As the past year can attest for us, only two things in life are certain: Death and Donald Trump tax fraud. With mortality looming in nearly every major headline these days, it’s difficult to escape the feeling of our own impending doom.
To help cope and know what exactly to expect, death-positive professional mortician/media personality (it’s a real thing) Caitlin Doughty dedicated a portion of her long-running YouTube series, Ask a Mortician, to rating pop cultural depictions of our dearly departed on a scale of 1-10 tombstones.
Doughty talks bodies in The Goonies (6/10 tombstones: “That body is too present”) and Stand By Me (9/10 tombstones: “That’s a good corpse!”), as well as sacks o’ bones from titles like The Crown, Law & Order: SVU, and Psycho. But it’s her review of Bernie of Weekend at Bernie’s infamy that cuts the deepest. According to Doughty, the 1989 comedy gives audiences a completely inaccurate depiction of what happens to one’s body upon expiring. We’d never have guessed.
“Bernie is simultaneously too floppy and too stiff,” Doughty opines at one point, explaining how and why his rigor mortis should long have already set in by the time his morbid shenanigans ensue. “This is the true lie of this film: there are no dead bodies that have completely upright necks and a floppy body. Doesn’t happen.” If we can’t trust the veracity of Weekend at Bernie’s, then what can we trust?
Yes, we hate to break it to you all, but Weekend at Bernie’s apparently does not accurately portray the initial phases of bodily decomposition, especially within a warm, tropical, insect-filled environment like Miami. Doughty points out that a real-life Bernie should have also begun to “purge” various bodily fluids from areas like his lungs and stomach at some point (“a mess waiting to happen,” as she delicately puts things). And to think all this time we imagined our deaths would portend rollicking slapstick capers.
Send Great Job, Internet tips to [email protected]
87 Comments
Pretty sure I knew that by the time I was like 10 but it didn’t make the movie any less funny.
That’s because it’s virtually impossible to make that movie any less funny…
I thought it was hilarious when I was a kid.
I remember watching it as a kid, but I don’t remember either liking it or hating it. However, I watched it last Christmas through the eyes of a 42 year old and it’s pretty much devoid of laughs…
Yeah, I caught this as a pre-teen and it did nothing for me. A couple of aspirational yuppies doing everything short of corpse-fucking in order to get ahead? Only in the eighties could this be played as a straight-up comedy and not the blackest of satire.
I think that the comedic value of manipulating a corpse is evergreen no matter what decade you’re in.
I think the movie’s enduring cultural legacy is not anything about the movie itself, but merely the fact that we now have an idiom for “attempting to trick others, for an extended period of time, into thinking that a corpse is in fact still alive.”
Weekend At Bernie’s II suggests it wasn’t too hard.
Fair point…
I watched the beginning of this in college and found it meh. A while later (still in college) I went through a bad breakup and watched it again beginning to end and was pissing myself laughing (especially the part where they dragged his body behind the boat and it kept hitting the buoys). There is no accounting for taste.
The movie is a legitimate comedy classic and I will hear nothing bad about it.
I’d say the same, but that would imply the movie was funny in the first place.
It was.
I watched it in college and thought it was funny.
I dunno. This has happened to me before and the movie was pretty accurate to that experience
It spoke to my own truth, my own journey, quite well too…
But… did she cover Death becomes Her?
Turns out it’s surprisingly accurate! 10/10
Weekend at Bernie’s biggest problem is how long it takes to kill of Bernie.That said, still enjoyable.
“Bernie is simultaneously too floppy and too stiff.” Thank goodness he’ll never be President.
Andrew McCarthy woulda won.
“New McCarthyism for a New America!”
Andrew McCarthy carving out a second career for himself as a well-respected travel writer is awesome. So, yeah, I might vote for him if he wanted to expand the ACA with a public option.
“simultaneously too floppy and too stiff.”
Also my wife’s number 1 complaint about me.
Well played sir. Take your star, you earned it!
Having seen the corpse of my dead friend lying in his coffin last year, this is something I’ve unfortunately started to notice in movies. I don’t know how someone can be a mortician.
Sorry about your friend. My brother died last year and seeing his corpse (which is such a horrible word) was an incredibly surreal, awful experience. Hope you’re doing okay.
