Entertainment

Ferrell, Hart Defend ‘Get Hard’ After a Jolt of Criticism

Published

11 years ago

March 25, 2015

In this image released by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Kevin Hart, right, and Will Ferrell appear in a scene from “Get Hard.” (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Patti Perret)

JAKE COYLE, Associated Press
MICHAEL CIDONI LENNOX, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — In the annals of film festival flops — from unexpected boos to red-carpet gaffes — the premiere of the Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart comedy “Get Hard” will go down as a doozy.

After the film premiered last week at the South By Southwest Film Festival, during a Q&A with director Etan Cohen, an audience member voiced not so much a question as a harsh judgment. “This film seems racist,” he said, using an expletive. Another audience member also asked if the film, about a hedge fund manager (Ferrell) who witlessly hires a law-abiding acquaintance (Hart) to prepare him for maximum security prison after being sentenced for fraud, was perpetuating stereotypes.

That sound you might have heard emanating from Austin was the loud cursing of marketing executives for the film, which opens Friday.

Though film festival Q&As are often filled with questionable observations, these atypically blunt rebukes received outsized attention, drawing headlines from The Los Angeles Times and others. The damage continued with early reviews that also questioned the movie’s handling of homosexuality in various scenes.

Much of the film’s comedy rests on the Ferrell character’s fears of being raped in prison, and among his preparations is an attempt to have oral sex with a gay man in a bathroom stall. A critic for The Guardian wrote that future viewers “will be astonished that such a negative portrayal of homosexuality persisted in the mainstream in 2015.” Variety wrote that the film was “undone by some of the ugliest gay-panic humor to befoul a studio release in recent memory.”

After initially seeking to avoid the controversy (Cohen, Ferrell and Hart cancelled interviews with The Associated Press before Ferrell and Hart rescheduled them), the film’s stars and producers are vigorously defending their comedy as not a representation of stereotypes but a satire of them.

“Any time you’re going to do an R-rated comedy, you’re going to offend someone,” said Ferrell in an interview alongside Hart. He continued: “But that’s kind of what we do. We provoke. We prod. We also show a mirror to what’s already existing out there. We’re playing fictitious characters who are articulating some of the attitudes and misconceptions that already exist.”

“Get Hard” was written by Cohen along with Jay Martel and Ian Roberts, writing-producers from the sketch comedy show “Key and Peele.” This is Cohen’s directorial debut after penning screenplays to films like “Idiocracy” and “Tropic Thunder,” a film that memorably flirted with racially sensitive territory in Robert Downey Jr.’s lampoon, in black face, of a Method actor run amok.

In many ways, the comedy of “Get Hard” works similarly. Just as the humor of Downey’s actor wasn’t in his favor but about his own self-obsessive, racist delusions, Ferrell’s character is a parody of the narrow perspective of the elitist one percent. He hires Hart’s carwash owner and family man under the mistaken presumption that he’s been to prison, that he’s “hard.”

“You’re looking at two characters that judged each other by their cover,” said Hart. “And after peeling off some of the layers to their onion, they realize that, ‘Oh my God, this isn’t the person I thought it was from the jump. It’s a completely different person.’ And that road to friendship ensues.”

“Get Hard” was conceived as a way to pair Hart and Ferrell, two of the most popular and bankable stars in comedy. Whether the film succeeds on its own terms or not, it’s an attempt (one generally uncommon in wide-release studio films) to comment on contemporary issues of inequality and race within the context of a broad, often crude comedy.

Adam McKay, Ferrell’s longtime collaborator and a producer of “Get Hard,” said any backlash has been overinflated by “lazy journalism.”

“Given that we’re a country with runaway income inequality, more people in jail than any other country, this is what people are crowing about? Trying to in a funny way deal with these issues?” said McKay in a phone interview with fellow producer Chris Henchy. “It really kind of got me mad. It’s just cheap is what it is.”

