There’s a movie scene forever etched into the minds of young adults. It’s probably as vivid as our parents’ recollection of the moon landing, or Maxwell House ads. In American Pie, hopeless high-schooler Jim decides to copulate with an apple tart.
You don’t think he’s going to do it, but he does. And then, because the filmmakers know we’re on the ropes, they show us the mangled remains in the dog bowl.
It’s also a moment that truly embodies the ‘gross-out Teen Comedy’, Hollywood’s fleeting junk food binge that began with the release of American Pie in 1999 to Road Trip, 10 Things I Hate About You, all the way up to 2007’s Superbad. More in the bawdy tradition of Animal House or Porky’s than Breakfast Club.
You can love art house cinema made by Marxist Swedes. But you need junk food in your diet, too. And that was where ‘gross-out’ Teen Comedies came in.
The tropes became so familiar that a spoof film called Not Another Teen Movie was made.
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