Adam Sandler -- irreverent & iconoclastic
Adam Sandler is one of my heroes. When he makes a movie, he takes an important message and wraps it in crude, offensive humor so that those who love crude, offensive humor will SEE it -- and those are the ones who most need to see it.
I recently watched "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" and... wow. There were some terrible 'jokes' in there but also so much truth! He took two straight white males on a journey where they realized what it means to lose your privilege and drop a few rungs on the social ladder. And instead of having them simply be irritated at how they didn't 'deserve' to be treated like that because they didn't REALLY belong to the lower social status (which would be likely, but would have slowed down the journey), they stepped quickly into the roles and felt it, and showed it. How often do you see that? A GLAAD representative said "The movie has some of the expected stereotypes, but in its own disarming way, it's a call for equality and respect." I definitely agree. It made me laugh and cry and... wow. heh, I guess that's my response -- awe!
Sandler wears the asshole label to do some beautiful things. I love him for that. And as much as I would love to not see sexist 'humor', I'm willing to forgive it in his movies. Maybe that makes me a little bit of a hypocrite? But it always gets addressed, called out for what it is, and to me that is infinitely better than the 'subtle' sexist themes in so many other movies that gets completely ignored (or the not-at-all-subtle that gets reinforced rather than called out). And for that reason I feel like he genuinely sees the problem and like everything else, mocks it. Can't know without meeting him but that's my reaction.