Thanks, I’m doing better now. It didn’t hit me until I got home that day and all I could do was picture him laying there. He was a friend from highschool, and went too soon just before his 28th birthday. #fuckcancer
Hope you’re doing okay too, I can’t imagine what you had to go through.
That’s so sad. Dying at 28 is just impossibly unfair. Thank you, I’m doing okay though I can’t say I’m keen to rewatch Weekend at Bernie’s anytime soon.
One of my oldest and best friends is a mortician, or actually a funeral director. I’ve asked him why, and he just said it was just “a calling,” I guess sort of like the priesthood. Years ago I made a joke that it was because he was a necrophiliac, and he did NOT think that was funny.
someone has to do it. my dad’s family does it.
Well yeah, someone has to do it, but that doesn’t answer why someone likes to do it.
they’re helping people in a time of great need.
Because of my exact age, I actually saw Weekend at Bernie’s II before I saw Weekend at Bernie’s I and watched it anyways. I don’t know what that says about me, but it can’t be good.
Ok now have her do Visitor Q and if his uhm “issue” with the corpse was likely and if vinegar would really fix it.
“Too Floppy and Too Stiff” sounds like the title of a Goldilocks porn parody.
Certainly explains the presence of the three bears.
Or when erectile dysfunction is treated with what I call “The Pipecleaner implant”, later superseded by “the Reebok pump”.
Honestly death isn’t usually well depicted in film. Its always dramatic with a final last few words. In reality last words are often jibberish or close to meaningless. You would laugh at how many last words are just someone saying oh fuck. If its cancer related, well there’s almost always a lack of uneven deep breathing, that bugs me. Liver cancer especially, I swear to god only the Telltale Walking Dead game of all things got that right. Your eyes turn almost greenish due to liver failure, you can’t walk, talking becomes hard and the breathing is unimaginably awful. I guess after seeing someone close die that way, its a little harder to take film deaths seriously.
You would laugh at how many last words are just someone saying oh fuck.Like Roald Dahl!
Correct. There was a Colombian leader who was shot who’s last words were literally oh fuck I’m shot. Lot of last words are very simple.
Eddie Murphy used to do a bit about how everybody who gets shot says “MotherFUCKer!” He did a very funny impression of Pope John Paul II (who had survived a shooting only a few years earlier) saying “Bless you, my son…bless you, my child…bless–motherFUCKer!”
I must find this clip now.
It seems like something that has to be apocryphal, but I’ve always been partial to Pancho Villa (I think it was him): “Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”
My aunt died of ovarian cancer and we were all in the room when it happened. She was on a ventilator (and had been unconscious for days) but that didn’t stop the—I think it’s called agonal breathing. I’d never seen someone die before. Now, when people just close their eyes and let their head go lax to show they died in entertainment, I just think how unrealistic that is.A few weeks ago, I had an SVT (racing heart) and they had to give me medicine that stopped my heart so it could start back up with a regular rhythm. My heart was only stopped for a few seconds, but let me tell you, that was very, very unpleasant. When you consider that most people’s heart is going to stop before their brain stops, anyone conscious when it happens is probably going to feel similar to what I felt, but probably longer. So, I guarantee, anyone who is conscious just before they die isn’t likely to be making pretty speeches.
Man I’m sorry. The person I mentioned was my mother. Wasn’t saying anything by the end. Lips were moving but I couldn’t hear anything. Its incredibly unglamorous.
It really is. And it’s hard to watch someone you love going through that. I mean, my aunt was unconscious, but it was still hard. (I’m incredibly bad at the comforting words, but I am sorry about your mom.)
Its alright. Saying goodbye isn’t easy, nor is comforting sometimes. To end on a postive note, she was still making jokes about Weekend at Bernies and the dog outliving her up to the end. They also had problems carrying her down the front door, very Bernie like.
next you’ll be saying that light swords don’t work the way Stars Wars depicts
Best consult the historical documents to be sure.
Guess that means Bernie wasn’t really dead after all. Maybe he was just in a coma.
Next you’ll be saying a mannequin can’t come back to life and be Andrew Garfield’s girlfriend..
