Will Ferrell Predicted Our Miserable Manosphere Future, Says Judd Apatow

Who knew 2004’s Anchorman would be a glimpse into our current-day manosphere dystopia?

Judd Apatow discussed the Will Ferrell comic archetype in movies like Anchorman with Tom Papa on the Breaking Bread podcast earlier this month. “Will and Adam (McKay) just had a magical chemistry,” he said. “Just completely in tune to each other's sense of humor and why they find things funny. I mean, a lot of these movies are about arrogant, dangerous, dumb men, right?”

Anchorman’s supporting players, cocksure dudes like investigative reporter Brian Fantana and sportscaster Champ Kind, were just as arrogant and dangerous. In the case of Steve Carell’s dimbulb weatherman Brick Tamland, he was considerably dumber. In the world of Anchorman, anyone with a penis was an overconfident ignoramus. 

“What's interesting as you look back now — we shot Anchorman in 2003, came out in 2004 — I think they really anticipated a lot of what's happening in the country. They were talking about it in metaphors and in these movies like Talladega Nights.”

Ferrell had the formula down, killing at the box office with cocky man-children like Ricky Bobby, Ron Burgundy and Step Brothers’ Brennan Huff. The comedies were “about guys who really think they're the shit, who are just going to destroy things for everybody else and who don't realize how awful they're being,” said Apatow.

Those characters anticipated some of the loudest and most influential voices in the last presidential election, comic loudmouths who were not particularly thoughtful about expressing extremely confident political opinions. Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Andrew Schulz, Tim Dillon and Tony Hinchcliffe are all 2000s Will Ferrell characters come to life. Some of them, like Rogan and Schulz, have expressed regret about sounding off without thinking things through.

McKay continues to be fascinated by clueless loudmouths, currently working as an executive producer on Tim Robinson’s The Chair Company. Robinson “is kind of a new Will,” observed Papa. “It's another almost hyper version of what you just explained, like that male just screaming. It's like stupid to another level.”