Random Mrs. Doubtfire Is Actually A Dark Film About An Extremely Deranged Man (16 items)

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  (#1) That Attempted Murder Scene

  Could Robin Williams' attempted murder of Pierce Brosnan be folded into any of the other horrible things about Mrs. Doubtfire? Sure. But this is poor decision-making at another level, and it deserves to be fully dissected. Drunk off of the success of his scheme (and alcohol), Robin Williams traipses through the kitchen of a fancy restaurant and cavalierly pours cayenne pepper on Pierce Brosnan's meal because he's such a petty human that he wants to ruin everyone's dinner.

  At this point in the film, Daniel is nothing more than a Taco Bell employee that sneezes in the lettuce because of the lulz; he's a menace that has to be stopped. But he doesn't realize how terrible of a person he's been until Brosnan begins to choke to death on the over-seasoned shrimp. Never mind the concerns that this scene raises about Brosnan's lack of smell, the real bother is that Daniel is presented as the hero of the film for attempting to kill his romantic rival and then saving his life because he's too much of a coward to pull the trigger on his plan. 
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  (#2) Everyone Is OK With Robin Williams Stalking Them

  By the end of the movie, no one cares that Robin Williams was wearing the world's most expensive disguise to follow their every move and trick them into loving him again. The kids seem to think it's actually cool, and Sally Field finds it downright charming. A television executive even thinks it's such a great idea that he gives Mrs. Doubtfire a television show. What's wrong with this picture other than everything?
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  (#3) Sally Field Has No Idea What Her Husband Looks Like

  And more to the point, no one in this movie seems to know what Robin Williams looks like. Sure, he's buried under pounds of latex, but the face hasn't been changed all that much. It seems like all you would have to do to alleviate this issue is film a scene where someone says, "You look like my dad," or whatever, and then Mrs. Doubtfire plays air guitar with a vacuum cleaner. Was the Hillard family's home life so fractured that no one looked at anyone in the face? Who knew that Mrs. Doubtfire would be a visual representation of the unraveling of the nuclear family?
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  (#4) Robin Williams Has No Sense Of Responsibility

  Every terrible thing that happens in Mrs. Doubtfire could have been nipped in the bud if Daniel had even the most remote amount of responsibility. He could have had a petting zoo birthday party at his house without anyone getting mad if he'd simply run it by Sally Field. He would still have a job if he voiced his concerns about the script with the producers when he read it. Even if he had gotten divorced, he would have been able to share custody of his children if he acted like an adult at any moment in his life.

  But instead, he flails through the film like a plastic bag in the wind and somehow ends up being offered his own television show by the head of a small network in San Francisco. Great. All Williams has to do at this point in the film is take that meeting, prepare for it, and not double book himself. Obviously, because Daniel is a child, he agrees to have dinner with his family (as Mrs. Doubtfire) at the same time as he's meeting with the exec; obviously, hijinks ensue. If Daniel had just quit his nanny position he could have had a successful meeting, gotten his show, and not turned everyone's evening (and life, really) into a living nightmare.  
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  (#5) Robin Williams Gaslights A Sad Old Man And Breaks His Heart

  Mrs. Doubtfire contains one of the most hauntingly sad scenes in modern cinema, and it takes less than a minute (you can watch it above). After Robin Williams shenanigans his way into working for/stalking his family, he has to take the late bus home most evenings. The bus is driven by an older, clearly single man, and they're usually the only two on the vehicle.

  The guy seems like just the sweetest. He compliments Robin Williams's hairy legs, saying, they're "Natural. Healthy. Just the way God made you." It seems almost painfully obvious that the highlight of this bus driver's day is flirting with this single, Irish, age-appropriate woman.

  Robin Williams never reveals his true identity to the man, and even politely refuses to go on a date with him in a deleted scene (in which we find out the man is a recent widower). The problem is, this guy is going to figure out what was happening, and he is going to be devastated.

  At the end of the movie, "Mrs. Doubtfire" gets her own TV show. This poor man is going to see her all over television (and maybe, tragically, on the side of his own bus), check the credits to find out her name, and realize that she's a dude. It's going to crush him, and it will be all Robin Williams's fault. 
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  (#6) Mrs. Doubtfire Is the Film's True Antagonist

  While the film casts Williams's character in the most sympathetic light (he's a down on his luck dad who's lost everything), it's obvious to anyone who has ever had to deal with a deadbeat parent or known someone with a substance abuse problem that the only person standing in Daniel Hillard's way is Daniel Hillard. He begins the film with everything that anyone could want. He has a successful voice-over career, a giant house in San Francisco, three plucky kids, and he's married to Sally Field. Hillard systematically deconstructs his life until he has nothing left, and that makes him so unhappy that he transforms into a monster and tries to ruin the lives of everyone he knows. Daniel Hillard is the parent you no longer speak to, the person you've blocked on social media, and the guy from high school who's working at a car wash all rolled into one. 
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  (#7) There Are No Consequences For Anyone's Actions

  When was the last time you committed fraud, dressed up as a Scottish woman, violated a court order, screamed at a bunch of people, and tried to kill someone without anything happening to you? Probably never. One of the biggest problems with Mrs. Doubtfire's narrative is that there are no stakes. The audience is never worried about whether or not Daniel Hillard is going to win his family back because it doesn't matter what he does - he's going to have his cake and eat it too. Even if someone is angry with Hillard in one scene, they're fine with him by the next time they appear onscreen. Either everyone who appears in this movie is a nihilist or there was no oversight during the screenwriting process. 
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  (#8) Robin Williams's First Instinct After Losing His Voice-Over Gig Is To Trick His Family

