Bringing Down the House and Iraq

Bringing Down the House, the 2003 film starring Steve Martin and Queen Latifah, was #1 at the box office for three straight weekends.  Its final domestic gross was $132,716,677.  It was a definite hit, and I've always wondered how much of its success was attributable to that random joke in the trailer where the kid goes, "Dad, what's a rack?" and Steve Martin's character responds, "It's a country."

No, I'm being serious.  The movie was released on March 7th, about a week before the invasion of Iraq.  So the joke was weirdly topical, but not political.  If you wanted an escape from the stresses of the world, you could rest assured Bringing Down the House would ONLY mention Iraq in the context of a sexual pun.

Tomorrow, I'm going to investigate how much of the success of Bad Teacher was attributable to that joke in the trailer about LeBron James.