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6[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/theres_something_about_mary_1431.jpg]]
7
8->''"His friends would stay stop whining, they've had enough of that\
9His friends would say stop pining, there's other girls to look at\
10They tried to set him up with Tiffany and Indigo...\
11But [[TitleDrop there's something about Mary]] that they don't know..."''
12-->-- '''Music/JonathanRichman'''
13
14''There's Something About Mary'' is a 1998 romantic comedy film, directed by the Farrelly Brothers and starring Creator/CameronDiaz, Creator/MattDillon and Creator/BenStiller.
15
16The story begins in 1985, as awkward and shy high-schooler Ted (Stiller) lands a Prom date with his dream girl Mary (Diaz), only to have it cut short by a [[VulgarHumor painfully humiliating zipper accident]].
17
18Thirteen years later, Ted is still in love — [[StalkingIsLove maybe even obsessed]] — with her. On the advice of his best friend Dom (Creator/ChrisElliott), he hires sleazy private detective Pat Healy (Dillon) to track her down. Healy finds that she’s an orthopedic surgeon living in Miami but falls in love with the irresistible Mary as well. As the film progresses, Ted and Pat compete for her affections as the roster of other suitors rapidly snowballs.
19
20Among the supporting players are Creator/MarkiePost as Mary's mother, Creator/KeithDavid as her stepdad, Creator/WEarlBrown as her mentally-challenged brother, Creator/JeffreyTambor as Healy's even sleazier friend, and a young Creator/SarahSilverman as one of Mary's friends in Florida.
21
22----
23!!This film contains examples of:
24
25* EightiesHair: Almost everyone in the prologue has massive hair. Ted's chiropractor, who is bald in the nineties, has long long hair.
26* AbhorrentAdmirer: The film does the male version with Chris Elliott's character, since he erupts into grotesque boils when he finally confronts the eponymous Mary. However, as befits the usual gendering of this trope, Chris Elliott's character already has an attractive, entirely subservient wife who does things like spontaneously bake him cookies and give him blowjobs while he watches football. ("Keep your head down, honey!")
27* ArtisticLicenseMedicine: Ted's chiropractor says that Ted has "tender fascial tissue left of L7". There are only 5 lumbar vertebrae (L1-L5), not 7.
28* AttemptedRape: Subverted at the end of the film. It sounds like Woogie is trying to rape Mary, but he's only trying to steal her shoes.
29* BerserkButton:
30** ''Never'' mess with Warren's ears.
31** The [[HostileHitchhiker murderous hitchhiker]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2di69FmhE goes off on an enraged tirade]] (and [[DisproportionateRetribution gets ready to kill Ted]], which the latter luckily dodged by answering the call of nature) after Ted hears the hitchhiker's idea for a "7-Minute Abs" exercise program and asks what if a competitor comes along and starts selling a "6-Minute Abs" program?
32* BewareTheNiceOnes: Mary is rather upset and give Ted a well deserved TheReasonYouSuck speech when she finds out he's been stalking her for so long.
33* BigBad: Woogie, Mary's high-school ex who has been pining for her for over a decade.
34* BluffTheEavesdropper: Pat realizes that Mary's neighbor is intercepting his cell phone calls, so he fakes a conversation with a friend about his work with impoverished African children and just generally making him look like the greatest guy on Earth.
35* BluffTheImpostor: Pat, impersonating an architect, meets Mary's friend Tucker, [[IAmOneOfThoseToo also an architect]], who immediately starts grilling him about his work. Eventually it's revealed that Tucker is also an impostor, and that he had pegged Pat as another fake and was trying to catch him in a lie.
36* BracesOfOrthodonticOverkill: There's no parts that stick out of 1985 Ted's mouth or around his head, but it's still a pretty sizable set even for the 1980's.
37* BreakingTheFourthWall: An interesting version at the very end. [[spoiler: At the end Seabass reveals that he was only having sex with Magda to get to Mary, and shoots at Ted, hitting one of the GreekChorus members instead, thus bringing them into the movie proper instead of them just being inframe narrators. Of course it's the final scene in a comedy and for the RuleOfFunny, so it has no bearing on the plot.]]
