As a culture, Americans have long been fixated on the idea of being “the best.” As any cultural anthropologist could tell you, this phenomenon is the natural by-product of being “the best” country the world has ever seen. Naturally, our esteemed privilege has often led us to debate who or what is “the best” in their respective fields. “The best” president. “The best” college football team. “The best” Kardashian. “The best” flavor of Doritos to go with your Mountain Dew. “The best” instance of Rob Schneider yelling “You can do it!” in an Adam Sandler film. It is these debates, rational and nuanced as they are, that have helped to keep American civil discourse the respected, revered institution that it is.
With the 87th Academy Awards show rearing its head, much talk has turned toward deciding who our best actors are. Although this year’s list of nominees certainly includes worthy contenders, Steve Carell and Michael Keaton among them, the Academy somehow managed to egregiously overlook America’s undisputedly greatest actor. A man who has made us laugh. A man who has made us cry. A man who had the pluck to hang the largest dong that cinema has ever seen. I speak, of course, of Mark Wahlberg, America’s greatest cultural export and undisputedly “best” actor.
Now, I know what many of you would say to me: “But Zach, the only Mark Wahlberg movie worth mentioning this year was ‘Transformers 4!’ Regardless of Michael Bay’s earned reputation, he didn’t elicit an Oscar-worthy performance from Mark Wahlberg in a movie in which he kills a man with a football!”
Because my editors have told me that I have a 750 word-count limit, I’m going to refrain from tearing into this theoretically myopic and juvenile statement. When discussing Wahlberg, it is important to understand that any and all criticism levied against the man’s eligibility for awards and status as “the best” are automatically rendered null by his myriad achievements: a starring turn in “Boogie Nights” (where he bravely hung aforementioned dong), “The Other Guys,” the thunder buddy song in “Ted,” his turn as a Calvin Klein underwear model in the early ‘90s and as the producer of “Entourage” and “Wahlburgers.”
As crucial as these moments are to American culture, they are just that: fleeting, ephemeral blips in time. Thus, the central questions of this piece emerge: What is Wahlberg’s definitive artistic statement? What makes Wahlberg “the best” American artist to ever bare his schlong on the silver screen? How many excuses can I find to talk about Wahlberg’s dick? Like so many Upworthy and BuzzFeed articles, the answer may surprise you.
When I tell people Wahlberg was not only a rapper called Marky Mark, but he had a whole posse — the Funky Bunch — and that their debut album “Music for the People” was a shining achievement in music, I’m often met with incredulous looks. This is understandable. It would be decades before people caught on to Vincent Van Gogh’s now undeniable genius, so why should the works of Marky Mark be any different?
“Music for the People” is perhaps the definitive populist record. As Marky Mark makes clear in the opening track, “Music for the People,” he makes music for the people. In today’s fragmented musical culture, you’d be hard-pressed to find an artist so dedicated, nay, determined to move more than one specific subset of individuals. This ambition is best embodied by the album’s second track, “Good Vibrations.” With its staccato piano rhythm and ingenious rhyme scheme, one need look no further than the lyrics to observe Marky Mark’s egalitarian aims in action: “Yo it’s about that time/To bring forth the rhythm and the rhyme/Imma get mine so get yours/I wanna see sweat comin’ out your pores/On the house tip is how I’m swinging this/Strictly hip hop boy I ain’t singing this/Bringing this to the entire nation/Black, white, red, brown/Feel the vibration.”
Black, white, red and brown — truly, the music of Wahlberg knows no race, creed, color or religion. It is this universality, this total and utter dedication to craft and sincere lyricism that makes “Music for the People” and Wahlberg himself definitive American works. “Music for the People,” as well as that scene in “Boogie Nights” where Wahlberg whips out his cock, get a ten out of ten, would do again.
Zach Schlein is a UF political science junior. His column appears on Fridays.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 2/13/2015 under the headline “Straight outta Bahston: Mark Wahlberg, the Oscars and American greatness"]
