Basement Whatever

This author seems to think so, and after reading it I’m inclined to agree. I just rewatched Billy Madison, and let me tell you, there is a lot that doesn’t add up when you rewatch it as an adult. A quick primer: Billy Madison spends his days in perpetual drunk adolescence, the spoiled son of a hotel magnate who presides over a company with 61,000 jobs. When the hotel magnate makes the decision to hand over the CEO reigns to his VP, Billy Madison issues a challenge to his father: If Billy completes grades 1-12 in 24 weeks, then his father will give him control over the company.

Some points to consider:

• The “villain” is the logical fit for the CEO role and very experienced (20+ years at the company), and therefore would be a much better caretaker of the 61,000 jobs than Billy Madison. Why is he the bad guy? The villain is bad because he is not the protagonist.
• Veronica Vaughn falls in love with Billy for no apparent reason. It can reasonably be concluded that she only falls in love with Billy Madison because Billy Madison is the film’s protagonist.
• Billy Madison is, on balance, not a great person. He is irresponsible, and really only has one, very small moment of redemption. He is only good because he is the protagonist.

Creating a comedy parody is hard. Not many people have done it, so we don’t have many examples to compare. But it does seem like Billy Madison is lampooning the idea in most comedies that the protagonist is the good guy who deserves to be right, simply by being the protagonist.

The central goal of Sandler, Herlihy, and director Tamra Davis in making Billy Madison in the way they did seems to be the complete and utter subversion of the idea of a lovable oddball triumphing over the odds.

Billy Madison is still funny. In fact, it’s funnier than I remembered, even though Adam Sandler makes it clear that it would be completely illogical if Billy Madison gets the company and treats him as the hero anyways.

It’s not easy to write comedy parodies. In fact, it’s done so rarely that we don’t have good experience for recognizing it when it happens. If Adam Sandler wrote Billy Madison as parody, he’s operating on a higher level than he let on. More here.