38* BrickJoke: Magna says she likes to have a banana split after sex. At the end, she and her boyfriend walk into the living room, and guess what she's eating?
39* BunnyEarsLawyer: For all his many faults Pat is a hell of a [[PrivateInvestigator bloodhound]]. As well as something of a ManipulativeBastard.
40* TheCameo: "What the hell is [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball Brett Favre]] doing here?"
41* CameraSniper: When Pat is tracking Mary.
42* TheChessmaster: Woogie. [[spoiler:He advises Ted to hire Pat Healy to find Mary, advises Ted to contact her, drives Ted to Miami and then sends an anonymous letter to get both Ted and Pat out of the way, leaving him free to swoop in and steal her shoes all without Ted suspecting anything. Even his friendship with Ted appears to be an early move in his game.]]
43* TheChewToy: Poor Ted gets mauled by a dog, nearly murdered by a hitchhiker, snagged on the lip by a fishhook, and beaten up by Warren. Oh, and then there's the whole zipper incident...
44* CloudCuckoolander: The hitchhiker that Ted picks up, who blabs nonsensically about his idea for "7 Minute Abs". [[spoiler:Not surprising, since he's a SerialKiller.]]
45* ClusterFBomb: Healy: We agreed I wouldn't fuck you, and you wouldn't fuck me until we got this....fuck outta the fuckin' picture!
46* CoversAlwaysLie: Cameron Diaz doesn't play the protagonist of the film, as the poster suggests.
47* CringeComedy: Everybody gets something embarrassing to deal with... even Mary, who thankfully never finds out what the "hair gel" really was.
48* CulturalTranslation: Unfortunately averted - non-American viewers might not have understood what was so extraordinarily special about Brett being in love with Mary too. (For those who don't know, Brett Favre is a very famous UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball player.)
49* CurtainCall: Has this in DancePartyEnding.
50* DancePartyEnding: The whole cast singing ''Build Me Up Buttercup'' over the credits.
51* DeconstructedTrope: The DudeMagnet and UnwantedHarem see a whole lot of beat-down in this film, mostly by showcasing the "dudes" as a bunch of obsessed maniacs that destroy their own lives and disrupt Mary's just for the sake of the very small chance she will love them back as badly as they love her. Being a DoggedNiceGuy can be seen by other people as creepy (or at least incredibly annoying).
52* DevotedToYou: Deconstructed. All the guys Mary attracts, except for Brett, are creeps and weirdos.
53* DoggedNiceGuy: Ted. One of the running gags of the film is everybody else using him as the butt of their jokes (up to the point that when Mary finally confesses she loves him Ted's immediate response is asking dejectedly if she's making fun of him) and out of all the stalkers he's the OnlySaneMan.
54* DomesticAbuse: [[spoiler:Turns out that Woogie married and even has a kid and his wife has no problem gratifying him sexually on a constant basis. He doesn't give a shit about them, still being obsessed with Mary after so many years.]]
55* DoubleMeaning: When Ted is speaking to Dom in the bar he mentions Mary. Dom says "Not ''Mary'' again" This is more meaningful as a RewatchBonus.
56* DudeMagnet: The entire plot of the film is based on the title character being one of these, although unfortunately only a [[StalkerWithACrush particular type]] of men seemed to be attracted to her.
57* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:After undergoing massive amounts of humiliation and pain, Ted gets to be with Mary after all.]]
58* EntitledToHaveYou: What all the stalkers except for Ted and Brett feel about Mary, [[spoiler:with the old guy at the end even going so far as trying to murder Ted for kissing Mary.]]
59* EveryoneHasStandards: [[spoiler: Healy and Tucker may be creepy obsessed stalkers, but they're not rapists. When they overhear Woogie seemingly about to assault Mary, they immediately rush to stop him.]]
60* EvilDetectingDog: Puffy, according to Magda. According to Mary, Puffy just hates men regardless of their motives.
