To some people, October 13th of last year was a very special day. Seth Rogen, James Gandolfini, and Anna Faris won awards for their excellent performances in films and television shows last year. What did each of them win? An actual, functioning bong, no joke. This was the 7th Annual Stony Awards, an award show made by stoners (specifically the creators of High Times magazine) to reward the best stoner movies and television shows of the year. Man, those stoners have come a long way.
Whether you like it or not, stoner movies have now become a cult phenomenon. Beginning with the Cheech and Chong franchise and now continuing with the Harold and Kumar franchise, the new Judd Apatow movie coming out called Pineapple Express (the title is in reference to the name of the weed the main characters smoke throughout the movie) and that is just naming a few.
But how are these stoner movies hits when, according to Entertainment Weekly, the first Harold and Kumar only made a mere $18.2 million at the box office, less than Transformers made in a day. So $18.2 million generates a sequel? Well, no. Harold and Kumar did make only $18.2 million at the box office, but their DVD sales grossed more than $60 million. This is coming from a movie that's budget was a mere $9 million. So these movies are actually making mad money. This money-making concept goes for all the other stoner movies like Super Troopers and Half Baked. Maybe the audience (mostly stoners, of course) are too lazy to go to the movies to see the films because they are so stoned all the time that they just wait for the films to come out on DVD. Because of this new cash crop in Hollywood stoner movies are slowly starting to weave themselves into the mainstream and selling themselves as major studio comedies.
This summer is packed with stoner-riffic movies from Harold and Kumar 2: Escape from Guantanamo Bay, to the highly anticipated stoner-action movie Pineapple Express, to even a documentary called Super High Me which is a twist on the McDonald's doc only replacing Quarter Pounders and McGriddles with – you guess it – marijuana. Even Sir Ben Kingsley tokes up in a Sundance award winning movie called The Wackness.
And you don't have to be a stoner to like stoner movies. A sophomore year student at Rutgers who is self-proclaimed as "straight-edge" really enjoys them, "They all play on the stereotypes that we all know and find funny. I'd like to think there's a point to their movies, not just smoking pot."
A high school stoner agrees, "I like them a lot. I think people our age can some-what relate to them, in the type of society we've grown up in and the stereotypes we've seen."
Though many people see a downside to the stoner movies, saying that they are bad influences on kids that sneak into these R-rated films and that they might start up a little puff-puff-pass themselves. The high school stoner is on the see-saw with this concept: "If they see it on television they see it as acceptable. But then again, kid's guardians should really be keeping an eye on their children [with] what they do, who they hang out with, and what they see."
A straight-edger from Columbia College in Chicago vehemently disagrees, "Even without these movies, people are still going to do these things. Parents just need someone to blame. If their kid's screw up, its not the kid's fault it is [the] media's fault. If your high schooler is going to parties getting wasted it is not because they watch Superbad, it's because you (the parent) didn't bother to check to see where your child was all afternoon!"
A mother of a Marymount Manhattan College student who thinks stoner movies "are all the same" defends herself and fellow parents, "It's not the parents'. It's an individual's choice. I think society and peer pressure affects it, but not just from watching a movie either. Even if a parent is strict it doesn't mean that the child isn't going to stray."
But to say all stoners movies are "all the same" nowadays is like saying all superhero movies are all the same. Yes, they started out all the same but that's pretty much because the only stoner movies from the 70's to the 80's for the most part were just Cheech and Chong movies and they were for the most part about just smoking. Take Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke the whole plot is about the two of them unintentionally smuggling a van of weed (literally made of weed) into the United States. Not really much there. But nowadays, yes they still have the same concept: it's usually two or more twenty-something men smoking pot but while doing this an obscure plot develops. For instance, in the original Harold and Kumar it begins with them smoking then getting a craving for White Castle and it turns out they go on this whole journey to get to a White Castle. Harold and Kumar go from riding a cheetah that escaped from the zoo to Harold getting arrested to Neil Patrick Harris stealing Harold's car. Nowadays stoner movies are not always just about weed. The movies usually start out with some weed and then branch out into some crazy adventure.
Stoner movies also helped start-up or reboot actor's careers. Take Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure they started out as stoners now look at them -- A-list stars! Penn is even an Academy Award winner. And Neil Patrick Harris playing himself (but definitely not the "real" him) as a womanizer tripping on ecstasy and cocaine basically got him new-found fame and a role on the television show How I Met Your Mother.
But although these movies have cult followings that maybe be what's holding the genre back. Even though they kill at DVD sales the stoner movies must do at least "okay" at the box office. Which means stoners have to go to the movies to see their movies if they want them to continue being made. Though, considering the sequel to Harold and Kumar cashed in $14.9 million opening weekend and now earned $25.4 million which is more than the first one even grossed worldwide. So it looks like stoners may finally be hearing the message…and slowly putting down their bongs, getting off their couches and going to the movies. So it doesn't look like the stoner movie genre will be ending anytime soon.
