Wa-da-ta!
"Ima sine your pitty on the runny kine."
Pootie Tang is a 2001 Blaxploitation Affectionate Parody written and directed by Louis C.K.. Based on a character who originally appeared on The Chris Rock Show, the film is about Pootie Tang, an unintelligible urban folk hero who whups people with his magic belt. The head of corporate America doesn't like the fact that Pootie's public service announcements have persuaded children to stop buying tobacco, fast food and malt liquor. So he sics his unlikely Femme Fatale girlfriend on Pootie to bring the man down a notch. It's up to Pootie and his main girl, Biggie Shorty, to get Pootie's groove back and stop Corporate America from using Pootie's likeness to corrupt the children.
The world wasn't ready for Pootie Tang. Largely derided when it first came out, the film now enjoys a small cult following.
This film provides examples of:
- Achilles' Heel: Pootie's is hoes.
- Aerith and Bob: Pootie lists off the cast for his new movie: Trucky, Bad Bitty, Dirty Dee, Lacey, J.B., Biggie Shorty, and Robert Vaughn.
- Affectionate Parody: Of the Blaxploitation genre.
- Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: Pootie's belt. So much so that the villains attempt to take it off him in hopes that he is powerless without it, like Samson. It doesn't work.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "There are a lot of evils in this world, Pootie. Drugs, crime, gorillas."
- Bastard Understudy: Dave Atell's character.
- Blackface: Played for laughs. Most of the Fake Pooties are white dudes, and people still seem to have trouble telling them from the real Pootie. The main one is played by David Cross. He's the only one whose skin is darkened, but they didn't even bother to do his chest.
- Blaxploitation: Parodied.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: During an interview mid-movie, Biggie Shorty shouts at Bob Costas "Haven't you been watching the movie??"
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Pootie's dad's belt can appear out of nowhere and smack Pootie for trying to steal an apple.
- Character Title
- Chivalrous Pervert: Pootie will nail any woman who is of legal consent. He won't touch crazy though, and woe be to you if you verbally disrespect women in front of him. The only woman around who he hasn't slept with seems to be Biggie Shorty, and there is a sense that it is because he respects her as a friend.
- Clone Army: Parodied with the fake Pooties. Only an idiot couldn't tell they were fakes, but they fool everyone anyway.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Dick Lecter
- Dance Battler: Pootie dodges bullets by boogieing.
- Defenestrate and Berate: Pootie's success with grown-ass women, as chronicled by his best friend, includes a childhood incident of having his toys (and big wheel
) thrown out of a window. - Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Played for comedy. Pootie's dad whupped him with his magic belt if he did anything wrong, and that same belt becomes the source of Pootie's power once he grows up. A good spanking from Pootie's belt even gets the Big Bad to mend his ways and go into theater.
- Department of Redundancy Department: And you know what? Lacey's pretty redundant, too.
- When Trucky catches up with Pootie and asks to join him at the farm, his narration and dialogue become comically redundant with each other.
- Destination Defenestration: Only Pootie is thrown from the outdoors through a window, into a house, not out of it.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Young Pootie's exploits with grown-ass ladies. Also, most of Ireenie's sexual encounters don't seem entirely consensual.
- The Dragon: Froggy to Dirty Dee.
- Erotic Eating: Parodied. Pootie spreads Stacy's pie all over himself to seduce her. It's gross and awkward, and she melts instantly.
- Even the Guys Want Him: During his duet with Missy Elliott, a middle-aged Asian business man looks longingly at him like a star-struck teenage girl. In an extended scene during the credits, the radio DJ can't handle how sexy Pootie is and has to pour water over himself to calm down.
- First-Person Peripheral Narrator: Trucky, Pootie's lifelong friend. Pootie couldn't have narrated his own story for obvious reasons.
- Framing Device: The entire movie is allegedly a clip played during an interview with Bob Costas.
- The Hero's Journey: This film illustrates how recognizable and "right" the monomyth feels, no matter how ridiculous the details.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood
- Honey Trap: Ireenie, who uses sex to her advantage.
- Improbable Weapon User: Pootie with his belt.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Pootie won't flinch on his morals, even for $20 million dollars.
- Innocent Inaccurate: Kid asks if the crack is candy.
- Intelligible Unintelligible: You never know what Pootie's saying, but you always know what he means. Parodied at the end of the movie when, for the first time, someone can't understand Pootie's nonsense words. But then Pootie clarifies himself (with more nonsense) and everyone understands him again.
- Kavorka Man: To the viewers, it makes no sense that Pootie is so beloved by the ladies.
- Killer Gorilla: Pootie's dad is killed by one on the job. He worked at a steel mill. It was the third incident in that particular steel mill.
- Large Ham: Dirty Dee, dammit!
- Last Request: Pootie's dad makes him promise not to let the ladies get a hold of his belt.
- Leaving You to Find Myself: Done a little different than normal. Biggie Shorty is glad to send Pootie away to find himself. She says she'll be waiting when he figures it out and comes back.
- Magic Feather: Pootie's belt. His father's ghost tells him there was never anything special about it. He bought it at a Piggly Wiggly for ninety-five cents.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Biggie Shorty informs Pootie that she's going to be this for him when life finally catches up to him. She's right.
- Memetic Badass: Pootie's friends discuss this In-Universe. Pootie will kick your ass so hard, you can write it off on your taxes.
- Mooks: The Pootie-alikes at the end.
- Noodle Incident: Daddy Tang was the third person to be mauled by a gorilla at that steel mill.
- Oh, Crap!: After an entire movie where he delivers Curb-Stomp Battle after Curb-Stomp Battle, Pootie accidentally insults Bob Costas. Pootie looks absolutely terrified in the face of an angry Costas.
- The Pig-Pen: Dirty Dee is literally dirty. The reason he hates prison so much is that make him shower every day, and once he gets released he makes a point of rubbing some extra dirt on himself.
- Prehensile Hair: Pootie's can deflect bullets.
- Rule of Cool: Pootie's entire existence runs on this.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Trucky lasts one afternoon with Pootie on the farm before he calls a cab and goes home.
- The Sheriff: When Pootie moves to the farm, he gets to know the town's Sheriff. He's a stereotypical small town sheriff known only as, well, The Sheriff, and is actually a pretty okay guy, apart from his eagerness to have a son-in-law.
- Shotgun Wedding: When The Sheriff finds out Pootie had sex with his daughter Stacy, he's ecstatic. He immediately points a gun up Pootie's nose and asks him when the wedding will be.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Ireenie's MO. By the time she starts kissing a man, he's so punch drunk he goes along with whatever she wants of him.
- Too Kinky to Torture: "You can't hit a ho with a belt, they like that shit!"
- The Unintelligible: Pootie speaks almost exclusively in slang. The people around him seem to get what he's saying, though."Pootie was, and always will be, too cool for words!"
- Those Two Guys: Lacey and J.B.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Pootie doesn't just avoid killing, he doesn't want to see anyone die. He has a meltdown when he a thinks a junkie accidentally killed himself with a ricochet off Pootie's belt buckle, and only calms down when the dude turns out to be okay.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Dick Leckter.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Lacey is pretty oblivious to how much he annoys J.B. But J.B. keeps hanging out with him for some reason, even though he constantly erupts about how much he hates him.
- Vox Pops: To show reactions to Pootie's selling out and leaving the city.
- Walk the Earth: Well, really just a farm.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Dick and Ireenie get one after having some sense knocked into them: Dick finds a new career doing off-Broadway shows and Ireenie goes into counseling to help troubled teen hoes.
- World of Ham: Everyone plays it up.
Cappa-town!