61* FanDisservice: The binocular shot of Magna, who is old and time was not kind to her body, topless.
62* FailedASpotCheck: It's revealed at the end that Ted's been failing this for quite a while, when the identity of "Woogie" is revealed: [[spoiler: "Dom ''Wooganowski''." ''[Does 'duh' gesture]'']]
63* {{Foreshadowing}}:
64** As Dom walks out of Ted's hotel room, he notices Mary walking into the lobby and ducks out of sight. Why would he do this unless they had some history together?
65** Dom knows about the zipper incident, even though [[INeverSaidItWasPoison Ted never told him]]. Dom plays it off as having heard the story secondhand in a SuspiciouslySpecificDenial ("I was only four towns over").
66** Tucker repeatedly "jokes" about sleeping with Mary. It's later revealed that he's a fraud and a stalker too, and pretty boorish as well.
67* GayCruising: Ted stops by a highway rest stop to take a leak, and inadvertently stumbles (literally) on a cruising spot with lots of men engaging in sex with each other.
68* GoshDarnItToHeck: The reaction of Mary's mother to Ted during the zipper scene.
69-->''OH, HEAVENS TO PETE!''
70* GreekChorus: Songwriter Music/JonathanRichman.
71* GroinAttack: The zipper incident provides the requisite {{Squick}}, although it's a self-inflicted accident. There's a more traditional example by the dog later.
72** Pat also sets the dog's crotch on fire by accident while trying to resuscitate him.
73* TheGruntingOrgasm: Ted crumples the newspaper when he finishes.
74* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: Mary has blond hair and is quite a nice person.
75* HeadTurningBeauty: Mary has this effect on all guys in-universe. As the title says, there's something about Mary that drives men crazy: Ted hires Healy to find her, Healy quits his job and moves to Miami for her, Norm creates a fake identity to get close to her and Woogie gets seriously stalkerish around her. Even the old guy who sleeps with Magda was only doing it to get close to Mary.
76* HeelRealization: Ted ultimately realises that his obsession with Mary has ultimately made him little better than any of the other men who have been stalking her (although in his defense, he actually hasn't sunk to the same depths that most of them have) and decides to let her go [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy so she can be happy with someone else]].
77* HistoryWithCelebrity: Mary's old boyfriend Brett is revealed at the end to be football quarterback Brett Favre.
78* HostileHitchhiker: There is a hitchhiking SerialKiller on the loose. The cops find the body he was carrying and peg the main character as a guy who kills hitchhikers, starting a hilarious MistakenConfession.
79* HurricaneOfEuphemisms: Dom has one of these before explaining to Ted why [[MasturbationMeansSexualFrustration masturbating to alleviate sexual frustration is essential before any big date]], leading to the infamous "hair gel" scene.
80* HypocriticalHumor: "You're the worst stalker of us all, man!", said to Ted (who is pretty much the OnlySaneMan) who only deceived Mary about accidentally running into her after 13 years of not seeing her, as opposed to the rest actively lying about their identities to Mary and trying to frame the others as criminals for years.
81* IAmOneOfThoseToo: When Pat tries to impress Mary by pretending to be a suave architect. Cue her architect friend. [[spoiler:Who was also only pretending.]]
82* ImplausibleDeniability: Pat moves to Miami to follow Mary, and covers it up by telling Ted he's moving there to take a job with Rice-A-Roni.
83-->'''Ted:''' ...Aren't they the "San Francisco" treat?\
84'''Pat:''' ...They ''were.'' They're changing their image.
85* InelegantBlubbering: Ted after the confrontation at Mary's house with [[spoiler:Brett Favre]].
86* INeverSaidItWasPoison: Ted is confused on how Dom knows about the zipper incident, since he never told him. Dom does a HandWave to this by saying he only lived four towns away. This seems like a minor throwaway moment, but comes back later [[spoiler: when Dom is revealed to be "Woogie", Mary's high school boyfriend prior to meeting Ted, which also shows how he knew about said incident.]]
