FILM

"Paul Blart: Mall Cop" Perfectly Captures the Capitalist Hellscape of Black Friday

Paul Blart: Mall Cop is the greatest Thanksgiving/Black Friday movie of all time.

Columbia Pictures

Thanksgiving is okay, but let's be honest, the day after Thanksgiving is so much better.

While Thanksgiving is all about eating poorly seasoned turkey and fuming at your boomer dad who won't stop whining about "illegals" (and failing to grasp the irony of doing so on a day celebrating the genocide of indigenous people at the hands of white, European colonialists), the day after Thanksgiving is all about the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop - watch the trailerwww.youtube.com

Don't be fooled by the janky trailer that seems like someone edited out a laugh track. In stark contrast to its Tomatometer score of 33%, Paul Blart: Mall Cop is inarguably one of the greatest crowning achievements of American cinema. No, I'm not joking.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop tells the story of one Paul Blart, an obese New Jersey man who wants to be a cop but can't pass the physical fitness test because of said obesity. So instead, Paul Blart becomes a mall cop who takes his job way too seriously. Lucky for him, on the night of Black Friday (that's the day after Thanksgiving!), a group of thugs decide to pull a mall heist (no, that doesn't make sense), and it's up to Paul as a low-wage mall employee to save capitalism as we know it.

If you've never bothered watching an Oscar-winning drama, you might be shocked by the ferocity with which Kevin James (who also co-wrote the movie) approaches the role of Paul Blart. Take this scene, for instance, wherein Blart accidentally drinks an entire pitcher of margarita and then assaults a lot of people in a restaurant. When Blart shoves pineapple into a man's mouth and then climbs on a booth to grab another man's head before hurling the restaurant's old, hired singer offstage, Kevin James transcends traditional physical comedy. This isn't just your typical goofy bumblef*ck bumbling around. You can see a dark fire in Paul Blart's eyes and a latent rage bubbling just beneath his squishy surface.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) - Getting Wasted Scene (2/10) | Movieclipswww.youtube.com

The darkness of Paul Blart has not gone unnoticed by fans, with some comparing the Paul Blart franchise (there is also a Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2) to the incredibly depressing Japanese masterpiece, Neon Genesis Evangelion––an anime about children growing up in the remains of an apocalyptic, technologically advanced future. Considering Blart's violent fury coupled with his attachment to his segway, the Evangelion comparisons practically write themselves.

Paul Blart Evangelionr/evangelion

Just look at how well Paul Blart fits into the Evangelion intro.

But Paul Blart: Mall Cop isn't just another Evangelion rip-off. Whereas Evangelion approaches its dark subject matter through a distinctly Japanese lens, Paul Blart is patently American.

The true horror of Paul Blart: Mall Cop is that the apocalyptic hellscape he resides in is, in reality, just the current state of American capitalism and consumer culture. The movie's metaphorical precision is laser-sharp, and it's no mistake that Blart––a low-skill, low-wage mall employee tasked with saving a capitalist structure from which he does not benefit––faces both his greatest triumph and his greatest sadness on Black Friday––a day dedicated to sales. It is as if the movie is shouting at us: "Don't you sheep see that this is all a sham? Don't you realize that, like Blart, we've been tricked into tying our very identities to consumer capitalism?" In this light, Blart's rage is the quiet rage of the American underclass, working so hard to protect a system that doesn't protect them. His outbursts are the protests of the people, and his eventual defeat of the thugs is the sad, ultimate complacence that seems to overcome us at the end of the day.

After all, we still need to eat, right? Then, once we're full, we're primed to go out and spend money again. Rage, eat, spend, repeat. That's the true capitalist spirit of Thanksgiving and Black Friday, and no movie better reflects this reality than Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

Film Lists

Your Friends Aren't Funny: Best and Worst Comedy Specials on Netflix

With Netflix green-lighting any project with shapes and colors, comedy specials range from amusing to mediocre to feeling as joyless as a DVD enthusiast.

Hannah Gadsby - Comedian

Photo by Marion Curtis (Shutterstock)

Netflix wants you to realize that you and your friends aren't funny.

With 47 new stand-up comedy specials released on New Year's Day alone, Netflix is banking on your life being so devoid of humor that you'll watch anything. As the company continues to outspend competitors like HBO and CBS, the streaming service is expected to spend $15 billion this year (up from $13 billion in 2018). While they at least do us the favor of keeping Richard Pryor: Live in Concert available to stream, they also green light any project that features shapes and colors.

