Jerry Seinfeld Apologizes For The 'Uncomfortable Sexual Aspect' Of Bee Movie
It's been fourteen years since DreamWorks unleashed their unholy abomination known as "Bee Movie," and the world has never known peace since. The animated feature was co-produced and co-written by star Jerry Seinfeld, who has finally atoned for his sins. During a recent appearance on "The Tonight Show" with Jimmy Fallon, Seinfeld publicly admitted what many of us online have been screaming about for over a decade ... "Bee Movie" is way too horny to be a children's movie.
I'm Sorry, WHAT is Bee Movie About?
On the surface, "Bee Movie" sounds like your run of the mill anti-capitalism message hidden within the confines of a children's animated movie. Barry the Bee (Seinfeld) is a recent college graduate who flies out of the hive for the first time and breaks the cardinal rule of bee society and meets a human florist Vanessa Bloome (Renée Zellweger). He learns that humans have been stealing and eating honey for a millennia and decides that his new purpose in life is to fight for the rights of bees and sue humanity for theft. Cool! Stealing is bad! Great message! But there's also that pesky subtext where "Bee Movie" portrays the friendship between Barry and Vanessa as more than friends in a way that is impossible to miss and guaranteed to haunt you decades later.
Jerry Seinfeld's Apology
Obviously having seen the plethora of memes or Tumblr threads dedicated to analyzing just what in the fresh hell was going on in "Bee Movie," Seinfeld acknowledged and apologized for the weirdness, saying:
"I apologize for what seems to be a certain uncomfortable subtle sexual aspect of 'The Bee Movie,' which 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. We don't really want to pursue that as an idea in children's entertainment."
Considering Vanessa's boyfriend Ken (Patrick Warburton) is painted as a villain for having justifiable concerns about how intimately close the friendship between Barry and Vanessa has become, it's impossible not to view this as a movie totally down with interspecies romance.
That said, on the film's 10th anniversary, director Steve Hickner said in an interview with The New Statesman that Barry and Vanessa were "Never going to be sexual or anything like that, It was purely this friendship ... maybe in Barry's mind he thought ... but it was never going to be that."
Barry Marder, a "Bee Movie" script writer, acknowledged that the film's concept is "kind of weird to begin with," and writer Spike Feresten noted that audiences are either "entertained or repulsed" by the storyline. Feresten went on to clarify that the film doesn't actually contain an "interspecies love affair," and that the film is not encouraging that behavior for young viewers.
Unfortunately, this is a prime example of intent vs. impact, my good dudes.
The Legacy of Bee Movie Memes
A quick Google search of "Bee Movie Memes" will not only destroy your browser history and recommended ads until the end of time, but also give a look into how overwhelming the impact of "Bee Movie" has been on meme culture. It's not just the possible fanfic-worthy relationship, either. "Bee Movie" also has a scene where Barry jokes to Vanessa that the duo should make a suicide pact, and there are constant jokes about how it's weird to find the other bees in the hive "hot" because "we're all cousins." If it sounds like I'm bee-ing too hard on "Bee Movie," it's only because I love this ridiculous film and cannot bee-lieve that no one caught any of these innuendos before unleashing this horror upon the masses. The internet has embraced "Bee Movie" in a critical yet loving manner ... except for whoever is responsible for putting the close up shots of Vanessa's feet on Wikifeet, that is.
If you're feeling adventurous, there are plenty of cursed versions on YouTube like the 7:03 minute long "The entire 'Bee Movie' but everytime they say 'bee' it gets faster," or the 2:18 version of "Bee Movie But Only When They Say E," but if you're looking for the regular ol' horny "Bee Movie," it is currently available to stream on Netflix.