87* InformedAbility: Mary, who is a ''medical doctor'', mistakes semen for hair gel.
88* IronicEcho: Throughout the movie, everyone takes advantage of Ted's gullibility to jerk him around, only to laugh it off by saying "I'm fucking with you!" when he believes it. At the end, Mary sincerely tells Ted that she'd be happiest with him... and his response, after a few moments, is a miserable, dejected and resigned [[WontTakeYesForAnAnswer "You're fuckin' with me, right?"]]
89* IvyLeagueForEveryone: Mary attended Princeton University. Her ex-boyfriend "Woogie" also received a scholarship from Princeton.
90* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: At the end, Ted is the only one willing to do this for Mary. Her response? "But I'd be happiest with ''you''".
91* JerkAss: All of the other stalkers, running the whole gamut from manipulating people to spousal abuse to (accidental) pet abuse to all of them using Ted as their toy and fucking around with him (and when Ted decides to leave, they all gang up in trying to convince Mary to let him go) [[spoiler:to try to kill Ted when Mary finally decides to be with him.]]
92* KafkaKomedy: So very much. Ted is a nice enough guy who has his prom ruined in a painful and humiliating way, subsequently gets a bit [[StalkerWithACrush obsessed with Mary]], and has to go through all kinds of other shit before the movie is done.
93* TheLadette: Part of Mary's characterization is her combining a love of playing/watching sports and beer with otherwise perfect femininity.
94-->'''Mary''': Want to come inside and watch ''Series/SportsCenter?''
95* LeftTheBackgroundMusicOn: Crossed with GreekChorus and a DiegeticSoundtrackUsage.
96* LetMeAtHim: Parodied. Ted is suspected of being a twisted SerialKiller by a pair of detectives, but it's in fact a huge mix-up and Ted only ran into the real culprit without even knowing. This starts a MistakenConfession where Ted casually admits his habit of "picking up hitchhikers". When he says that he might have had up to fifty hitchhikers in his life and makes light of this fact, the more unnerved of the two cops bashes Ted's head into the table in rage.
97* LoveDodecahedron: Everybody is in love with/stalks Mary, including the main character and even football star Brett Favre. Naturally, Mary chooses the main character even over Brett. (She's a Niners fan.)
98* MagicalDefibrillator: When Pat has to resuscitate the dog. With an electrical cable.
99* ManChild: "Tucker" is actually a sleazy pizza boy who lives with his parents. Healy also counts to a lesser extent.
100* MasturbationMeansSexualFrustration: Dom is a firm believer [[spoiler:or he's deliberately giving Ted bad advice to sabotage him]] that it is essential for a man to masturbate before any big date, so he has better control of his own libido during it. He explains it to Ted via a HurricaneOfEuphemisms:
101-->'''Dom:''' You choke the chicken before any big date, don't you? Tell me you spank the monkey before any big date. Oh my God, he doesn't flog the dolphin before a big date. Are you crazy? That's like going out there with a loaded gun! Of course, that's why you're nervous. Oh, my dear friend, please sit, please. Look, um, after you've had sex with a girl, and you're lying in bed with her, are you nervous? No, you're not, why?\
102'''Ted:''' Cause I'm tired...\
103'''Dom:''' Wrong! It's 'cause you ain't got the baby batter on the brain anymore! Jesus, that stuff will fuck your head up! Look, the most honest moment in a man's life are the few minutes after he's blown his load -- now that is a medical fact. And the reason for it is that you're no longer trying to get laid, you're actually... you're thinking like a girl, and girls love that.
104* MeaningfulName: Is Mary's middle name Sue?
105** Pat Healy, who is indeed a heel.
106** Norm, who's just a normal guy.
107** Dom [[spoiler: who also happens to be the most aggressive and dominant of Mary's stalkers]]
108* MistakenConfession: Hitchhiking vs. murder. ''"How many? In my whole life? I dunno, 15/20? I don't exactly keep track..."''
109* MistakenForGay: Ted tries to take a piss at a highway rest stop and ends up triggering a sting operation where he is arrested with dozens of gay guys, who also claim that they were "just taking a piss".
