20 years of ‘Zoolander’, the comedy that divided the fashion world
Zoolander came to our lives 20 years ago.Or, rather, that he reached the screens, because in our lives he would end up landing years later, more or less randomly and after unnoticed in his premiere on the billboard.The comedy directed, written and starring Ben Stiller, who gave life to the as alelated model Derek Zoolander, reached the status of cult film for his conjugation of the most absurd humor with a claimed reflection on superficiality, snobbery and vanitytraditionally associated with the fashion industry.A sector that first closed all its doors, but that would end up feeling recognized in front of that satirical mirror when its most influential and respected voice, Anna Wintour, decided that this joke had its grace.
Ben Stiller, like Zoolander, ‘sneaking’ on the red carpet of the Vogue Fashion Awards of the year 2000.Photo: Getty
To find the germ of the film you have to go back until 1996.On the occasion of the Fashion Awards of the VH1 television channel, Stiller got for the first time in the skin of a model in a short film broadcast during the ceremony during the ceremony.The actor, a fashionable boy in Hollywood at the beginning of the century after the successes of something happens with Mary and her parents, then decided to develop in a feature film the story of that mannequin in low hours - whose name is inspired by Mark Vanderloo's- that parodied the growing media boom of the top models.But parodies froze their smile.“I remember that people in the fashion world did not want to have anything to do with us.VH1's short does not like it too much in the industry.I went to see many designers trying to get the costumes and none was interested in working with us, ”he says in the American edition of Vanity Fair the movie figurine.Robinson.
However, the perception of the industry regarding Zoolander changed when its oracle for Antonomasia, the editor of Vogue Anna Wintour magazine, decided to become a strong defender of the project, exercise as a consultant and give all possible support after bambalins.It was even she who gave the green light to allow them to roll the scenes that open the movie in the Vogue Fashion Awards.“Anna Wintour loved the character and it was a lot, a lot of help.I think, for some reason, people ended up hugging the idea because it was a time when fashion was beginning to become an important part of pop culture, ”Stiller revealed to the same publication.
Such was the skepticism in the Hollywood mentisers with respect to the commercial viability of the comedy that its protagonist was forced to hire what was then his partner, Christine Taylor, to give life to the character of Matilda, the investigative journalistthat falls to the charms of the mannequin.The first options, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kate Hudson, had declined the invitation.In Stiller's words, he only felt that his movie "was legitimate" after getting Milla Jovovich, who had successfully traveled between cinema and fashion, joined her.
Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson paraded by surprise at the 2015 Valentino parade.Photo: Getty
Released on September 28, 2001, satire ran into the majority rejection of an audience that, still immersed in the trauma of the September 11 attacks, did not look at the eye to endure blue steel poses."It was a very difficult time for comedy.Laughing could have been a remedy at that time, but the truth is that people were not prepared, ”said Christine Taylor to Esquire magazine.Nor was the criticism, which crushed without regard a qualified parody of "ridiculous" and "absurd".Despite the investment made in marketing and the positive tests with the public in the previous passes, which anticipated an almost certain success, the comedy could not reverse the socio -political climate.“Lately, articles have been published that wonder why they hate the United States in some parts of the world.As the first evidence, from Hollywood, I propose Zolander, ”wrote the mythical Roger Ebert, who would apologize years later for his comment.
After the 11-S, Stiller was criticized by digitally erasering the twin towers of some scenes-"the people who chooseSingapore or Malaysia.Its premiere in the Asian country was qualified as "inadequate" by censors taking into account that the plot is about the attempt to murder its prime minister at the hands of Zoolander.But not only the political climate influenced its performance.The writer Bret Easton Ellis threatened to denounce the producers for the multiple similarities with his novel Glamorama (published three years earlier), which tells the story of a group of famous models who also work as international terrorists.
His passage through the box office resulted in just 10% of the collection that other comedies - more classic - of the actor, such as his parents of his.It was over the years, its DVD launch and television repositions, when viewers gave it the opportunity previously denied and achieved its incunable work status.“It's the best film that has been made about the fashion world.I am obsessed with her.If I'm honest, I think it's my favorite movie of all time, ”he wrote in 2007 a young editor for stardom, called Hadley Freeman, who ratified that there was no better plan to celebrate the end of the year than to see Zoland.
The proof of its privileged position in pop culture is that, when the production of a sequel was announced, more than thirty stars were put in line to get their cameo in the film.Both fashion world figures (Anna Wintour, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell or Marc Jacobs) and the Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian or Miley Cyrus on duty, begged their creators so that at least they would let them appear sitting in the front Row.A situation diametrically opposed to the origin.The solution?Take a camera to the red carpet and ask actresses like Natalie Portman to say how attractive fiction model seemed.Despite the luster of his cameos, Zoolander 2 was even more beaten by critics and the public than the original film.
Milla Jovovich and Will Ferrell played the villain couple of Zoolander.Photo: Paramount Pictures
One of the few who refused to participate in the sequel of 2016 was Karl Lagerfeld, a chronic haatering teacher long before Twitter appearance.“They wanted me to be in the movie.But I don't want to be in the movie! ”He confessed with his characteristic temperament to the Canadian edition of Hola magazine.The designer shared his disgust with the surprise appearance of Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson - who gives life to the Hansel model - during the Valentino parade in the 2015 Paris Fashion Week, taking all the headlines of the day in the press anddulling the presentation of his collection for Chanel."I didn't like anything," he added about the marketing operation.Perhaps it also had to do with his refusal the fact that, in the plot of the first film they suggested that Lagerfeld was one of the figures of the industry that conspired so that Zoolander ended the life of the Prime Minister of Malaysia thus avoiding that he gotThe abolition of child labor.
For Justin Theroux, actor and screenwriter of the sequel, it is precisely the egos so hypertrophied of the fashion world that prevented their representatives from feeling injured by parody.“The good thing about all this is that the people we are ever satirizing.People told me, ‘Oh, that is a great mockery of Fulanito about such’, and I was thinking, ‘but it's you!”, I evoked in The Telegraph.
Etiquetas: Cine|Moda|Modelos|Películas
