It’s a film about a young white kid, no dad, and he’s sad. No way around it. He’s having a tough go. Single mom, kind-of poor, but he’s smart, you know? Maybe he falls in with the wrong crowd, but they’re not that bad. Only misguided, just like him. They’ll do drugs a convenient – what? Let’s say three? – three times, then have a falling out. But, in the end, the kid’ll learn something about himself and his family. Yeah, family. That’s a good one. Kids are always learning stuff about their family. Also – it’s semi-autobiographical.
Then Jonah Hill says, “Wait, what?”
This, of course, is a dig at Pete Davidson’s upcoming Judd Apatow joint, The King of Staten Island, and Jonah Hill’s 2018 Mid90s – a film that, if you knew nothing about each comedian’s respective childhood, might as well have the same story.
Of course, the comedian-turned-screenwriter-turned-director is by no means a new thing in Hollywood – big names like Terry Gillam and Richard Pryor having had some really successful writing work, with Gilliam among others getting to the point where their behind-the-camera work stands as tall, if not taller, than their acting and comedy. More recently, too, comedians like Seth Rogan have been very open about how acting is fun – and a great paycheck – but screenwriting is their true calling. So, in a way, this new wave of funny Indiewood guys is really nothing new or newsworthy.
But at the same time, they’re growing – and growing fast. Sure, Seth Rogan has been writing since he was 15 years old, and Jonah Hill is probably no different, but did anyone expect Hill’s directorial debut to be more along the lines of Lady Bird than Superbad? Well, maybe for fans listening closely in his interviews for the few years leading up to Mid90s release, it made sense, but for many others, it’s hard to separate the man from the fat kid in 21 Jump Street.
Bo Burnham making a social-anxiety-driven, coming-of-age story probably makes a lot more sense than Jonah Hill, at least from a 2014 perspective, but still, his Eighth Grade is yet another great example of this extremely niche sub-genre getting much more traction than it probably deserves. Both Mid90s and Eighth Grade are perfectly fine movies – in fact, Mid90s is a lot more than fine – and Davidson’s The King of Staten Island will probably be great as well, but why, really, did they get made? Burnham, Hill, and Davidson are among the funniest and most creative young people in the industry. Why the fuck, then, are they all making the exact same movie?
It’s got to be name recognition. Between the A24 logo that gets Indie-film twitter buzzing before the trailer even starts and the hey-I-know-him-factor that a name like Pete Davidson can give to a project, it’s hard to shake the feeling that despite being very firmly in the indie-verse, these movies and their creators are banking hard on their big names. And of course, there’s nothing wrong with this. If Jonah Hill doesn’t mind cheesing his Hollywood clout to get his passion project made, more power to him. After all, all movies need a star, and even if the star is just a famous guy’s name on the poster, how is that any different than putting the Rock in Jumanji? The real question is, at least to me, why is Jonah Hill’s passion project exactly the same as Burnham’s?
Everybody loves a good coming-of-age dramedy, of course, but does anyone need four coming-of-age dramedies? After Lady Bird, we were probably all set for five or six years.
Can’t Pete just make a startlingly good indie debut about the struggles of living with Big Dick Energy? This sad childhood schtick is getting kind of annoying. Alas, such is the curse of the funny white man.
The same type of things are happening in television, too. Interestingly, while Hill, Burnham, and Davidson are all working with some sort of feature-length projects, many comedians of color have found their own outlets through the small screen – both in cable and through streaming. Big names from the past decade of American comedy – guys like Aziz Ansari, Donald Glover, and Ramy Youseff – are going down the path of the entertainment-industry renaissance man: Writing, producing, and starring in their own short-form shows. They’re successful, too, being recognized by the academy at a much higher level than, say, Eighth Grade or Mid90s. Ansari’s Master of None and Glover’s Atlanta were both critical favorites during their first few seasons and grabbed a couple of Emmy nominations apiece. These, along with other recent Netflix and streaming successes such as Fleabag, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Barry, and Russian Doll, seem to indicate a coming golden-age in the short-form TV dramedy.
But, holding them to the same standards as the films from earlier, these series all have the same types of weaknesses, too. While the comedians writing for movies seem to be obsessed with their own not-quite-tragic childhoods, these TV writers all have the same preoccupation with their not-quite-interesting twenty-something years. A sort-of-poor, sort-of-depressed young adult tackles family, work, dating, and society’s prejudices – am I describing Atlanta, Fleabag, or Ramy? Try all three. At least Barry has hitmen… It seems like all the recurring tropes in these shows are starting to develop into their own little sub-genre. Great, but what about the original ideas?
It seems like one of the main things critics love to knock Hollywood for – the unoriginality – is starting to spread to the indie-sphere. And even worse, the studios – classic bad guys in the narrative of Hollywood derivativeness – aren’t even at fault! It’s these comedians, held up as some of the most creative people working in America today, that are making these decisions themselves! While other genres, like horror, are thriving in the streaming/A24 era, the indie dramedy seems to be falling into a rut. Just look at Jordan Peele. Jordan Peele is mixing genres and scares and comedy and is saying real things in his films. Jordan Peele recognizes that the coming-of-age story is done. John Hughes started it, Greta Gertwig perfected it, and Jordan Peele recognized that he has nothing to say that hasn’t already been said. Please, guys, be more like Jordan Peele. I’d much rather see Jonah Hill’s Get Out than another, shittier Lady Bird.
Chalk it up to bad childhoods (enough of them do it, after all) or anything else you want, but too many comedy writers are falling into a spiral of samey pseudo-quirkiness. Maybe it’s just part of the larger movement away from comedy films in the past couple decades, or maybe dramedies are their own separate animal, but this trend of ‘funny-guy-sad-movie’ is doing nothing to move either the industry or artform forward. These are the funniest, smartest, and most creative people working right now. Surely, they can do better.
airquotes 