110* MistakenForMasturbating:
111** Ted is daydreaming in the bathroom in the prologue but is accused of masturbating to Mary, who is changing clothes in a room in view.
112** Inverted in a scene when he really has been masturbating and Mary thinks the suspicious substance on his ear is hair gel.
113* MustMakeAmends: Healy is visiting Mary's house and accidentally kills her dog. And his reaction to this is to, quite literally, attempt to resuscitate the dog. It works, which probably means that the dog wasn't quite killed. [[RuleOfFunny But in an extreme comedy, anything goes.]]
114* NiceGirl: Mary. She even lets Magda live with her because her (Magda's) husband died and Mary figures she doesn't want to be alone.
115* ObfuscatingDisability: Tucker doesn't actually need crutches.
116* OhCrap: "Is that...hair gel?"
117* OffOnATechnicality: Mary's architect friend, [[spoiler:who was actually a pizza delivery boy]], claimed Pat was a murderer who stayed in prison for five years until a technicality got him off. It wasn't true.
118* OnceDoneNeverForgotten: Implied by Dom when he mentions that he knew about Ted's zipper incident because he was "only" four towns away.
119* OneDialogueTwoConversations: The interrogation scene. Ted admits he picked up a hitchhiker, but the cops believe he admits he killed a hitchhiker.
120* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: Pat, attempting to look like a caring and socially conscious guy: "I work with retards." He also calls them "those goofy bastards."
121* PoorMansPorn: Ted uses a newspaper brassiere ad before the "Hair gel" scene.
122* PrecisionFStrike: When Tucker informs Mary of the fact that Pat Healy never went to Harvard, Healy, whos eavesdropping, launches one.
123-->'''Pat Healy''': '''''FUCK!'''''
124** "From that moment on, the guys at school looked at me in a whole new light"
125--> "You're a fucking liar!"
126* PreMortemOneLiner: "Step into my office, cuz you're fucking fired!" seems to be an intended one for [[spoiler:the hitchhiker]] before Ted interrupts him by pulling over to take a piss.
127* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: At the very finale, Ted is fed up with the whole mess that he has been involved with thanks to becoming obsessed with Mary and the misery he just brought to her door, and as the OnlySaneMan of the whole stalker group calls them all on their stupidity and tells Mary that she can go and be happy and he will no longer bother her (which devastates him, but at least he is able to stop the waterworks up until he actually leaves). This is what makes Mary decide he's the one for her.
128* RedRightHand: [[spoiler:Woogie/Dom has spots on his face.]]
129* TheReveal: "Who the hell is Woogie?" [[spoiler: Ted's friend Dom.]]
130** And then later in the scene, Mary's saint-like ex-boyfriend "Brett" turns out to be [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball Brett Favre]].
131* RewatchBonus: The movie drops a lot of subtle hints about everyone's real agenda that doesn't get picked up until the second time around. Regarding the identity of "Brett", you can catch a few early clues, with one friend calling him "Pack Man" [[note]]Favre played most of his career with the Green Bay ''Packers''[[/note]] (although most will audibly interpret it as "Pac-Man" the first time before they know The Reveal) and Mary also talking about how he lived "up north." With Dom, him mentioning Ted's zipper incident — even though he wasn't there and Ted never told him about it — is a big tip-off about his hidden agenda that's usually regarded as a random HandWave the first time. He also ducks out of Mary's sight at the hotel, with good reason as we find out later.
132** When Warren is first introduced, a stranger tries to whisper something in his ear and he flinches - this is before it's spelled out to the audience that he's tactile defensive in that area.
133* RunningGag:
134** The GreekChorus keeps showing up, playing SuspiciouslyAproposMusic.
135** People keep lying to Ted, who is SuperGullible, then reveal they are lying by laughing it off and telling him "[[PhraseCatcher I'm just fucking with you, man!]]".
136* RunningGagged:
137** As the film's final gag, [[spoiler:one member of the Greek Chorus gets (accidentally) shot.]]