Wait a second.. He starred in Weekend at Bernie’s as well.. Maybe these movies are just the delusions of a single insane individual…
“A real-life Bernie?” I think the right term would be “real-death,” ala Demolition Man.
Real death was from Altered Carbon (where RDing someone was destroying their stack so that they couldn’t be resleeved, which was placing their consciousness into a new body.)
Nice catch. I was mixing that one up with Demolition Man’s MDK (Murder/Death/Kill). The Altered Carbon RD is a much better fit. Either way, Bernie ain’t coming back.The main takeaways I got out of Weekend at Bernie’s and the even more improbable sequel were:He was a much better person dead than he ever was alive.The Yuppies were even worse than he was, they weren’t even willing to be inconvenienced enough to ensure he got a decent burial.
“Demolition Man” was “MurderDeathKill.”
Fortunately, they fixed all these errors and inconsistencies in Weekend at Bernie’s 2.
This is why we’ve been waiting so long for Weekend at Bernie’s 3… the team just feels that corpse technology isn’t where it needs to be to handle the scope of the film.
Weekend at Bernie’s apparently does not accurately portray the initial phases of bodily decomposition, especially within a warm, tropical, insect-filled environment like Miami. Miami? I thought they were in the Hamptons. Aren’t the early scenes where Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman are at work set in Manhattan?
Starts in Manhattan, but they travel to Bernie’s vacation home in Miami and that’s where the wacky corpse shenanigans (corpsnanigans?) kick off.
I put off seeing the critically acclaimed 2011 Linklater film Bernie because I assumed from the title it was a remake/reboot of Weekend at Bernie’s. For the record, it is actually a drama about Texas murderer Bernie Tiede, and is actually pretty good.
I remember thinking it was good. I also couldn’t get “Seventy-Six Trombones” out of my head for days afterwards.
Bernie is a great film. It also shows just how good Jack Black can be with the right material (see also The Polka King).
The Texas-based actors playing the townspeople steal the film from Jack Black.
This movie is now dead to me!
To their credit though, Weekend at Bernie’s II *nailed it*!
my cousin is a mortician. he goes to conventions & stuff. i asked him if morticians are really weird. he said (& i quote), “you have no idea.”
Now I have a weird urge to visit the bar at a mortician’s convention.
There’s a Detroit television sportscaster with the first name of Bernie who STILL regularly drags out Weekend at Bernie’s bits. Still.
That sounds dreadful. You’d think he would be tired of everyone else making Weekend at Bernie’s jokes.
I’m just waiting for a Bernie origin story movie to be mooted.
Doughty points out that a real-life Bernie should have also begun to “purge” various bodily fluids from areas like his lungs and stomach at some point (“a mess waiting to happen,” as she delicately puts things). This would potentially make for a very different reboot.
I mean, this headline really is one of those No Fucking Shit, Internet moments right here.
I was present when my first husband died. A few hours later I slept next to him because I would never get another chance. He wasn’t stiffening for about 12 hours. On a CSI episode a woman spent the night next to a man who had died and I was annoyed when one of the technicians made a crack about the smell. There wasn’t any smell.The other thing is that when people die they don’t usually breathe their last, close their eyes, and go limp like they do in Westerns all the time. If their eyes are open they stay open. Tom Hanks’s scene in Saving Private Ryan was more realistic.
I’m very sorry for your loss and thank you for sharing your knowledge. Last year was our 30th anniversary. I cannot imagine being in your place, but I completely understand not wanting to miss your last opportunity to spend time with him.
Weekend at Bernies takes place in the Hamptons, if I’m not mistaken. Weekend at Bernies 2 may have a short layover in Miami while the fellas head to the Caribbean for whatever reason. 😀
Wait… you’re telling me that a dead body can’t be made to look alive by rigging pulleys?pffftttt… Next you’ll tell me that other things I learned in the 80’s are wrong. Like if I dig a hole in my backyard demons won’t come out of it;. Or things form games like jumping on the heads of my enemies won’t make them disappear!
Caitlin’s YouTube channel is fire:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ask+a+morticianEntertaining, thoughtful and deeply human.
So is she going to talk about Weekend At Bernie’s 2?
Weekend at Bernies also lied to us when it said it was a comedy.
