The Torments of Fame

This week, my blog post is on a new Netflix Original, A Futile and Stupid Gesture. This is a story about how two Harvard graduates created the National Lampoon Magazine and the iconic movies: Animal House and Caddyshack. Though it is about both co-founders, it mostly follows Doug Kenny. They go through many different tribulations during the creation of the magazine, from their first employee firings, conflicting interests, SNL, drug abuse, outside relationships, and too much success. The biggest challenge that Doug personally faces is that he is caught cheating on his wife with his secretary. The stress becomes to much for him so he takes a three month break with the magazine, leaving his co-founder and best friend Henry to deal with everything involved with the magazine. Something good does come out of his little hiatus though. The most popular rendition of the Lampoon, The High School Year Book. But, with all good things that happen in this story, a bad follows. Right after the issues sold its millionth copy, Henry quit the Lampoon.

Along with the occasional problem, there is also a constant, Doug’s parents. They have no respect for his work and never have given him any of the respect that he deserved after his older brother died of kidney failure. He even begins trying to buy their respect with a house and a car. Even after creating Animal House, the most influential and most popular comedy movie ever made, their respect still did come.

A Futile and Stupid Gesture is all about what success can do to you if you are overtaken by it. In the conclusion of the film, Doug is stressed about the creation of Caddyshack and his relation with his current girlfriend Kathryn. (This is public knowledge so I do not see it as a spoiler to the end of the film) Doug Kenny tragically committed suicide because of all of the stress he was enduring, and at his funeral the was a food fight in his memory.