Superbad (2007)

QFS No. 144 - The invitation for June 12, 2024
Last week we selected a somewhat abstract narrative art film from Southeast Asia. It only stands to reason that our next film should be a raunchy teen comedy, the likes of which are churned out regularly by Hollywood. I give you… Superbad.

I have, oddly, not seen Superbad. There is no reason for this other than perhaps I thought it was too silly to bother back then. But more likely, I was no longer the target audience when it came out seventeen years ago. Still, since it’s endured, I’ve wanted to see it. In part because the cast is superb – Jonah Hill (before he was slim and serious), Bill Hader (before he was a formidable auteur), Emma Stone (before she won two Oscars!) Seth Rogan (basically the same) and Michael Cera (also basically the same somehow).

Superbad feels like it has remained a worthy modern stupid comedy all these years later. Stupid comedies are the lifeblood of the industry – just look at Animal House (1978), to pick one school-related stupid comedy as an example. That has endured and is still referenced by at least a subset of the American public (men 45-75 years old). And with summer now starting, won’t it be something nice just to turn off the old noggin and watch a couple of nerdy teenagers just trying to do (super) bad things? I think so.

Anyway, join us to discuss Superbad!

*Superbad* (2007) Directed by Greg Mottola

Reactions and Analyses:
Is it possible that a film which includes a very long tangent about a 4th grader with an uncontrollable compulsion to doodle penis drawings can also be a film that has deep meaning about relationships, outward appearances, and observations about American society?

Yes. Somehow Superbad (2007) pulls this off.

Beneath all the vulgarity, the obsession with pornography, the underaged drinking, the cops behaving like children and the chaos throughout, Superbad has heart – just as the main characters Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Sera) do. In another era, Superbad (2007) would simply be a tale of high schoolers who set out to find booze for a party and comedy ensues and nothing more. (I dare you to find broader meaning Animal House, 1978). And on its surface, Superbad is that. But without too much digging, you can readily find some deeper themes and meaning.

Of course, the central love story in the film is between Seth and Evan. And in that story, we see one of the filmmakers’ themes that are a little less overt than the obvious – American males are incapable to expressing true emotion with each other unless their guards are down. The two high school best friends are going to miss each other next year and the film winds its way to show that they are undergoing separation anxiety.

*Superbad* is, among other things, a love story between Evan (Michael Cera) and Seth (Jonah Hill).

But we were interested as a group about why they are incapable of just coming out and saying that they’re going to miss each other. And I contend that the filmmakers are making a case about masculinity, that American males are unable to be emotionally open with another male. Alcohol, with its ability to release inhibitions, acts as the only facilitator for these kids (and adults) to actually talk to each other about how they’re feeling. The only way American men can be true with each other is with help, and that “help” is usually booze.

Finally, after about two-thirds of the way through the film, Seth and Evan have an extended argument and it comes out that Seth feels betrayed by Evan for enrolling in Dartmouth – even simply applying – because Seth isn’t going there for college and could never have gotten in anyway. It isn’t until a later scene when they’re both exhausted, drunk, and in sleeping bags next to each other that they can finally say that they love each other, and that they’ll miss each other.

So the movie is a breakup film and almost a romantic comedy about a platonic relationship between two young men. And the final way they can actually confess their love is when the illusion they present to the world has dissolved.

And here is the second major theme – public persona and perception versus reality. Both Evan and Seth want to portray themselves as something they’re not. They want to show that they know how to party, that they can provide alcohol for everyone, and are part of the “in” crowd (even though no one can remember having seen them at a party before). They believe that sex is the most important thing in the world, and that having sex and being able to be good as sex is so vital before college. Illusions are a major part of Superbad.

The filmmakers here are also making a comment on American society as well. Seth and Evan are led to believe that the world will not accept them as who they are, therefore they have to pretend they are something else. Evan tries to show off for Becca (Martha MacIssac) by exaggerating their previous night’s adventures – which in reality were watching porn, shot-gunning beer, trying to get into a strip club – and tries to act “cool” but of course he’s incapable of it. Seth brags to Jules (Emma Stone) about being able to get alcohol but he needs Fogell/McLovin’ (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and his ridiculous fake ID card - of course that fails. This illusion drives the two guys, that their ticket into the elites is providing alcohol and acting more important than you are.

