Superbad
is awesome. You should run, not walk, to your nearest megaplex and make this movie successful, because we need more comedies like Superbad.
I had to make an lj post about why I loved it so much, but alas, my kfelling must contain spoilers.
Make no mistake: Superbad is a teen sex comedy. It's about dudes - dudes who want to get drunk and laid - enduring hilarious scatalogical hijinks in the attempt to gratify their carnal desires. Its forerunners are the likes of American Pie, Road Trip, and a whole mess of National Lampoon trainwrecks. Guilty as charged: I'm a stick-in-the-mud to take to these kinds of movies. I may generalize grossly, but not undeservedly, when I say that these flicks are nearly always sexist, misogynistic, easy pieces of shit sprinkled liberally throughout with facile and offensive gay-panic jokes. Sexist apologist arguments bore me - "It's just a movie!" "It's a dude's fantasy!" "Everyone thinks this is funny - it's harmless!" It's demeaning and objectifying, and it's unacceptable to constantly validate "fantasies" of irresponsible, selfish sex with two-dimensional women who enjoy being exploited and abused, even in dumb sex comedies. Even more frustratingly, it's cheap and insulting to me as an audience member. Can't I get my raunchy, superficial, lowbrow humor without being told to laugh at shit like "DUDE. I THINK YOU JUST MADE OUT WITH A GUY"?
Yes. Yes, I can. I readily admit to not having seen dozens of blockbuster sex comedies, but I can honestly say that of the handful I have seen, Superbad is the only one that proved to me that it's absolutely possible to make a light, dumb, teen sex comedy that keeps it - is she really gonna say it? absolutely - feminist. Sure, we've all seen the part of the trailer where Jonah Hill goes "We could be that mistake!" But the film ends up going about clarifying that attitude, tweaking it, bringing it towards a climactic scene that ultimately glorifies a respectful, responsible attitude towards sex and women without even letting us notice the difference. At the party, when Becca (Martha MacIsaac), Evan's (Michael Cera) longtime crush drunkenly starts to try to sex him up, Evan resists - he asks, "Are you okay?" and ultimately rejects her advances on the grounds that, well, she's drunk out of her mind, and he doesn't want to take advantage of her even though he's drunk too. Shocking, right? But surely someone calls him a pussy, or puts some pressure on him to just do what he came for, right? Nope. It's just presented as what one should do, and to do anything else would have been unacceptable assholery. Jules (Emma Stone), Seth's (Jonah Hill) object of lust, doesn't drink, and when Seth tries to kiss her she explains, "You're drunk - I don't want to do this right now." Seth's response isn't anger or indignation; it's confusion - isn't this the way things are supposed to work? His reaction is written carefully - sure, he's a horny dude, but he's a horny dude with feelings, and he's not out to hurt anyone.
One of the great things about this movie is that there aren't any sluts - and by that I don't mean that there aren't horny or sexually active girls, but that there aren't the girls who are just so much bouncy scenery in other, lesser teen sex romps. Gone are the girls who are defined by their horniness, their abundant skin, and their cheerfully oblivious willingness to get dumped upon. The female characters in Superbad are written with thought and love, just as much love as the two protagonists, and if they don't get as much screen time it's not because the filmmakers don't think women are worth making movies about - it's because this is a story about Seth and Evan and Fogel (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who is awesome and will regrettably spend the rest of his career known to the public as "McLovin"). Incidentally, the relationship between Seth and Evan, longtime best friends for whom the specter of college casts an uneasy shadow, is written and acted with finesse and sensitivity without introducing so much as a hint of heavy-handedness.
All that said, is it still a teen sex romp about horny dudes? Are there still dick jokes in abundance? Do you still basically not have to engage your brain at any point in the movie? And, by God, is it funny? Yes, yes, yes, and fuck yes. It just manages to accomplish all of those things without taking the easy way out.