  If Mrs. Doubtfire can teach us anything, it's that no one was worried about an economic collapse in the mid-'90s. When Daniel Hillard loses his swanky job as a voice-over artist in San Francisco, he doesn't begin flailing into a panic attack the same way that any other artist would if they detonated their career as expertly as he did. Instead, Daniel Hillard decides that the best course of action is trick his family into loving him by pretending to be someone else. All Robin Williams needs to do to win his family back is change who he is, or at least become the best version of himself. He needs to get a job, learn how to take care of himself (cooking, cleaning, etc), and stop looking like such a slob. And he does do those things, just in a twisted way that involves making everyone around him feel stupid for trusting him. 
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  (#9) Robin Williams Is Objectively A Horrible Father

  Daniel Hillard has all of the tools to be a great father. He has a cool job in the film industry, he's funny, and he's down to help out with the homework. But he uses all of those talents to make his kids feel terrible. Rather than bring them into his life, he shuts them out until he realizes that they're mad at them and then he plans a grand gesture in order to win them back. It's bipolar parenting at its worst, and even if having a petting zoo at your house for a birthday party seems like a good idea in the moment, if it's just done to smooth over some earlier slight, it's only going to make things worse in the long run. 
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  (#10) Mrs. Doubtfire Is the Most Careless Stalker Ever

  It's safe to say that most stalkers try to keep some kind of distance between themselves and their target of interest, or if they're pretending to be a nanny in the home they've been forcibly removed from, they don't put themselves in a situation where they can slip up at any moment. Case in point: Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire drinks a lot. And when he drinks, he gets careless, and the guise of a simple Scottish nanny begins to fall away. The most careless moment that comes to mind is when Williams is at the pool with his family and he gets blitzed while ogling young women. Come on man, try to hold it together for two hours. That's all you have to do. 
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  (#11) Robin Williams Is Constantly Assaulting People

  Honestly, what Robin Williams needs to do in this movie is go to therapy for his anger issues, not be rewarded for them. Not only does he verbally assault his ex-wife and children, he yells at a producer, and then throws fruit at Pierce Brosnan. This is how a bad guy in a Disney film about rollerblading acts, not the hero of a family-friendly comedy. 
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  (#12) Every One Of Robin Williams's Relationships Is Toxic

  One of the hardest things to watch in Mrs. Doubtfire is the way that Robin Williams continues on with his toxic relationships in spite of recognizing that they're killing him. And the same goes for Sally Field. She tries to pull the ripcord on her relationship with Williams early on in the film but she still allows him to come into her life every other weekend when he picks up the kids in order to continue their nightmare of a relationship. The judge at the beginning of the film shouldn't have ordered Williams to get a job, he should have ordered him to go to therapy. 
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  (#13) That Trans-Shaming Scene

  You know the scene, when Mrs. Doubtfire is caught by one of the Lawrence boys peeing standing up. It's how Williams's son discovers that dear old dad is actually his nanny, and it's embarrassing for multiple reasons. First of all, we're watching a grown man urinate and there's nothing great about that visual. Secondly, the fact that a teenage boy thinks that he needs to immediately out the trans person because he WALKED IN ON THEM GOING TO THE BATHROOM is one of the dumbest, most mean-spirited conceits in a film. While it's important to look at scenes like this in context - this was the '90s and LGTBQA rights weren't as big of a deal as they are now, and also this a comedy about mistaken identity - it still stands that Robin Williams is not in the wrong in this scene despite being presented as such. Is he stalking his family? Yes. Is he pretending to be someone else in order to make his children love him? Yes. But should his rights as a human who just wants to relieve his bladder be trampled on because a nosy 13-year-old feels uncomfortable? No. 
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  (#14) The Money That Robin WIlliams Spends On His Costume Could Be Used For Anything Else

  Do you know how much practical effects cost? Thousands of dollars. He had to buy a collection of masks that were perfectly molded to his face and that not only takes money for materials, but it costs even more money to pay someone to mold the piece and fit it to his face. With the money it takes to undergo this kind of criminal trickery, Daniel Hillard could have paid for a decade's worth of therapy for his children, because that's what they need by the time the credits are rolling on this film. 
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  (#15) There Are Farm Animals Inside A House

  Who's cleaning up the mess of having a petting zoo run wild in the house? And when you have a picturesque home in San Francisco, your first thought isn't, "You know what would make this house even nicer? Piles of animal sh*t!" Setting aside Daniel's nightmare idea of throwing the messiest birthday party in history, why would anyone want to do that to their house? Even if you live in a one-bedroom apartment in Macon, GA, you wouldn't want to track a bunch of zebras through the living room. Nothing about this scene is endearing, and if anything, it serves to make the audience truly hate Robin Williams. 
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  (#16) The Changing Montages Are A Living Nightmare

  The amount of body horror that made its way into Mrs. Doubtfire rivals David Cronenberg classics like The Fly and Videodrome for how unsettling something can be on film. The only people out there that are finding comedy in watching Robin Williams rip his face off and awkwardly bend his body into a latex fat suit probably have a locked garage bulging with the corpses of teenage boys they picked up at a bus stop. Horror film comparisons aside, the scene where Robin Williams slams his body against a bathroom stall while he jams himself into a blouse had to have birthed at least two different fetishes when it was first shown in theaters. 

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