MacGruber Has One Joke That Doesn't Hold Up, Says Will Forte

MacGruber fans, you can't get everything you want in this life, but you might yell at the clouds until your dying day for missing the special MacGruber screening at the Vulture Festival on Sunday night, complete with live running commentary by Grubes himself, Will Forte, and the film's co-writer, John Solomon. The 2010 SNL spinoff movie was a critical disappointment, and a bona fide box office bomb, but for my money, it's one of the most underrated and important comedies of the entire damn decade, and it looks like history is finally catching up. If I keep posting about it, eventually they'll have to do one of these in New York, right?

Anyway, Vulture reports that early on in the evening's festivities, Forte went on the record and admitted there's a joke in the movie that doesn't quite hold up to scrutiny. Make no mistake: MacGruber is a crass, tasteless, and loudly violent film with an irredeemable man at its center, but one part, Forte admits, was a mistake.

In the scene, MacGruber is tasked with recruiting a crack team of killers from his old days, comprised of WWE wrestlers in fun cameo roles. Chris Jericho has an all-timer dick joke back-and-forth with Forte, along with MVP, Kane, and The Great Khali also appearing. It's when MacGruber approaches Brick Hughes (better known as The Big Show), discovers he's gay, and quickly scrawls out his name from his assassin wishlist. It's a gay panic joke without justifiable context, plain and simple. According to Vulture, Forte called it his “one regret of the film.”

As bad as that one joke is, what a feat for a movie coming up to its ten-year anniversary, a movie centered around one of the vilest homages to the sexist, misogynistic action stars of yesteryear, to only have one joke that doesn't make the cut anymore. Forte is refreshingly candid about what doesn't work, but the two extraordinarily graphic sex scenes remain two of the most influential in cinema history. Four years ago during her Oscar campaign for Brooklyn, Saoirse Ronan described it as her favorite love scene in all of cinema. In her words, there's a great joy in its "rippin' the piss" (Irish accent included) out of the sanitized and frankly uncomfortable boning scenes in Bond movies and the like. Unfortunately, that video appears to have been scrubbed from W Magazine's video channels, but heed this, W: I will never forget.

Forte also offered an update on the MacGruber series, which is still yet to find a home, but the writing is well underway, it's being pitched to networks all over the place. Kristen Wiig is expected to return, as well as Ryan Philippe, which, hmm! Maybe there are two things about this movie that don't hold up after all.

All this is to say, go watch MacGruber again tonight in celebration of woke, self-growth king Will Forte, who never met a shitty, unpalatably self-obsessed character he didn't want to immediately play.


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Shall we fight about the merits of an antiquated comedy franchise now, or fight about the merits of an antiquated comedy franchise later?

Originally Appeared on GQ