McKay said the film was fashioned as “a silly, filthy comedy” on the outside, but a satire of income inequality underneath. Seeing the film as racist, he says, is “kind of ridiculous and disheartening,” since its intention is to parody those who live in bubbles of wealth and prejudice. To claims of homophobia he protested: “Any individual going to maximum security prison would be afraid of violence and sexual assault. To equate that with homosexuality is ridiculous.”

Others have agreed, albeit more skeptically. In reviewing the movie for Vanity Fair, Eric D. Snider wrote that the film wasn’t offensive to him as a homosexual; it’s just not funny enough.

“It’s not mean-spirited, and it’s panicky straight guys, not gays, who are the target,” wrote Snider. “It’s just disappointing, that’s all.”

Any bad buzz for “Get Hard” has likely been partially alleviated by the goodwill both Ferrell and Hart have in storage, as well as the distraction of Ferrell’s dependably entertaining late-night appearances. The NAACP and GLAAD have not commented on the film.

“Here’s the beautiful thing about Will and myself: You’re looking at two guys that are no strangers to criticism,” said Hart. “The critic’s job is to critique. I don’t think I’ve ever had a great review on a film that I’ve done. Not one. Everybody always has had something to say. And if they’re not talking, then you have a problem.”

Whether the talking around “Get Hard” will affect it at the box office remains to be seen.

“People will go see it and there probably will be some people who are offended. It’s definitely a very dirty movie and it’s harsh,” says McKay. “It’s a good-hearted movie at its root. Everything comes out in the wash with movies because they hang around for, like 78 years. You always end up seeing what a movie really is in the long run.”

___

Lennox reported from Los Angeles.

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Arts and Culture

IN MEMORIAM: Oakland Dance Legend Reginald Ray-Savage, 67

Savage lived his life as tribute to the teachers who had shared their wisdom on art and life with him. With a palpably genuine enthusiasm and desire to bring out the best in people, and pass the torch to the next generation, he poured into his students, as his teachers and mentors had into him. His infectious energy, love of life, and generosity of spirit inspired countless souls, both inside and outside the dance studio.

Published

1 week ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Reginald Ray-Savage brought the old-school teaching techniques he learned in the Katherine Dunham Dance Company to the youth at the Oakland School for the Arts in 2003. Courtesy photo.

Special to The Post

Reginald Ray-Savage – dancer, choreographer, and beloved teacher, mentor, and inspiration to many – passed away on May 17. The Oakland School for the Arts dance instructor was 67.

Born Reginald Ray, Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri, on Sept. 5, 1958, he formally adopted the name ‘Savage,’ to honor the great Archie Savage, his mentor at Katherine Dunham’s Performing Arts Training Center where his dance training journey began in East St. Louis, Illinois.

He soon started dancing professionally with Katherine Dunham Dance Company, making dance a way of life. His grit, tenacity, and notorious work ethic brought him scholarships to train at multiple prestigious dance institutions, including The Ailey School (NYC) and Ruth Page School of Dance (Chicago), under the direction of acclaimed ballet instructor Larry Long and Dolores Lipinski-Long.

He danced with several companies including Joel Hall Dance Company, Ruth Page Ballet Chicago, Lyric Opera, Chicago City Ballet, American Festival Ballet, and touring productions of “Music Man” and “A Chorus Line”.

In 1989, Savage moved to Oakland where he started teaching seven days a week, amassing a devoted following that was attracted to his no-nonsense, impassioned, and effective old-school teaching style.

In 1992, at the insistence of his committed core of students, he founded Savage Jazz Dance Company (SJDC). Over a span of 30 years, Savage produced more than 100 original works, and tour SJDC nationally and internationally, performing at Casa del Jazz in Rome to a packed house and rave reviews—the first dance company to receive such an invitation.

Savage built SJDC into one of the Bay Area’s most respected dance companies, creating a signature style known for its combination of disciplined training, blended with rich artistic musical expression, and raw energy.

