Millennials Are Calling Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Super Offensive

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There are certain movies that are always going to be a classic and we may have watched them decades ago but we still continue to watch them over and over again. The problem is, when we do rewatch something that came out many years ago, we begin to notice some of the problem areas that may exist. Perhaps that is why people tend to complain about older movies and television shows as if we didn’t realize they were a little offensive to start out with in the first place.

When it comes to comedy, there are numerous names that may come to our mind quickly but Jim Carrey is probably at the top of the list. He is been making us laugh for many years and that includes with the movie, Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. If you are fortunate enough to remember this movie when it first came out at the theaters, it was an absolute riot to watch. The problem is, millennial’s are now taking a look at the movie with fresh eyes and they are not happy.

The problem with re-watching a movie has caused many difficulties. Sometimes, it is because the movie comes out on Netflix and it is easy pickings. This also includes television shows, such as Seinfeld and Friends. People tend to tear them apart piece by piece and it is somewhat infuriating to many of us who watched them when they were new.

When Jim Carrey played in the Ace Ventura movie, people were absolutely loving it. The story involves a missing football mascot, but it involves so much more.

Joe Rogan is a television actor and host who is known for his podcast and his stand-up comedy. He was watching the movie with his kids and thought he was watching the classic but ended up noticing some unsavory elements of Ace Ventura.

The problem that he had with the movie is how one of the characters was treated. It is Ray Finkel, the football player that was disgraced in the Super Bowl and shows up during the climax of the movie.

Ace Ventura ends up stripping her down to her underwear in front of police to prove that she was actually a man. That is when things get a little more graphic.

The police throw up, the detective freaks out and everybody is horrified at the fact that the woman is actually a man.

Admittedly, it was made to be somewhat offensive but then again, so were many things that we found funny so many years ago.

As it turns out, Rogan wasn’t the only one who found this offensive.

 

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When I was growing up, transgender women – especially transgender women of colour had next to zero positive representation in the media and there was almost no information or understanding about us. If we were portrayed on television or in films, it was solely in tragic storylines or with our gender as the punchline of a joke. As an 8 year old, I remember watching the film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, starring comedian Jim Carey, at a classmates house after school. Sorry to ruin the ending if you haven’t seen it (don’t bother), it ends in the movie’s villain being caught, stripped to her underwear and exposed as in fact ‘a man’. Then to add insult to injury, everyone in the room starts vomiting as they have all engaged in sex with her. This film was given a PG certificate. Imagine being eight years old, knowing that you’re transgender but not having the language to verbalise it and then seeing a scene like this including a trans person, played by a cis woman – it may see trivial to some but I carried that ‘punchline’ throughout my adolescence, it made me feel guilty and confused about who I truly was, so I pushed my true self into my subconscious and tried to be someone I was not. Fast forward two decades and I am so proud to be doing my bit for transgender visibility in the media. I’m by no stretch of the imagination a perfect person, but none of us are. However, I’m a whole person, with flaws, aspirations and interests. I’m often referred to a role model for the community, which annoys me because none of us need to be compared to each other. But I’m definitely down to be considered as a role option if anyone does see themselves in me or my story. Thank you L’Oréal for giving me this platform, I hope it reaches another little 8 year old trans girl and makes her feel a little more hopefull and a little less scared about her future, than what was installed in me when I was her age. The world is changing and I like how the world is changing. Because we are ALL worth it. #allworthit #yourstruly @lorealmakeup.

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Some people have also come to its defense. After all, we did laugh at it quite a lot when it first came out!

Some are even calling him an ‘attention seeker’.

Funny is funny, and funny is in the eye of the beholder. I’ll keep on laughing at the movie and you can save the bandwidth for me.