Are Steve Carell and Paul Rudd Schmucks?
Paul Rudd and Steve Carell will be united once again in bro-mance in the upcoming “Dinner for Schmucks,” due out this July, according to an article in yesterday’s New York Times.
The movie, which will be directed by Jay Roach of “Meet the Fockers” and “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” is inspired by the 1998 French film “Le Diner de Cons” (essentially, “The Dinner for Assholes”). It follows the unlikely friendship between Rudd, an executive who nearly has it all, and Carell, an eccentric and clumsy IRS employee who creates dead mice dioramas for fun. Rudd plans to bring Carell to his boss’s annual “Dinner for Extraordinary People,” where the employee who brings the lamest and strangest guest to dinner is rewarded at the office.
But the movie’s title, which uses the a word more likely to be seen “Yiddish Sayings Mama Never Taught You” than in Leo Rosten’s famous “The Joys of Yiddish,” has put some writers and editors at the country’s most esteemed — and perhaps proper — paper in an in awkward positions. Resulting in a serious and utterly ironic attempt to penetrate the true meaning of the title, and whether or not it’s appropriate:
“Those familiar with Yiddish, polite and otherwise, will recognize a rude term that — in one of its several layers of meaning — denotes the penis,” Michael Cieply wrote in the Times article. He added: “Delve a little deeper and you also find the German term for ‘decoration,’ from the Middle High German ‘smucken,’ meaning ‘to press into.’”
The Times goes on to give a history of the word and to quote a film critic who suggests what she feels are more appropriate titles, like “Dinner for Schlemiels.”
Either way, we’re looking forward to watching Carell and Rudd act like schmucks on screen, because they do it oh so well.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
