In my “Pop Psychology” column this week, I discussed Ron Howard’s new comedy “The Dilemma,” in which Vince Vaughn’s character must decide what to do when he catches the wife of his best friend making out with a heavily tattooed Channing Tatum. But the dilemma for audiences was whether to see the movie at all, and it seems that most people decided not to – it’s grossed only $25 million since it hit theaters on Jan. 14.
My guess is that has a lot to do with the film’s teaser trailer, in which Vaughn’s character joked about electric cars being “gay.” An interesting fact about that trailer: It’s relatively difficult to find on YouTube. But I did find it here, and that controversial quip is right at the beginning: “”:http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/2010/10/the-dilemma-trailer-pulled-due-to-gay-joke.
Anderson Cooper, it turns out, thought the scene was offensive. Vaughn and Howard both defended it publicly, although of course it’s their movie. There’s not much they can do, though, when their film is so hard to define and so weakly titled that the very minor scandal surrounding the teaser trailer dominated the entire narrative about “The Dilemma.” It’s a shame, really, because it’s quite a good movie.