Run Burgundy is back!

Run Burgundy is back!

For the final blog I have decided to Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. I’m pretty sure many of you guys have already at least watched the first Anchorman. This sequel pretty much follows the same story line with the addition of some different characters. In Anchorman 2, Ron Burgundy (Will Farrell) is leaving in New York with his wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) and son. After some time working at the news station, Veronica is promoted and the promotion makes her the first female full time news anchor, while Ron is fired for his poor performance as anchor. Desperate with this decision from their boss, he decided that would be better to leave his wife and go back to San Diego. Right after, Ron gets a proposal from one of the producers of GNN to be apart of the first 24-hour new network, Ron accepts the offer and goes in a quest to gather his old friends; Brian Fantana, Champ Kind and Brick Tamland. The sequel is also direct by Adam Mckay and Will Farrell.

As you can see the movie received a grade of 4, which is equivalent to a C. Since it is a comedy I think this movie represents and does a very good job in stereotyping most of the people and identities that are showed in the movie. Even though I think the first movie was way better and funnier Anchorman 2 also makes you give some good laughs. Lets brake down the movie according to the representation test and detail more each section.

Women

For the sequel I would say that we have a strong presence of women and one of the main character being a black woman; Linda Jackson, however, we can see a lot of racial and stereotypical comments towards her in the beginning. I could have Linda and Veronica as protagonists but unfortunately I don't think they play a rule to could lead them to be awarded as protagonists since many of the movie is more focused on Ron and his crew ascension.

However, in some scenes the women are being portrayed as inferior and not being good enough, we can notice this in the first scene when Veronica is promoted and when Linda Jackson is mad at Ron for reporting something that is not considered news, Champ Kind says; “Ron, just do what men have been doing for a thousand of years and punch the woman, punch her, punch the woman!” this once again show the stereotype towards women being inferior to men and that is perfectly normal to beat women since men have being doing it forever. Nevertheless, the movie even though the movie does not show diverse body types of women, I don’t think it reinforces that women should be from a certain way, since it presents some women that could be considered misfit.

Men

I think as expected I think we can see a strong presence of men on this movie. Most of the main characters are men and the story is pretty much around them, from their fall to their ascension. However, we can see that men are presented in many different ways and from perfect looking good men to idiotic misfit and not so conventional type of men.

Race, Ethnicity and Culture

In this section I think is where the movie emphasizes a lot it genre and making a lot of jokes for the different races and cultures. Therefore, I don’t think it would have a check mark in avoiding celebrating racial, ethnic and cultural stereotypes. We can see the many scenes and jokes where toward race and cultural differences. One of the scenes is mocking the Australian accent, you can see below.

Also, we can see all the possible stereotypes towards black people in the dinner scene. Actually, I think that was one of the most funniest and best scenes of the movie even though Ron is just being Ron and making the most inconvenient comments and accent in a dinner like that, Linda tried to cut him off many times but it just didn't work.

These are not the only scenes that we can notice this pattern, however, since it is a comedy I guess we don’t have to take it very seriously, but it definitely shows what many people think and how certain races and cultures are portrayed.

LGBT People

In this matter I don’t think this movie even touches on it. At least I didn’t notice a joke about it. That’s why it couldn’t have any marks or points for it.

People with Disabilities

In this movie we don’t have a protagonist that has any kind of disability, however, we can see that in some point Ron becomes blind because Jack Lime. Nevertheless, while he is blind we can see how blind people a portrayed in this movie. As you can see we can interpreter that blind people are pretty much incapable of doing anything, which is not true. In some point it gives us the sensation that blind people are dumb or incapable of performing any kind of demanding task. However, as the movie goes Ron as blind with the help of his wife was able to do things better, which could mean that even blind people don’t have the necessary skills they can learn or improve in order to do well. You can see one of the scenes below.

To conclude, since the movie didn’t score so well in the Representation Test I would like to give it a two directors cut. Even though the first one seemed to be better, the sequel is not too bad, is definitely worth watching. At the end of the day is just a comedy and everything is done in a funny way, the jokes are always attacking or mucking a certain race or culture and many of the scene stereotyping in a way that this group is seen, even though might not be the case in some times.