Aahana Swrup
‘Mr. Deeds’ is a 2002 comedy film in which a twist of fate turns a small-town guy’s life upside down after he suddenly comes into a lot of wealth. Naturally, after Longfellow Deeds inherits a billion-dollar company from a distant dead relative, it invites greedy attention, particularly in the form of Chuck Cedar, a businessman who wants to seize control over Deeds’ inherited assets. Similarly, Mac McGrath, the head of the news outlet Inside Access, is also eager to bring the yet unknown heir to the Blake fortune into the limelight through whatever means necessary.
For the same reason, as Chuck secretly plots against Deeds by bringing him to New York, Mac sends his cutthroat reporter, Babe Bennett, after the guy undercover to gather information on him. Even though the film’s narrative remains largely outlandish in accordance with its genre, the significant inclusion of such journalistic elements may lead viewers to wonder about their basis in reality.
Mr. Deeds Humorously Fictionalizes the Media
Within the confines of its comedy-centric narrative, most of the elements within ‘Mr. Deeds’ remain fictionalized under director Steven Brill and his team of screenwriters, who crafted the film as a remake of the 1936 original ‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.’ Therefore, the central characters and their plotlines explored in the story are based on their predecessor counterparts. While the same holds true for Babe Bennett, her character undergoes a significant change in its modern reiteration. For one, the original reporter from the 1930s works with a written medium. As such, while Babe Bennett’s fabrication is based on a pre-existing film, Inside Access is entirely exclusive to the fictionality of ‘Mr. Deeds.’
Furthermore, the narrative reinforces the same through its light-hearted and unrealistic depiction of journalism and mainstream media. The primary purpose of Inside Access within the narrative is to create added conflict for Deeds, whose recent inheritance proposes a 180 flip for his regular life. As the heir to the Blake Media conglomeration, Deed becomes a coveted public figure overnight, and every news outlet is fighting for exclusive information about him. Inside Access takes it one step further by not only planting a reporter inside Deeds’ personal life but also formulating a controversial narrative about him to portray to the public.
As such, after Babe retrieves footage of Deeds heroically saving numerous cats and one woman from a burning building, her boss spins the story into news about the billionaire killing cats and assaulting an unsuspecting New York resident. While the same adds conflict to Deeds’ story and Babe’s developing romantic subplot, it also cements the outlandish nature of the reporter and her news program. In real life, such blatant and severe degradation of reality would have spelled out certain doom for any journalist and their program.
Therefore, ‘Mr. Deeds’ remain upfront and obvious about its fictionalization of journalistic elements, namely Inside Access and Babe Bennett. The former serves as an exaggerated take on the pestering nature of the media, while the latter becomes an instrumental addition to the overall narrative as the romantic lead. Ultimately, neither holds any connection to reality.
Read More: Mr. Deeds: Is Winchestertonfieldville a Real Town in Iowa?