And here’s where the filmmakers are overt about their solution to this problem: be yourself. Seth eventually “wins over” (unclear, but at least as a friend) Jules and not because he got booze for the party like she asked. She doesn’t even drink alcohol. But she’s charmed by him – she saw his open vulnerable side when she caught him crying the previous night – and will even hang out with him at the mall the day after the party, even though he accidentally headbutted her and gave her a black eye the night before.

In that same scene, Evan reconnects with a hungover Becca. The night before she attempted to have sex with Evan but he objects to doing it while she’s drunk (even though Seth earlier in the film said “we can be that mistake!”) because she’ll regret it and won’t even remember. But it’s this act of earnestness that makes her realize he’s special and they go on an impromptu date at the mall to buy new comforters. He was his true self, not trying to put on a metaphoric mask in order to get laid before college because that’s what they were led to believe they needed to do.

Both of them act like themselves for the first time and are rewarded. Of course, this means that Seth and Evan have to awkwardly say goodbye to each other – still incapable of true emotion in public with each other – and they don’t know either to hug or to handshake. It’s a perfect moment. And here the filmmakers use perhaps the most artistic and cinematic sequence of shots in the film – the escalator, and the teeth on the steps separate the two platonic lovers as they go off their divergent paths , cleaving the two. It’s a perfect scene and ending of the film.

Further commentary about masculinity? Officer Slater (Bill Hader) and Officer Michales (Seth Rogan) and McLovin’s storyline. The cops are given the authority of a badge, and are given a license to behave like adolescent men. They can drink beers at a bar for free, raid parties, ignore responsibility, trash a police car and fire a gun in public at a stop sign with impunity. They’re living an adolescent dream, two men who were unable to be themselves when younger but now look who’s in charge? The kids you picked on are now the boss. Even all the penis drawings probably speak to this obsession with sex and masculinity that’s more about just a cavalcade of ludicrous penis drawings in what’s an otherwise seemingly superfluous tangent.

Setting aside all the actual commentary embedded in the film, Superbad is still, at its core, a comedy. Humor is subjective, and not everyone in the QFS group was taken by the antics depicted. But for me, the film made me laugh and I cringed whenever I had to witness the protagonists’ public awkwardness. In part because I didn’t want these two to look like idiots because I cared about them. (That cringe-inducing behavior was too much for some in the group.) I wanted Evan and Seth to succeed in bringing booze to minors at a party. Not because I felt like this was a great idea, but because I felt I knew an Evan and a Seth in high school. Cera and Hill’s performances are so excellent and spot on for the characters. The uncomfortable-in-my-own-skin feeling that Cera is able to bring in all of his performances work so excellently here.

Hill’s Seth, however, was more polarizing. While several in the group found him irredeemably off-putting, I had sympathy for him. He’s just a foul-mouthed, witty, overweight, awkward kid. And the reason I rooted for him can be found in an early scene. Seth and Evan walk out of a convenient store near the high school and Seth gets spit on Jesse (Scott Gerbacia), a bully who taunts him for no particular reason. That scene illustrated for me at least that Seth isn’t a kid who is all he claims to be, that he’s actually very low in that society and despises he’s at that level. I most craved for both to just be themselves because they were really funny and had a sweetness to them when they were just with each other and not putting on a social performance.

Several in the group were reminded of Eight Grade (2018, QFS No. 19), and there are a lot of parallels. Both take place at the end of the school year with a seismic life shift – Eight Grade of course is the end of middle school and Superbad is the end of high school into college. And while the humor in Eight Grade is rooted in a realism and Superbad is more on the screwball-comedy end of the spectrum, both feature sets of protagonists that are attempting to be something they are not, to project an image of importance or popularity. And both films root the stories in characters who seem realistic and familiar, because the emotions are true. Both films offer broader commentaries on American society, but in Superbad those commentaries are masked by the raunchy comedy the smothers the film. If you see past that (and past the avalanche of penis drawings), just as if you see past the illusion presented by Seth and Even, you can find that the film and the characters have something to say.

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