Bee Movie

Released 14th December 2007, Bee Movie follows newly graduated bee Barry B Benson as he sues the human race. Yes, you read that correctly. No, I’m not smoking. Yes, the writers definitely were. I think its suffice to say this film was definitely not made to be remembered as art; yet there is a good chance that this film will outlast any legacies we ever provide. Before I continue, I wish to quote the Oxford Dictionary [Tenth Edition] to say that pieces of ‘art’ are: “subjects of study primarily concerned with human creativity and social life”. Whilst this film doesn’t really tackle anything topical in society seriously, I feel this film is the best expression of modern humour and I believe this film was the dawn of internet humour as we know it today.

The film constantly makes a joke out of everything from mundane tasks and simple wordplay. That said, we also receive slavery jokes, , suicide jokes, incest jokes and frequent sexual innuendo; in a film promoted to anyone in the ‘U’ (Universal) rating. We can still see this in modern memes that make fun of topical, serious issues of any kind in our desensitised society. The most profound impact on modern humour however is what is known as ‘s***posting’; essentially when a ‘joke’ is made without a punchline and manages to be hysterical i.e. “You like jazz?”. If you watched enough memes on YouTube, you will be guaranteed to be recommended ‘s***post status’ videos with such bizarre setups that the bizarre nature of the setups crack you up. Being targeted towards such a young audience, this had a staggering impact on (what is subsequently) my generation who grew up with this element of comedy which has seeped into everyday life now.

Besides that, I can’t seriously comment on anything else. The characters are all stock characters with fantastic delivery from the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Renee Zellweger, Patrick Warburton and John Goodman. The soundtrack doesn’t really matter, the animation doesn’t really matter; if anything, the animation lower quality actually enhances the experience. Ironically, the film feels lower quality when it ‘tackles’ the idea of climate change; it relates to bees and their importance in the global ecosystem but, in this kind of film, no one cares! Overall, this film is just a fever dream which seems laughably terrible at face value, but as a work of art, this film is somehow one of the most influential in human history…