Well played, Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow, and Greg Mottola. I honestly walked out of that theater wishing I could shake your hands.
I had to make an lj post about why I loved it so much, but alas, my kfelling must contain spoilers.
Make no mistake: Superbad is a teen sex comedy. It's about dudes - dudes who want to get drunk and laid - enduring hilarious scatalogical hijinks in the attempt to gratify their carnal desires. Its forerunners are the likes of American Pie, Road Trip, and a whole mess of National Lampoon trainwrecks. Guilty as charged: I'm a stick-in-the-mud to take to these kinds of movies. I may generalize grossly, but not undeservedly, when I say that these flicks are nearly always sexist, misogynistic, easy pieces of shit sprinkled liberally throughout with facile and offensive gay-panic jokes. Sexist apologist arguments bore me - "It's just a movie!" "It's a dude's fantasy!" "Everyone thinks this is funny - it's harmless!" It's demeaning and objectifying, and it's unacceptable to constantly validate "fantasies" of irresponsible, selfish sex with two-dimensional women who enjoy being exploited and abused, even in dumb sex comedies. Even more frustratingly, it's cheap and insulting to me as an audience member. Can't I get my raunchy, superficial, lowbrow humor without being told to laugh at shit like "DUDE. I THINK YOU JUST MADE OUT WITH A GUY"?
Yes. Yes, I can. I readily admit to not having seen dozens of blockbuster sex comedies, but I can honestly say that of the handful I have seen, Superbad is the only one that proved to me that it's absolutely possible to make a light, dumb, teen sex comedy that keeps it - is she really gonna say it? absolutely - feminist. Sure, we've all seen the part of the trailer where Jonah Hill goes "We could be that mistake!" But the film ends up going about clarifying that attitude, tweaking it, bringing it towards a climactic scene that ultimately glorifies a respectful, responsible attitude towards sex and women without even letting us notice the difference. At the party, when Becca (Martha MacIsaac), Evan's (Michael Cera) longtime crush drunkenly starts to try to sex him up, Evan resists - he asks, "Are you okay?" and ultimately rejects her advances on the grounds that, well, she's drunk out of her mind, and he doesn't want to take advantage of her even though he's drunk too. Shocking, right? But surely someone calls him a pussy, or puts some pressure on him to just do what he came for, right? Nope. It's just presented as what one should do, and to do anything else would have been unacceptable assholery. Jules (Emma Stone), Seth's (Jonah Hill) object of lust, doesn't drink, and when Seth tries to kiss her she explains, "You're drunk - I don't want to do this right now." Seth's response isn't anger or indignation; it's confusion - isn't this the way things are supposed to work? His reaction is written carefully - sure, he's a horny dude, but he's a horny dude with feelings, and he's not out to hurt anyone.
One of the great things about this movie is that there aren't any sluts - and by that I don't mean that there aren't horny or sexually active girls, but that there aren't the girls who are just so much bouncy scenery in other, lesser teen sex romps. Gone are the girls who are defined by their horniness, their abundant skin, and their cheerfully oblivious willingness to get dumped upon. The female characters in Superbad are written with thought and love, just as much love as the two protagonists, and if they don't get as much screen time it's not because the filmmakers don't think women are worth making movies about - it's because this is a story about Seth and Evan and Fogel (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who is awesome and will regrettably spend the rest of his career known to the public as "McLovin"). Incidentally, the relationship between Seth and Evan, longtime best friends for whom the specter of college casts an uneasy shadow, is written and acted with finesse and sensitivity without introducing so much as a hint of heavy-handedness.
All that said, is it still a teen sex romp about horny dudes? Are there still dick jokes in abundance? Do you still basically not have to engage your brain at any point in the movie? And, by God, is it funny? Yes, yes, yes, and fuck yes. It just manages to accomplish all of those things without taking the easy way out.
Well played, Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow, and Greg Mottola. I honestly walked out of that theater wishing I could shake your hands.