Tom Hanks, Bachelor Parties and the Oscar Effect

With prostitutes, drugs, trashed hotel rooms and a battalion of cops, Tom Hanks’ celluloid Bachelor Party from 1984 was pretty much my point of reference when I started working on BACHELOR PARTY CONFIDENTIAL, a new book that looks at the bachelor party ritual from different perspectives.

So maybe I shouldn’t have really been surprised that for many of the guys I interviewed for the book—including a gay man, a Mormon groom, a Born Again best man, an S&M clown, a hippie, a posse of thirty-somethings, an Australian buck—Hank’s “Party” was either an ideal worth reaching for or something so offensive they consciously (or unconsciously) reacted against it.

Still, it seems odd that a twenty-year-old movie that grossed less than $40 million when it was released remains so indelibly linked to the ritual. Perhaps it’s because of the campy ’80s vibe or that Hanks went onto Oscar glory. Or, maybe it really did capture the perfectly hedonistic stag. Whatever the reason, it remains a touchstone for men of a certain age. But it’s also fueled the rise of the bachelorette party. Before it was even called a “bachelorette party” and became an accepted stop on the pre-wedding express, Tawny Kitaen got wild and crazy with her friends, her mother and a Chippendale’s-esque troupe of male strippers.

In all likelihood, much like previous bachelor party homages such as Paddy Chayefsky’s dark and depressing Oscar Nominated pic The Bachelor Party (1957), the influence of the Hanks vehicle will probably fade once those who grew up with the movie are well past the marrying age.

Only time will tell. Regardless, let’s just hope the next generation isn’t inspired by the bachelor-party-cum-murder-spree Very Bad Things But if Christian Slater wins an Oscar, all bets are off…