In 2003, Savage joined the Oakland School for the Arts as chair of the School of Dance. Over the next two decades, he created, built, and maintained a strong dance program, recognized, and respected by other dance institutions for forging well-trained and resilient dancers and human beings.

The depth of Savage’s tough love and care, and the skill of his teaching and mentoring are reflected in the careers of his students who have gone on to dance with the San Francisco Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, Mark Morris Dance Group, Janet Jackson, Ariana Grande, and companies across the globe.

Mark Kitaoka, a photographer hired by Savage in 2016, posted a living eulogy on the dance instructor.

“When I see the self-pride he builds in his students I am constantly impressed that people like Savage still exist in our ‘meme’ society,” Kitaoka wrote. “The kids he mentors are fiercely loyal to one another and I’m certain his methods teach each of those kids to put aside social status, race and gender and is replaced by solid loyalty for other souls.

“What Savage contributes to our world cannot be completely summed up in a few meager paragraphs but can be seen in the countless lives of those he has touched. Because of him, our world, and the world of the future is both a richer and better place.

Reginald Ray-Savage will forever be missed, remembered, and lovingly quoted. He is survived by his beloved wife, Alison Hurley, his sister, Sonia, and his brothers, Pierre, and Andre. May his inextinguishable spirit and impact live on in all the lives he touched.

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Oakland Post: Week of June 17 – 23, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 17 – 23, 2026

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June 20, 2026

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Books

Book Review: Something We Said: Richard Pryor, A Notorious Word, and Me

Though sticks and stones and words are weapons, as in the new memoir, “Something We Said” by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, they can also hold people together.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 17, 2026

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By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, Copyright: c.2026, Publisher: Simon & Schuster, SRP: $29.00, Page Count: 304 pages

Sticks and stones may break my bones.

You know the rest of that childhood rhyme, and you know it’s not true: words have meaning, and they can cut like a knife. And yet, though sticks and stones and words are weapons, as in the new memoir, “Something We Said” by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, they can also hold people together.

The college lecture was supposed to have been about the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

It was supposed to be a lively discussion, but unintentionally it quickly veered off course. When a White student quoted a movie line featuring the “n-word,” the room went quiet, and Professor Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor panicked.

She’d grown up hearing that word, and seeing it, and she’d experienced the painful feelings attached to it. She knew who wrote that movie line. It was her father, Richard Pryor.

In her first few years, Pryor spent most of her time in a White world, hearing her mother’s tales of her larger-than-life father, and trying to grasp meaning in her father’s albums, peppered as they were with a word that was off-limits to her.

When she was six, she met her father for the first time. She began to visit him regularly.

It was fun at her Dad’s house; though he was sometimes moody, he taught her to fish and play dominoes. She became close with her siblings, fearful of her great-grandmother, and confused about a word that her father’s uncles threw around like a beach ball. It was a forbidden word at her mother’s house, but her father used it. Differently. Often.

The word hurt. She knew first-hand that it did.

“The word became a degrading slur that shackled all Black people together into a single, inescapable tribe,” she says.

So why was it okay for certain people to say it?

Knowing that, in the years since Richard Pryor’s accident and his death from multiple sclerosis, he’s become somewhat of a legend. It is a very satisfying thing, isn’t it? So is reading about him, especially from the viewpoint of one of his seven children. But his is not the only story you get inside “Something We Said.”

Wrapped around the life of Richard Pryor is the life of a word that straddles a line between danger and provocation, a word that author Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor refuses to say or even print. As she tells readers about her father and her loving-but-difficult relationship with him, she warily circles that word, as if it might bite. You may cringe, but she weighs it carefully, helping readers see it as a chameleon before always bringing us back to her father, his work, and his life before and after her and that word.

It’s a push-pull balance that holds readers fast, and keeps them there. It’s perfect for fans of this genre, or Richard Pryor, or of language – and it’s going to make you think. If you want a good memoir this week, one that may send you to your old album collection, “Something We Said” is rock-solid.