Plabnox Cures v. Zohan Trailer
81 P.C. 982 (2008)
Opinion by the Honorable Judge Croc (below)
To view the full trailer, please travel here: (http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi232980761/)
This ruling follows the precedent set by Plabnox Cures v. Hancock Trailer. The Zohan trailer presents a patchwork of phallic images and wish-fulfillment shots—namely, explosions, flight, guns firing, water spraying, and stock battle footage. It also implements a new marketing tactic: the trailer ambiguously proclaims that Adam Sandler's Israeli character, Zohan, possesses "lethal training,” thus leaving the viewer to question whether Zohan has been transformed into a lethal entity by the training, or the training was deadly. In a flagrant deviation from the traditional movie trailer, this question is raised and dropped, unresolved.
In order to convey to the audience that Zohan is of Middle Eastern descent, the opening sequence depiction of Zohan performing back-flips is superimposed with images of machine guns firing, or ejaculating, whichever descriptive verb you prefer. The sequence is also an accurate portrayal of Israelis as all Israelis are trained in torture and arcane military defense tactics. This truism receives emphasis later on in the trailer when Adam Sandler fells a child with the mere touch of his thumb and forefinger.
“You’re like Rembrandt with a grenade,” cries a decrepit unknown to Zohan 18 seconds into the trailer. Although seemingly important due to its prominent place in the two-minute trailer, this statement is devoid of meaning. Does it signify that Zohan can masterfully use the resultant mess of blood, bones and rent flesh from a grenade launch as his palette to paint dark, moody portraits mysteriously suffused with light? Or does it mean that Rembrandt, had he had access to a grenade, would have chosen to be like Adam Sandler's Zohan rather than an unparalleled artistic genius? Like most of the dialogue in the Zohan trailer, this gem is a classic example of the theater of the absurd and a nod to Dada artists everywhere.
Another fascinating aspect of the Zohan marketing team’s schema is to make the titular character’s appearances in the trailer contradictory. First, we spot Zohan swaggering down the street like a gangster, Adam Sandler's flabby body importing girth but not strength. Next, he interrupts the fast-paced rhythm of the trailer only to labor through a jumbled, inauthentically-accented, yet narratively necessary, one-minute long proclamation about his aspiration to become a coiffure stylist.
The trailer really gets going when a non-diegetic eighties dance song starts playing and Adam Sandler, in a hair salon, ejaculates with a rinsing hose, all over his elderly female client. As his semen rains down upon her, she laps it up with orgasmic glee and the camera circles the scene voyeuristically. Additionally, the imitable Adam Sandler, in a tour de force of cinematic performance, dominantly places his foot three feet off the ground, on the arm of her chair, so that his crotch receives a close-up.*
When asked by Plabnox, "Is Zohan more like Funny Games (1997) or Battleship Potemkin?" Touchhole (Plab’s industry insider) replied, "I told you why it was like Funny Games. It's like Battleship Potemkin because it uses the effective technique of montage to highlight the incredible proficiency of…Zohan in not only killing bad guys but cutting hair."
“Was that your feet?” proclaims an American extra as he is pummeled by Zohan’s feet. The screenwriter gave the character this line rather than the grammatically correct, “Were those your feet?” or “Was that your foot?”, as a pithy critique of the deplorable state of the average American’s grammar.
The trailer terminates with an afterthought of sex references and Middle Eastern/terrorism jokes made by random males, in the new wave ham-handedness style apparently favored by Adam Sandler movies
Judge Croc Rules: Adam Sandler is the poor man’s Sacha Baron Cohen.
*An allusion to the move first executed by Ted Danson, albeit with complex political and territorial connotations, in the groundbreaking television film when the BOUGH BReaKS.
Above: Judge Croc's Hollywood plantation, wherein he forms his famous and lucrative opinions.