Netflix's massive collection of comedy specials ranges from amusing to mediocre to feeling as joyless as a DVD enthusiast. Here are five recent specials worth your time–and five that can only be described as crimes against comedy.

1. John Mulaney - New in Town (2012) / Kid Gorgeous at Radio City (2018)

John Mulaney: The Comeback Kid | Trailer [HD] | Netflixwww.youtube.com

Of Mulaney's three specials, New in Town is required watching, partly due to his unassuming irreverence and partly due to the special's themes about alienation and social anxiety befitting a debut feature. But Kid Gorgeous at Radio City shows the former SNL-writer as a mature comic who's more stylized and practiced in his offbeat, "aw shucks" delivery.

2. Ali Wong - Baby Cobra (2016) / Hard Knock Wife (2018)

Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflixwww.youtube.com

Performing while seven months pregnant might be Wong's lucky charm. The Fresh Off the Boat-writer followed up her 2016 special, which inspired Halloween costumes riffing on her large glasses and short dress with a heavily pregnant belly, with a second feature and a second pregnancy. Hard Knock Wife delivers more of Wong's unapologetic humor, from mocking racial and gender stereotypes to comparing a new mother's v*gina to "two hanging dicks."

3. Hannah Gadsby - Nanette (2018)

Hannah Gadsby: Nanette | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflixwww.youtube.com

Gadsby's much-lauded comedy special taps into our recent interest in more empathetic stand-up. The Australian comedian unpacks queerness and gender biases by exploring her own trauma and identity conflicts–mixed with bawdy and incisive observational humor.

4. Iliza Schlesinger - Confirmed Kills (2016) / Elder Millennial (2018)

Iliza: Elder Millennial | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflixwww.youtube.com

Schlesinger's style is so consistent and performative that you forget she got her start winning the lackluster stand-up competition Last Comic Standing in 2008. She's passionate about political issues, but she's also a millennial; her social commentary combines the two in manic bits promoting feminist messages while mocking "girl culture." As a result, some of her stream-of-conscious rants are brilliant, while others make you wonder, "Is that what 'problematic' means?" Both are worth it.

5. Hari Kondabolu - Warn Your Relatives (2018)

Hari Kondabolu: Warn Your Relatives | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflixwww.youtube.com

Kondabolu is a nerd's comic. With a Masters in Human Rights from the London School of Economics, he is strikingly political, deadpan, and acerbic. If that's not to your taste, that's fine. As he self-deprecates in his set, his Indian mother doesn't get him either.

Crimes against comedy include:

1. Ken Jeong - You Complete Me, Ho (2019)

Ken Jeong: You Complete Me, Ho | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflixwww.youtube.com

He's the brilliant comedic mind that earned riotous acclaim in The Hangover in 2009 – as in, his unevolved humor is the exact same. From Asian stereotypes to dad-puns, Jeong switches from dirty jokes to praising his wife's survival of breast cancer with little to no segues.

2. Kevin James - Don't Never Give Up (2018)

Kevin James: Never Don’t Give Up | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflixwww.youtube.com

From 1998-2007, Kevin James was a popular choice for a generic sitcom oaf. Sadly, we've grown up since then. As shown by CBS's shortlived show Kevin Can Wait, which Vulture described as "exactly as awful as you imagined," James hasn't. Plus, he apparently really hates people with peanut allergies.

3. Nick Kroll and John Mulaney - Oh, Hello on Broadway (2017)

Oh, Hello Broadway | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflixwww.youtube.com

To be clear, we wanted to like this so badly. Between John Mulaney's awkward observational humor and Nick Kroll's sharp self-deprecation creating Big Mouth, there was promise in the two joining forces. If you were won over by the Kroll Show's popular Internet fodder, "Too Much Tuna," you'll probably think this special is fine.

4. Adam Sandler - 100% Fresh (2018)

ADAM SANDLER: 100% FRESH | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflixwww.youtube.com

Between 1995 and 2007, many of us grew up under the auspices of Adam Sandler's fart jokes and falsetto nonsense. It's like he's who Kevin James wanted to be. But as we came of age, we had to confront difficult realities: the Tooth Fairy isn't real, WWE wrestling is staged, and Adam Sandler isn't funny.

5. Gabriel Iglesias - One Show Fits All (2019)

Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias: One Show Fits All | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflixwww.youtube.com

Streaming anything by "Fluffy" is a waste of your bandwidth. But we have to admire him for being one of the richest yet universally unfunny comedians of our time.

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