Zoolander

About

Zoolander is a comedy movie series directed by Ben Stiller and starring Stiller, Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell. The series, which follow the exploits of the male model Derek Zoolander, has gained a cult following due his satirical approach on the fashion industry.

History

The first movie of the series, Zoolander, was first released on September 28th, 2001, with elements from a series of shorts films released on 1996 and 1997, for VH1’s Fashion Awards TV specials. In the film, the dim-witted male model Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) is ousted from the top by the rising star Hansel (Owen Wilson). After announcing his retirement, he joins the fashion mogul Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrell), who uses Derek as paw for his corruption plans and brainwashes him to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

Zoolander 2

On 2008, Stiller confirmed he wanted to do a sequel, working on it during the following years.^[1] On March 10th, 2015, Stiller and Wilson walked the Valentino’s show runway in 2015 Paris Fashion Week, as a first part of the movie announcement, being confirmed by Paramount Pictures along with the release date scheduled on February 12th, 2016.^[2] The same day, Youtuber Movieclips Coming Soon uploaded a footage of the stunt, gaining over 800,000 views in the following five months. On November 18th, Paramount Pictures’ channel released the official trailer for the upcoming film, gaining over 10 million views in the following three days.

Reception

The film grossed a total of 60.7 million worldwide, outperforming its $28 million budget. As of November 2015, the film has a 64% rating on the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes^[6] and a 6,6 on the movie review site IMDb.^[5]

Online Relevance

On August 18th, 2011, Youtuber MW2, Combat Arms, and More uploaded a compilation of scenes from the movie, gaining over 430,000 views in the following years. On August 9th, 2012, Youtuber rymdfarfar uploaded another scene from the movie featuring Derek and his friends having a gasoline fight, gaining over 700,000 views in the following years. On November 24th, 2011, a dedicated subreddit was created, gaining over 70 subscribers in the following years.^[4] The movie has also presence on other pages, like Tumblr^[3] or the artist community deviantART, where searching the keyword “zoolander” leads to over 1,800 results as November 21st, 2015.^[7]

Related Memes

Jeep Party

Jeep Party refers to a movie scene in which Derek Zoolander and his model friends go on a ride through downtown while sipping on Orange Mocha Frappuccino (a fictitious Starbucks drink) to cheer themselves up. The scene inspired several parodies, mostly as GIFs.

What is This? A Center for Ants?

“What is This? A Center for Ants?” is a memorable quote said by Derek Zoolander in a scene where he confuses a scale model of his charity project “Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good” with the actual building itself. On online forums and message boards, the phrase and its snowclone variants have been used to describe or criticize an unusually small post object or image.

I Feel Like I’m Taking Crazy Pills

“I Feel Like I’m Taking Crazy Pills” is a memorable quote uttered by Jacobim Mugatu when expresses his frustration at the fact no one else in the fashion world has noticed Derek Zoolander’s supposedly career defining runway ‘looks’ are nothing more than him pulling the same face over and over again. Online, the phrase has been used to describe vexation when the common consensus appears to go against common sense or when an expected straight-forward situation is greeted by a surprise outcome.