138** The "lying to Ted" gag dies when [[spoiler:Mary confesses she loves Ted and makes clear it's not a lie [[WontTakeYesForAnAnswer when Ted assumes otherwise]].]]
139* ScaryBlackMan: Subverted with Mary's stepfather. He invokes this for his own amusement just to fuck with Ted, but he's actually quite friendly when he drops the act.
140* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: The final gag of the film -- after one member of the GreekChorus is fatally shot, the other ditches his instrument and runs for the hills.
141* SerialKiller:
142** Ted picks up one and ends up being framed for his crimes, but thinks he's being arrested just for picking up a hitchhiker.
143** Tucker makes Mary think Pat is one of these in order to eliminate him as a romantic rival.
144* SexualKarma: Ted decides to quit being obsessed with Mary. Mary decides he's the one for her as a result.
145* ShownTheirWork: Though Warren is played for laughs he's a very accurate portrayal of an individual with moderate to severe autism. He's often in his own little world, self-stimulates his routines and possessions which he holds dear, and is tactile defensive (does not like to be touched in certain areas). He is also functional and capable of establishing relationships and trust. Most indicated by the very subtle moment at the end where he allows Ted to touch his ears without going off. It is a Farrelly Brothers movie and they do a lot of work with individuals with disabilities and as a result, always show such individuals accurately and in a positive manner. This was also clearly demonstrated during the scene where Mary brings lunch to the other individuals from Warren's group.
146* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: The reason Mary decides to be with Ted in the end -- although she had seen some of his niceness on a date beforehand, it's not until he makes clear that he's fed up with being yet another stalker that she decides to be with him.
147* SirSwearsALot: Pat Healy, the biggest potty-mouth of the cast. He fires a barrage of f-bombs, cluster and precise, throughout the whole film.
148* SoBeautifulItsACurse: Mary. She has a strange effect on men that turns them into obsessive stalkers.
149* StalkerWithACrush: By the end of the movie, Mary has no less than ''five'' of these, including Ted. [[spoiler:Six, if you count Magda's boyfriend, who says he was only sleeping with her to get closer to Mary.]]
150* StalkingIsLove: With ''everyone''!
151* SuddenMusicalEnding: The whole cast lip-synching to "Build Me Up, Buttercup".
152* SummationGathering: [[invoked]]WordOfGod compared the climactic scene in Mary's house as like the ending of a mystery movie where the detective gathers all the suspects together and reveals who did it. Sure enough, the scene basically plays out like that, with Ted telling everyone that they're ''all'' stalkers, and revealing the identity of the mysterious "Brett".
153* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: When the cops mistakenly think that Ted is a serial murderer, they remark that they never look like how you expect them upon seeing Ted.
154* TitleDrop: During the GreekChorus bits.
155* UnexplainedRecovery: Ted gets two fish hook barbs ''through his cheek'' in a graphic scene but is none the worse for wear when he shows up next.
156* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Although it was mostly the result of Woogie's manipulations, Ted deciding to find Mary is what causes all of her past and present stalkers to come knocking at her door and for a brand-new one to be created.
157* UnwantedHarem: It's not cool being the object of so much affection.
158* VitriolicBestBuds: Near the end, Healy and Tucker seem to have become this.
159* WhatDoesSheSeeInHim?: An example that is gender-inverted, invoked, justified and parodied. Mary is shown to be an nice, attractive woman who looks for the best in everyone if they're willing to give it, so of course she'd be appealing to several different suitors. What makes it a parody and invocation of the trope is that the suitors are ''too numerous'' and ''too invested'' in being a part of Mary's life even when they have ones of their own. It makes the audience ask the question if everything they go through really ''would'' be worth it if they got Mary in the end.
160* YouMonster: Parodied. When the cops mistake Ted for a SerialKiller and he apparently "[[MistakenConfession confesses]]" having a body count in the dozens, one of the horrified detectives loses it. With utter fury he responds "You ''son of a bitch''... you're gonna fry" before [[LetMeAtHim slamming Ted's head into the table repeatedly]].
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