Wolf Gnards

I’m still a little upset that Corey Haim was snubbed at the Academy Awards. It just stings that they could over look perhaps the greatest Corey of our time. I’ve always been a vehement Haim supporter. I believe the downfall of the Coreys can be tracked back to inverting the Corey/Corey dynamic from Haim/Feldmen to Feldman/Haim. Or it was the drugs. Probably the drugs. However, this shouldn’t prevent the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from appreciating the lasting mark Haim left on society.

Namely the Douche Grin.

The douche grin tells the world that yeah, you’re a douche, and you know you’re douche, and you know that I know that you are douche, and that’s what’s charming about you. It’s not entirely unrelated to the Dreamworks face, the Douche smile works a little differently. The Dreamworks face is more like, “What? You want me to save the day? But I’m lovable goof, not a hero.” Which is great for the loser protagonist that has to rise to the occasion in an animated romp. The Haim smile is more like, “I got your daughter pregnant, but, at least, the Feldog didn’t get her pregnant, right?” Which is great for the loser protagonist that still needs to be liked by the audience in a teen comedy.

It’s sort of like telling the audience even though the character’s not a good person, he doesn’t mean to be that way, and he really just likes to party and what’s the harm in partying. And Corey Haim invented this smile. It’s like the gift from the gods. He’s a douche smile machine, the uniform precision alone is something to be admired.

As you can see it’s sort of a smirk, definitely a hint of mouth breathing though, and almost a perfect triangle. The secret of a good douche grin is hitting that three point triangle: smugness, bewilderment, and disgust. It says: I hate you, I’m better than you, but I really don’t know why. The level of confusion in a douche grin almost borders on the stoner smile, but that’s its saving grace: A smile that says I’m so clueless that I can’t really be a bad person. Haim was a master of making his almost innocent in a Bart Simpson/Denise the Menace sort of way. A grin like this can make the audience believe the “bad boy” villain has some sort of soul, or the underdog hero who has never done anything right has something worth rooting for. Every douche grin after owes a dept to Haim and that’s why it was shame it wasn’t appreciated by the Academy.

Follow up:

Successors of the Douche Grin

Keanu Reeves

Perhaps the most successful of the post-Corey/Corey idiot man-childs, Reeves is a specialist in the douche grin sub-genre: The Woah (also the largest drink size at your neighborhood World of Burgers aka W.O.B.)

Seann William Scott

The Stiffler face has a little more lip curl than the average douche grin, somewhat related to the now classic Facebook duckface.

Shia LaBeouf

Not the traditional douche grin, but there’s something about Shia’s face that is a magnet for my fist. And I really don’t have any problem with him, but I just want to punch him so hard, which coincidentally is a typical reaction to a good douche grin.

Robert Pattinson

The only vampire that confuses brooding with constipation. Many believe Corey Haim was not included in the Oscar In Memoriam directly because of Pattinson. The theory states that Stephenie Meyer’s trademarked the douche grin, Grouche™, for exclusive use in the Twilight saga, and that’s why the Academy Awards were unable to run pictures of Haim.