…
I’m fairly convinced that watching YT videos of people watching videos will be the consummate downfall of civilization as we know it. I was thinking that this was gonna be a short, 2-5 minute video, but no. Twenty-two minutes of her jabbering on, FU.
Canadian director Ted Kotcheff’s blissfully locked-down in a WAB bubble, insisting…‘The film broke box-office records in Italy, beating out E.T., the biggest sci-fi hit of the time. Wherever I went, people had seen it and were thrilled to meet the director of Weekend at Bernie’s. They would tip their heads as if they were dead, smirk, and do THE BERNIE WAVE.’ (emphasis mine)You don’t want to get him started on DVD sales or Sociological inference; Just know…‘…it was what happened after the release of my movie, the original film, that it continues to surprise. The film got into the zeitgeist in a way that you cannot manufacture and has remained there to this day ..’- In 2010, a rap group in Miami started a song and dance craze called “Movin’ Like Bernie” that got 12 million views online. – In 2015, in the Oakland Raiders’ first game of the season, the players all came out onto the football field doing the hysterical dead-man Bernie dance. – There are dozens of political references: MAD magazine did a parody “Weekend at Bin Laden’s” with President Obama and Vice President Biden holding up the deceased al-Qaeda leader. – In 2015, Rep. Bernie Sanders showed his self-deprecating side in a CNBC interview by donning sunglasses, flopping his head, and doing his best Bernie Lomax. The image of two guys holding up a dead Bernie was used all over Venezuela during the 2012 presidential election. – In 2012, two guys in Denver drove around with a dead guy in their car and used his credit card to fund their night at a strip club. Every single headline had some play on Weekend at Bernie’s. – In 2008, in the New York area, two guys tried to cash the Social Security check belonging to their recently deceased friend. They pushed his corpse, seated in an office chair, along the sidewalk to a check-cashing store. They claimed their friend was in a deep sleep. An article recounts, “They did not go about it the easy way, the police said, choosing a ruse that resembled the plot of Weekend at Bernie’s.”excerpt from: Ted Kotcheff. “Director’s Cut.” Chapter 22: Pretending to be Someone Else.
Grest thanks. Now can Jalopnik please detail what happens to cars that jump 100 feet through the air so we can suck the fun out of the dukes of hazzard. It’s not a documentary lady.
Weekend at Bernie’s (1989) Canadian director Ted Kotcheff’s blissfully locked-down in a WAB bubble, insisting…‘The film broke box-office records in Italy, beating out E.T., the biggest sci-fi hit of the time. Wherever I went, people had seen it and were thrilled to meet the director of Weekend at Bernie’s. They would tip their heads as if they were dead, smirk, and do THE BERNIE WAVE.’ (emphasis mine)Don’t get him going on DVD sales or Sociological inference; Just know…‘…it was what happened after the release of my movie, the original film, that it continues to surprise. The film got into the zeitgeist in a way that you cannot manufacture and has remained there to this day ..’In 2010, a rap group in Miami started a song and dance craze called “Movin’ Like Bernie” that got 12 million views online.In 2015, in the Oakland Raiders’ first game of the season, the players all came out onto the football field doing the hysterical dead-man Bernie dance.There are dozens of political references: MAD magazine did a parody “Weekend at Bin Laden’s” with President Obama and Vice President Biden holding up the deceased al-Qaeda leader.In 2015, Rep. Bernie Sanders showed his self-deprecating side in a CNBC interview by donning sunglasses, flopping his head, and doing his best Bernie Lomax. The image of two guys holding up a dead Bernie was used all over Venezuela during the 2012 presidential election.In 2012, two guys in Denver drove around with a dead guy in their car and used his credit card to fund their night at a strip club. Every single headline had some play on Weekend at Bernie’s.In 2008, in the New York area, two guys tried to cash the Social Security check belonging to their recently deceased friend. They pushed his corpse, seated in an office chair, along the sidewalk to a check-cashing store. They claimed their friend was in a deep sleep. An article recounts, “They did not go about it the easy way, the police said, choosing a ruse that resembled the plot of Weekend at Bernie’s.”excerpt from: Ted Kotcheff. “Director’s Cut.” Chapter 22: Pretending to be Someone Else.