Jerry Seinfeld admits that Bee Movie might have made some inappropriate subtext.
In 2007, a magnificent mess called Bee Movie came out starring Jerry Seinfeld as Barry B. Benson, an idealistic honey bee who has the ability to talk to humans. He decides to sue the human race for exploiting bees, after learning that humans sell and consume honey. If that doesn’t tell you that this is a fantastic messy anti-capitalist Ferngully, I don’t know what else can.
Among the many things the movie has been memed about, the top one I have always known is that, in the film, Barry befriends a florist named Vanessa Bloome (Renée Zellweger), and they have some ~chemistry~.
This was brought up on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and Seinfeld finally (#sarcasm) apologized for putting all of this into the eyes of children everywhere.
“I apologize for what seems to be a certain uncomfortable subtle sexual aspect of the Bee Movie,” he told Fallon. “[It] really was not intentional, but after it came out, I realized this is really not appropriate for children. Because the bee seems to have a thing for the girl, and we don’t really want to pursue that as an idea in children’s entertainment.”
As Cartoon Brew notes, Barry Marder and Spike Feresten, two of Seinfeld’s co-writers on the film, have also talked about the fact that everything about the film is odd.
“Well, let’s be honest, a bee and a woman carrying on is kind of weird to begin with.” Marder said. Then, Feresten added that the writing team hadn’t really intended to suggest romance: “Often we would lose sight of those characters in the [writing] room.”
And yet we got the “Are you her little bed bug?” line, and the world was never the same.
Mind you, as someone who is in the monster f*cker fanbase, is looking forward to seeing Venom 2 as soon as possible and was raised on Beauty and the Beast. I am not judging the movie for going there. Feed the beast.
More that it just a really bad movie with great acting, but a plot so nonsensical that even though it still did well at the box office, its true value was in giving us all something to meme about.
Bee Movie may be bad, but it is iconic. Horny, weird, and iconic.
(via Cartoon Brew, image: DreamWorks Animation)
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