Daddy's Home 2 Analysis

The buddy comedy Daddy’s Home 2 (Sean Anders, 2017), features two of the biggest faces in Hollywood – Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. This film portrays the difficulties that come with having divorced parents during the holidays. However, behind the main focus of the public eye, this film introduces the overuse of technology and the way our lives revolve around it.

Anders presents his two main characters, Brad Whitaker (Ferrell) and Dusty Mayron (Wahlberg), as two men on the opposite ends of the masculinity spectrum. Mayron, along with his father, are the typical tough-guys, measuring up to society’s image of masculinity. The Mayron’s depend on being dominant, aggressive, the “alpha-dog.” However, Whitaker and his father contradict the dominate

Right off the bat, this film beginnings with a moderator of a school play announce, “Please do not use any mobile device to film this play” and the crowd simultaneously reacts by pulling out their phones and tablets. Anders uses the various devices as condensation to symbolize the negative affects technology may bring. That is, drawing our attention away from what is really important. Forb an example – Brad, Dusty, and Sarah collectively agree to have a “together Christmas” so the children do not have to worry about having “two Christmases.” However, during their announcement, every child on the screen is distracted by their mobile device, tablet, and the television. The kids ignore the togetherness of their divided family, in an attempt to simplify the difficulties of division during the holidays, due to their addiction to

In two separate scenes, characters are negatively impacted by technology, portraying a subliminal message to the audience. In one scene, Brad, Dusty, and their fathers go on a hunt for a Christmas tree. During their quest through the wild, Dusty challenges Brads man-hood. In response, Brad rips the chainsaw out of Dusty’s hands and begins to cut down the pine. However, Brad unobservantly cuts down a tree that is also the cell-phone tower. Brad is sent into an electric shock and given a 20,000-dollar fine. In an additional scene, Brad wonders their vacation home and discovers the shower doesn’t have any manual controls. He hollers, “Does anyone know how to turn the shower on?” Which follows a series of slap-stick-like comedy as Brad is blasted with water from all different angles due the voice-activated controls of the shower. The two scenes mentioned has me question if Anders is implying that the use of technology can hurt us just as much as it benefits