recreations of American Idol and TMZ are hilariously and depressingly exact—even if such recreations aren’t exactly the most sophisticated pieces of filmmaking. But those clever moments never lend themselves towards anything, as they all constantly build on the same point. God Bless America never goes forward or backward, and never builds upwards or digs itself a hole. For a film about a couple of ravenous killers, God Bless America proves to be really fucking boring. Once you get past the fact that there’s absolutely nothing emotional or humane about God Bless America, and once you get past the fact that’s there’s no attempt to challenge the viewer to buy into the larger metaphor (as evidenced by the hoards of lovers and haters on the Internet), you realize that there really is nothing audacious or insightful about God Bless America. Hell, if Goldthwait had just been irresponsible and completely sided with his characters’ mission, it would have made this a hell of a lot more fun to write about. But because God Bless America is about so little, I have to explore what it could have done instead of what it did—it sucks when you have to do more work than the filmmaker.